Lie And Politics Quotes & Sayings

If you do not know how to lie, cheat, and steal, turn your attention to politics and learn. — Josh Billings

When a man has his heart in the right place and good taste, he can not only do well in politics but is even predetermined for it. If someone is modest and does not yearn for power, he is certainly not ill-equipped to engage in politics; on the contrary, he belongs there. What is needed in politics is not the ability to lie but rather the sensibility to know when, where, how and to whom to say things. — Vaclav Havel

It is the question that is also asked by modern political theory: Can politics accept truth as a structural category? Or must truth, as something unattainable, be relegated to the subjective sphere, its place taken by an attempt to build peace and justice using whatever instruments are available to power? By relying on truth, does not politics, in view of the impossibility of attaining consensus on truth, make itself a tool of particular traditions that in reality are merely forms of holding on to power?
And yet, on the other hand, what happens when truth counts for nothing? What kind of justice is then possible? Must there not be common criteria that guarantee real justice for all - criteria that are independent of the arbitrariness of changing opinions and powerful lobbies? Is it not true that the great dictatorships were fed by the power of the ideological lie and that only truth was capable of bringing freedom? — Pope Benedict XVI

Political truths are like colors in the rainbow, they may be true, except like the color purple which is created in the mind, however they are not THE WHOLE TRUTH, which is like LIGHT, colorless and yet all colors, seen and unseen. — Caesar J. B. Squitti

But it wasn't the right season to lift off. Not yet. I sat in my apartment and looked out over the city, and I just didn't feel any passion to write about the place. I didn't give a damn about local politics; I wasn't moved by the issues. I missed home. And I was frustrated by people who actually thought the world was a centre and that centre was here. 'The world's a sphere, everyone,' I wanted to say. 'The centre of a sphere doesn't lie on its surface. Look up the word 'superficial', when you have a chance. — Mohsin Hamid

Politics is a dirty business, a ruse, an ideological cul-de-sac, a vast looter of intellectual and financial resources, a lie that corrupts, a deceiver, a means of unleashing vast evil in the world of the most unexpected and undetected sort and the greatest diverter of human productivity ever concocted by those who do not believe in authentic social and economic progress. — Jeffrey Tucker

Success will require the studied lack of sophistication of a Ronald Reagan and the casual dishonesty of an FDR. The president must appear to be not very bright yet be able to lie convincingly. — George Friedman

Why did McNamara have such good figures? Why did McNamara have such good staff work and Ball such poor staff work? The next day Ball would angrily dispatch his staff to come up with the figures, to find out how McNamara had gotten them, and the staff would burrow away and occasionally find that one of the reasons that Ball did not have comparable figures was that they did not always exist. McNamara had invented them, he dissembled even within the bureaucracy, though, of course, always for a good cause. It was part of his sense of service. He believed in what he did, and thus the morality of it was assured, and everything else fell into place. It was all right to lie and dissemble for the right causes. It was part of service, loyalty to the President, not to the nation, not to colleagues, it was a very special bureaucratic-corporate definition of integrity; you could do almost anything you wanted as long as it served your superior. — David Halberstam

Is humanity ready to look upon the roots of religion as it has looked into its political and scientific roots? Are people ready to strip away the fallacies like they have with humours for bacteria, virus, et cetera?
Can spirituality be given a chance to lie bare and naked, proudly strutting its stuff publicly? These are the questions that will render the verdict of whether one hears the call of the child (truth) and proclaim its message to the religious royalty, or whether humanity will cling to its "infallible" yet invisible messengers as if they currently cling to us as clothing. — Leviak B. Kelly

This, then, is the dread that seems to lie beneath the fear of equalizing. Equity is seen as dispossession. Local autonomy is seen as liberty
even if the poverty of those in nearby cities robs them o fall meaningful autonomy by narrowing their choices to the meanest and the shabbiest of options. In this way, defendants in these cases seem to polarize two of the principles that lie close to the origins of this republic. Liberty and equity are seen as antibodies to each other. — Jonathan Kozol

