Honesty Vs Lying Quotes & Sayings

They laughed together then until the woman's features turned somber. "Thank you for not lying about what you thought of my appearance. You might have a face to turn my hair white, but your honesty is handsome. — Grace Draven

A man who becomes used to deluding himself, who fails to face his own faults with revolutionary honesty and even lies to himself, is the most likely to become a traitor, since lying is the beginning of treachery. — Ashraf Dehghani

Sitting there on the heather, on our planetary grain, I shrank from the abysses that opened up on every side, and in the future. The silent darkness, the featureless unknown, were more dread than all the terrors that imagination had mustered. Peering, the mind could see nothing sure, nothing in all human experience to be grasped as certain, except uncertainty itself; nothing but obscurity gendered by a thick haze of theories. Man's science was a mere mist of numbers; his philosophy but a fog of words. His very perception of this rocky grain and all its wonders was but a shifting and a lying apparition. Even oneself, that seeming-central fact, was a mere phantom, so deceptive, that the most honest of men must question his own honesty, so insubstantial that he must even doubt his very existence. — Olaf Stapledon

So your theory would seem to be that lying to yourself is no lie at all because you haven't deceived any third party. And if you then convince yourself of those lies, you'll believe them enough to repeat them to other with the genuine conviction that they're true."
"Something like that," I conceded uneasily. — Zack Love

I suppose if we gain anything from this unsought experience it will be an appreciation for honesty- frankness on the part of our politicians, our friends, our loves, ourselves. No more liars in public places. (And the bed and the bar are, in their way, as public as the floor of Congress.) — Tim O'Brien

She said she married an architect, who kept her warm and safe and dry. She would like to say she loved the man, but she didn't like to lie. — Dan Fogelberg

Plausibility is a trap for the truth laid by lies. — Yvan Audouard

The chief problem in historical honesty is not outright lying. It is omission or de-emphasis of important data. The definition of 'important', of course, depends on one's values. — Howard Zinn

By wearing cosmetics a woman seeks to look younger or more beautiful than she otherwise would. Honesty doesn't require that she issue a continuous disclaimer: I see you are looking at my face. Please be aware that I don't look this good first thing in the morning. — Sam Harris

The one great thing about football is that whatever happens it will manifest itself on the pitch. If it's right, you'll see it on the pitch, if it's wrong, it will be on the pitch. In business you can get fellas who are doing crooked deals and nobody knows anything about it. There is an ultimate honesty about football. Politics is part of the lying game, I wouldn't trust any of them. In football you can hide for a while, but ultimately the truth comes out. I always loved that. — Johnny Giles

Inept lying was almost as good as honesty. — Graham Moore

Somewhere between the honest truth and the deceptive lie is the deceptive truth and the honest lie. — Robert Breault

Within the mind there are no lies-no possibility of deceiving oneself; and yet, somehow we all manage to bypass the safety of truth in pursuit of dangerous desires. — Wes Fesler

A very honest woman but something given to lie — William Shakespeare

They [his readers, whom he asks to be his friends] will find that I have always loved truth so passionately that I have often resorted to lying as a way of first introducing it into minds which were ignorant of its charms (Casanova, p.34, Vol 1 Preface). — Giacomo Casanova

Have you ever asked yourself why one person is honorable and another dishonorable; why one is honest, another dishonest; why one is moral, another immoral? Most individuals do not intend to be dishonest, dishonorable, or immoral. They seem to allow their characters to erode by a series of rationalizations, lies, and compromises. Then when grave temptation presents itself, they haven't the strength of character to do what they know to be right. — Ezra Taft Benson

Christians don't tell lies they just go to church and sing them. — A.W. Tozer

I am prepared to maintain that Honesty is essentially an anarchistic and disintegrating force in society, that communities are held together and the progress of civilization made possible only by vigorous and sometimes even, violent Lying; that the Social Contract is nothing more or less than a vast conspiracy of human beings to lie and humbug themselves and one another for the general Good. — H.G.Wells

As Our Predecessors have many times repeated, let no man think that he may for any reason whatsoever join the Masonic sect, if he values his Catholic name and his eternal salvation as he ought to value them. Let no one be deceived by a pretense of honesty. It may seem to some that Freemasons demand nothing that is openly contrary to religion and morality; but, as the whole principle and object of the sect lies in what is vicious and criminal, to join with these men or in any way to help them cannot be lawful — Pope Leo XIII

Honesty consists of the unwillingness to lie to others; maturity, which is equally hard to attain, consists of the unwillingness to lie to oneself. — Sydney J. Harris

Men do not invent Myths. They only invent fables, and tell lies. True Myths create themselves, and find their expression in the men who serve their purpose. — Denis Johnston

Thefts never enrich; alms never impoverish; murder will speak out of stone walls. The least admixture of a lie-for example, the taint of vanity, the least attempt to make a good impression, a favorable appearance-will instantly vitiate the effect. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Honesty is more than not lying. It is truth telling, truth speaking, truth living, and truth loving. — James E. Faust

Forcing yourself to think happy lies doesn't heal your dreams. Getting to the truth does. — Martha Beck

We're fine.'
A few feet away, Aurum snarled quietly, which meant Nico was lying. — Rick Riordan

Lying damages others. Lying subtly permits us to destroy ourselves as we are caught in the snare and shatter our own self-image and credibility. Freedom from deceit and lying improves self and gives all of us peace of mind. — Marvin J. Ashton

Oh for someone with a heart, head and hand. Whatever they call them, what do I care, aristocrat, democrat, autocrat, just be it one that can rule and dare not lie. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Whatever we say
We're always telling each other exactly what we want them to know ...
We are always telling each other
The truth
Even when
We're lying — Merrit Malloy

Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world ... would do this, it would change the earth. — William Faulkner

Even if I am not the honestest type in the world I don't want to lie more than is average. — Saul Bellow