Lies Honesty Quotes & Sayings

The mosh pit will reveal all the answers. The mosh pit never lies.
-Norah, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist — Rachel Cohn

Deceit for personal gain is one of history's most recurring crimes. Man's first step towards change would be thinking, counter-arguing, re-thinking, twisting, straightening, perfecting, then believing every original idea he intends to make public before making it public. There is always an angle from which an absolute truth may appear askew just as there is always a personal emotion, or a personal agenda, which alienates the ultimate good of mankind. — Criss Jami

The truth is everything in the end. It is the greatest power in the world to make all people equal. If everyone knows what the truth is, no one can use lies to separate those people and turn them against one another. — Mel Odom

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

The great educational value of the war against Christendom lies in the absolute truthlessness of the priest. Such purity is rare enough. The 'man of God' is entirely incapable of honesty, and only arises at the point where truth is defaced beyond all legibility. Lies are his entire metabolism, the air he breathes, his bread and his wine. He cannot comment upon the weather without a secret agenda of deceit. No word, gesture, or perception is slight enough to escape his extravagant reflex of falsification, and of the lies in circulation he will instinctively seize on the grossest, the most obscene and oppressive travesty. Any proposition passing the lips of a priest is necessarily totally false, excepting only insidiouses whose message is momentarily misunderstood. It is impossible to deny him without discovering some buried fragment or reality. — Nick Land

Never try to do anything that is outside of who you are. A forced smile is a sign of what feels wrong in your heart, so recognize it when it happens. Living a lie will reduce you to one. — Ashly Lorenzana

They are not burdened by any need to hide. They do not have to slink around in the shadows. They do not have to construct new lies to hide old ones. They need waste no effort covering tracks or maintaining disguises. And ultimately they find that the energy required for the self-discipline of honesty is far less than the energy required for secretiveness. The more honest one is, the easier it is to continue being honest, just as the more lies one has told, the more necessary it is to lie again. — M. Scott Peck

At the time I didn't realize their lie was a defense against the fear they had of losing their mother. I was still too young to understand that most lies were not about stealing or fighting or cheating but were just ways by which a person shrinks their whole world down to a size they can keep protected in the palm of one hand. — Jack Gantos

The truth, or success, of any writer's story lies partly in its specificity and its emotional honesty. — Gail Caldwell

Oh, what a tangled web we weave ... when first we practice to deceive. — Walter Scott

In matters of honesty, there are no shortcuts; no little white lies, or big black lies, only the simple, honest truth spoken in total candor ... Being true is different than being honest. — Gordon B. Hinckley

The wolf who wins is the wolf you feed. The evil wolf feeds on anger, guilt, sorrow, lies, and regret. The good wolf needs a diet of love and honesty, spiced up with big spoonfuls of compassion and faith. So if you want the good wolf to win, you're going to have to starve the other one. — Deborah Harkness

A mind is a terrible thing; waste it. — Brad Blanton

Literature for me ... tries to heal the harm done by stories. (How much harm? Most of the atrocities of history have been created by stories, e.g., the Jews killed Jesus.) I follow Sartre that the freedom the author claims for herself must be shared with the reader. So that would mean that literature is stories that put themselves at the disposal of readers who want to heal themselves. Their healing power lies in their honesty, the freshness of their vision, the new and unexpected things they show, the increase in power and responsibility they give the reader. — Geoff Ryman

Be wary of smooth talkers. Words are rarely at your disposal if something is wholly, truly, completely true. — Joyce Rachelle

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

About? You have no interest in joining that club!" But that's how programming works: society's assumptions sink in, and we don't even know it until we hear ourselves restating those assumptions - automatically, without thought. We change by becoming aware. We become aware by observing: watching our own conversations, noticing the lies, seeing the truth. And once we get clear about the truth, we can try something radically different: honesty. "Never — Laurie A. Helgoe

Small truths have greater power than big lies. — Matshona Dhliwayo

I am. I'm rude because I don't conform to society's standards that white lies are inconsequential. I don't believe in hiding behind words that aren't truthful. I'm an impatient man. I don't beat around the bush. If you ask me something, I won't lie to you. — Whitney Barbetti

The 'fact' of my actions frequently collide with the 'fiction' of my words. And at what point will I live what I say, so I will avoid what I do? — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Telling one lie almost always requires another, and before the storyteller knows it, they will be caught inside of their own web. — Jenna Alatari

I'm God's chosen child. I don't worry or carry anything extra to feel the strength. I've always felt the power of God beside me. Your strength lies in instilling honesty, truth, and sincerity in you. — Rohit Shetty

You lie once.. you lie for the rest of your life ... and in quest of proving your innocence.. you pledge your honesty with utter lies ... !!! — Abhijeet Sawant

To find out if she really loved me, I hooked her up to a lie detector. And just as I suspected, my machine was broken. — Dark Jar Tin Zoo

Too often fear is fiction madly running amuck, all the while madly tracking 'muck' across the floor of fact. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

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

I've been working on my honesty this summer. I've told such a big lie, such a massively irreversible one, that I figure I need to somehow even the score. But the thing about lying is that it's not so easy to stop. Lies need one another, like a school of fish. If you start to separate them, they'll be killed off one by one. Sometimes the only way to keep lies alive is to tell more of them. — Rebecca Serle