The immortality of Thomas Jefferson does not lie in any one of his achievements, or in the series of his achievements, but in his attitude towards mankind and the conception which he sought to realize in action of the service owed by America to the rest of the world ... Thomas Jefferson was a great leader of men because he understood and interpreted the spirits of men. — Woodrow Wilson

Anyways, the guys try to be cool. They just lie there and groove, but after a while they start hearing - you won't believe this - they hear chamber music. They hear violins and cellos. They hear this terrific mama-san soprano. Then after a while they hear gook opera and and a glee club and the Haiphong Boys Choir and a barbershop quartet and and all kinds of wierd chanting and Buddha-Buddha stuff. All the whole time, in the background, there's stil that cocktail party going on. All these different voices. Not human voices, though. Because it's the mountains. Follow me? The rock, it's TALKING. And the fog, too, and the grass and the goddamn mongooses. Everything talks. The trees talk politics, the monnkeys talk religion. The whole country. Vietnam. The place talks. It talks. Understand? Nam - it truly TALKS. — Tim O'Brien

Screaming and repeating lies makes them neither true nor more believable. — Cathy Burnham Martin

It's painful to believe that the would-be 'public servants' you're forced to choose between are all phonies whose only real concern is their own care and feeding and who will lie so outrageously and with such a straight face that you know they've just got to believe you're an idiot. — David Foster Wallace

As the invasion fleet sailed east across the Mediterranean, Napoleon would lie in bed reading and dictating to Bourrienne. His principal reading was from the Koran. Like Alexander the Great before him, he intended to absorb the religion of the people over whom he would rule. He insisted that, if necessary, he himself was willing to become a Muslim - an intention that, at least initially, he would show every sign of wishing to fulfill. However, it should also be noted that in Napoleon's shipboard library the Koran was shelved under "Politics." At the same time, he also busied himself with dictating his "proclamation" to the Egyptian people. — Paul Strathern

You know what politique is? It is the French word for a lie. Kdoub! Politique! When you hear the French say: our politique, you know they mean: our lies. And when you hear the Moslems, the Friends of Independence, say: our politique, you know they mean: our lies. All lies are sins. And so, which displeases Allah more, a lie told by a Nazarene, who doesn't know the true faith from the false, or a lie told by a Moslem, who does? — Paul Bowles

The Bible says we are to be salt and light. And salt and light means not just in the church and not just as a teacher or as a pastor or a banker or a lawyer, but in government and we have to have elected officials in government and we have to have the faithful in government and over time, that lie we have been told, the separation of church and state, people have internalized, thinking that they needed to avoid politics and that is so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers. — Katherine Harris

Every law that curbs my basic human freedom; every lie about the things I care for; every crime committed against me by their politics; that what's makes me get up and hound these fuckers, and I'll do that until the day I die ... or until my brain dries up or something. — Warren Ellis

They did not like each other particularly, would never have called one another friend or even have associated under different circumstances, and wherever they were, an argument seemed to lie only a few seconds' journey from them in any given direction.

But something had begun to grow between them as well--a sort of cooperative understanding--and the moments in which this was most obvious were the moments in which one of the two men would forgo his own strongly held way of being and embrace the other's, as if giving a moment of his life to his opposite in tribute. — Gavriel Savit

Politicians don't lie, they misspeak. And they don't steal, they mispocket. — Robert Breault

Orwell's short and intense life has for years borne witness to some of those verities of which we were already aware. Parties and churches and states cannot be honest, but individuals can. Real books cannot be written by machines or committees. The truth is not always easy to discern, but a lie can and must be called by its right name. And the imagination, like certain wild animals, as Orwell himself once put it, will not breed in captivity. Actually, that last metaphor is beautiful but inaccurate. Even in the most dire conditions, there is a human will to resist coercion. We must believe that even now in North Korea, there are ideas alive inside human brains that were not put there by any authority. — Christopher Hitchens

I don't know how a reporter would ever understand a politician. Your job is supposed to be about finding the truth and enlightening people. Right? A politician's job is about hiding the truth and fooling people. Right? You want us to be better informed so we get smarter. They think we're dumb and it's to their advantage to keep us that way. — Dan Groat

Race doesn't exist.
Skin color exists. Hair and eye color are real. Body type varies from individual to individual, as does tooth shape and color, the form of fingernails, and the amount and texture of body hair. But 'race' is a phantom conjured up by people no different from each other than purebred Cocker spaniels are. Race is a lie, and the people who conjure by it, no matter their color or their politics, are liars. — Holly Lisle

Sociopaths are attracted to politics because the see it as a sphere in which you can be ruthless and step all over people. That fact that some politicians can tell such awful lies is another example of sociopathy. Sociopaths lie - they see nothing wrong with it. — Alexander McCall Smith

We contradict all for which we stand for we all stand for the lie the whole lie and nothing but the lie so help save our lying asses. — Brian Spellman

Nixon's subversion [of the consititution] consisted of: One presidental lie; one invocation of presidental privilege, and zero criminal offences. — William J. Clinton

What the White House is trying to do is racialize all politics and they're especially trying to tell the African-American voter that the GOP is against letting them have a chance at a good life in this economy, and that's just a complete lie, — Ben Stein

A story can tell the truth...but a story can also lie. Stories can bend and twist and obfuscate. Controlling stories is power indeed. And who could benefit most from such a power? — Kelly Barnhill

So our virtues
Lie in the interpretation of the time:
And power, unto itself most commendable,
Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair
To extol what it hath done.
One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail;
Rights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail. — William Shakespeare

Poetic justice, with her lifted scale,
Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs,
And solid pudding against empty praise.
Here she beholds the chaos dark and deep,
Where nameless somethings in their causes sleep,
Till genial Jacob, or a warm third day,
Call forth each mass, a poem, or a play:
How hints, like spawn, scarce quick in embryo lie,
How new-born nonsense first is taught to cry. — Alexander Pope

Yes. You read that right. Evil Librarians control the world. They keep everyone in ignorance, teaching them falsehoods in place of history, geography, and politics. It's kind of a joke to them. Why else do you think the Librarians named themselves what they did? Librarians. LIE-brarians. Sounds obvious now, doesn't it? If you wish to smack yourself in the forehead and curse loudly, you may proceed to do so. I can wait. — Brandon Sanderson

I'm not going to lie to you: being Speaker of the State Assembly is the best job I've ever had in my entire career. But you know, I got into politics 'cause I wanted to make a difference, and I was always raised that one person could make a difference. — Jeff Fitzgerald

Fiction writers, magicians, politicians and priests are the only people rewarded for entertaining us with their lies — Bangambiki Habyarimana

You needn't worry about me. I know enough to do what every man ought to do in wartime when he's watched and threatened by bullies. I conceal my feelings; lie whenever necessary; pretend to admire the rascals who've ruined our city and our country; cheer dolts, bullies and knaves and damn all wise temperate men! — Kenneth Roberts

Jernau Gurgeh," the machine said, making a sighing noise, "a guilty system recognizes no innocents. As with any power apparatus which thinks everybody's either for it or against it, we're against it. You would be too, if you thought about it. The very way you think places you among its enemies. This might not be your fault, because every society imposes some of its values on those raised within it, but the point is that some societies try to maximize that effect, and some try to minimize it. You come from one of the latter and you're being asked to explain yourself to one of the former. Prevarication will be more difficult than you might imagine; neutrality is probably impossible. You cannot choose not to have the politics you do; they are not some separate set of entities somehow detachable from the rest of your being; they are a function of your existence. I know that and they know that; you had better accept it." Gurgeh thought about this. "Can I lie? — Iain M. Banks

Here's what I tell the newly elected: the truth is gonna get out - it always does - but it's gonna blend in with all the lies." The Senator twirled a hand in the air. "You have to deny each lie and every truth with the same vinegar. Let those websites and blowhards who bitch about cover-ups confuse the public for you. — Hugh Howey

Politicians were famous for double-speak and were consummate liars. That's why George W. Bush had to be their favorite president. It's easier to commit a fraud when the actor believes his lie to the point of a conviction — Kenneth Eade

The goal and meaning of individual life (which is the only real life) no longer lie in individual development but in the policy of the State, which is thrust upon the individual from outside and consists in the execution of an abstract idea which ultimately tends to attract all life to itself. — C. G. Jung

You can have the most advanced and efflorescent cultures. Get your politics wrong, however, and everything stands to be swept away. This is not ancient history. This is Germany 1933 ... Politics is the moat, the walls, beyond which lie the barbarians. Fail to keep them at bay, and everything burns. — Charles Krauthammer

Country jakes are always whining about the sanctity of states' rights and individual freedoms. Yet when a couple of queers want to get married in Massachusetts, half the South goes apeshit with homemade posters and fire-breathing sermons. And when a few million concerned residents of states thousands of miles away decide they want to stop destroying their landscape in the name of corporate mammon and consumer stupidity, the South sends out its greasy merchants of avarice to cajole, bribe, hector, lie, intimidate, and "lobby" until the seed of their plantation mentality is protected and their gluttonous mouths are once again filled with the jizz of the master caste before whom they kneel like Bourbon Street whores on Navy payday. — Chuck Thompson

Scientists believe that monkeys can be taught to think, lie and even play politics within their community. If we can just teach them to cheat on their wives we can save millions on congressional salaries. — Jay Leno

As long as human labor power, and, consequently, life itself, remain articles of sale and purchase, of exploitation and robbery, the principle of the "sacredness of human life" remains a shameful lie, uttered with the object of keeping the oppressed slaves in their chains. — Leon Trotsky

Sure there are a few good whites just as much as there are a few bad Blacks. However what we are concerned here with is group attitudes and group politics. The exception does not make a lie or the rule - it merely substantiates it. — Steven Biko

I'm pretty transparent and very honest almost to a fault. I don't hide anything or sugarcoat anything. I don't play politics because that means I'd have to lie. I'm just forthright in my whole being. — Stacy Barthe

Oh for 'Shael's sweet sake, girl, you think you can rule an empire without lying? You think your father didn't lie? Or his father? Or any of your goldy-eyed great-great-founders of Annur? It's built into the job. Bakers have flour, fishermen have nets, and leaders have lies. — Brian Staveley

In all societies, public rhetoric involves some measure of lying, and history -- political history and art history -- is made when someone effectively confronts the lie. But in really scary societies all public conversation is an exercise in using words to mean their opposites -- in describing the brave as traitorous, the weak as frightening, and the good as bad -- and confronting these lies is the most scary and lonely thing a person can do. — Masha Gessen

Bush invited his constituency to be blind to the world's real problems, and leftists often do the opposite, gazing so fixedly at those problems that they cannot see beyond them. Thus it is that the world often seems divided between false hope and gratuitous despair. Despair demands less of us, it's more predictable, and in a sad way safer. Authentic hope requires clarity--seeing the troubles in this world--and imagination, seeing what might lie beyond these situations that are perhaps not inevitable and immutable. — Rebecca Solnit

You know what Mr. Bates called me?" Seward shook his head with wonder. "An unprincipled liar. And here I am one of the most heavily principled men in politics." Lincoln chuckled. In every way, making allowances for regional differences, Seward's humor was not unlike his own. "And since you're a smart man, Governor, you never actually lie. Smart men never have to. — Gore Vidal

And then the chosen lie would pass into the permanent records and become truth — George Orwell

Half of the people lie with their lips; the other half with their tears — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

One of biggest lies in politics is the lie that Republicans are the party of big business. Big business does great with big government. Big business is very happy to climb in bed with big government. Republicans are and should be the party of small business and of entrepreneurs. — Ted Cruz

Faith and politics are now one and the same," he went on. "Perhaps it was always so, but it seems to have reached new extremes in our troubled century, do you not think? A man's religion tells me where his political loyalties lie, far more than his place of birth or his language. — S.J. Parris

Even yet Christ Jesus has to lie out in waste places very often, because there is no room for him in the inn
no room for him in our hearts, because of our worldliness. There is no room for him even in our politics and religion. There is no room in the inn, and we put him in the manger, and he lies outside our faith, coldly and dimly conceived by us. — Edwin Hubbel Chapin