Lies are like paper-Mache in a rain storm. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

People can have great riches, but without honesty, they never have true respect.
People can have abundant love, but without honesty, they never have real trust.
People can have many friends, but without honesty, they never have loyalty.
People can have sharp minds, but without honesty, they never have admiration.
People can have fame, but without honesty, they never have honor.
Without honesty, a person's light may flicker, but it will never truly shine.
Without honesty, people are left with only lies. — Donald L. Hicks

When you're eleven you think every idea is born with you, that no one ever tried it the right way before. Your example, your own honesty, will make you a hero to everyone who knows you - and better, it will make people come to their senses and stop telling vicious lies about each other. — Elana Dykewomon

We are lying to ourselves when we're not contradicting ourselves. — Marty Rubin

Just tell yourself a story that'll satisfy you and pretend he told it. — Catherynne M Valente

You need one person who knows you... Just one person you can't fool, even when you fool yourself. — Rebecca Scherm

Such is the power of truth that even the slightest whisper of it can handily drown out the most boisterous of lies, which may explain why in many instances God only needs to whisper. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Once you place that crown of liar on your head, you can take it off again, but it leaves a stain for all time. — Terry Goodkind

Truth speaks for itself if we'd just let it speak. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

The way to happiness is by truth. Seek to be true in all things and you will have a foundation to build your future. — Shannon L. Alder

In a world of lies and liars, an honest work of art is always an act of social responsibility. — Robert McKee

Lies can't grow. Once plucked they can only wither. But every truth, once planted, grows into a tall, noble tree. — Stefan Emunds

The man who fears no truths has nothing to fear from lies. — Francis Bacon

A lie has no power, until you believe it. — Shannon L. Alder

If you keep hiding your true self, your life becomes like slow death. Once you become free from the lies and the hiding of yourself, then life becomes vibrant again. — Ziggy Marley

There's an honesty to the wolf world that is liberating. There's no diplomacy, no decorum. You tell your enemy you hate him; you show your admiration by confessing the truth. That directness doesn't work with humans, who are masters of subterfuge. Does this dress make me look fat? Do you really love me? Did you miss me? When a person asks this, she doesn't want to know the real answer. She wants you to lie to her. After two years of living with wolves, I had forgotten how many lies it takes to build a relationship. — Jodi Picoult

In this country, you look at a person, and you know them. It is the inside-out way the people of this country wear their soul. In their eyes you can find civilisations of honesty or sweeping fields of lies. It's taken some getting used to but now Asanka likes it - this casual unguardedness that comes from never really knowing fear. — Maxine Beneba Clarke

How shall Integrity face Oppression? What shall Honesty do in the face of Deception, Decency in the face of Insult, Self-Defense before Blows? How shall Desert and Accomplishment meet Despising, Detraction, and Lies? What shall Virtue do to meet Brute Force? There are so many answers and so contradictory; and such differences for those on the one hand who meet questions similar to this once a year or once a decade, and those who face them hourly and daily. — W.E.B. Du Bois

You can lie in any language on earth, and body language is no exception. — Nenia Campbell

admires her honesty, which turns white lies into red roadkill. — M.R. Carey

Decency is when you put yourself before the needs of others, dignity lies in loyalty and humbleness; honor means honesty and openness, possess those and you will be most beautiful. — Bahman Solati

Dissembling was so large a part of middle-class life that honesty and frankness seemed the most devious stratagem of all. The most outright lie was the closest one came to truth. — J.G. Ballard

If honesty was like water that people couldn't live without it, the world which became heavier due to the endless lies would be just light like a feather! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

A true prophet would rather be believed false by many but actually true than believed true by many but actually false. — Criss Jami

It's exhausting, the energy it takes to unknow a truth. — Chuck Palahniuk

The wolf Lupa had told him that mortal minds could believe just about anything - except the truth. — Rick Riordan

In time, lies bring turmoil, where honesty brings peace. — Wes Fesler

Don't thank me for telling the truth when it would have been mercy to lie to you. — Marissa Meyer

Here it was, the first of many lies he'd have to come up with. "Bella threw a knife at my head." He'd do better with the next lie. — Nicole Castle

Even in fiction, I feel rigorous honesty applies. It doesn't apply to facts; it applies to what I think of as not telling emotional lies, which is a funny business. — Siri Hustvedt

I didn't come up with the lie. It wasn't mine. They handed the lie to me, and I tried like hell to make it work for a while. — Kenneth Logan

Don't ever be honest about who you are - and I mean that as a life rule, not just in this instance. — Andrea Cremer

The point of self-reflection is, foremost, to clarify and to find honesty. Self-reflection is the way to throw self-lies out and face the truth - however painful it might be to admit that you were wrong. We seek consistency in ourselves, and so when we are faced with inconsistency, we struggle to deny. Denial has no place in self-reflection, and so it is incumbent upon a person to admit his errors, to embrace them and to move along in a more positive direction. We can fool ourselves for all sorts of reasons. Mostly for the sake of our ego, of course, but sometimes, I now understand, because we are afraid. For sometimes we are afraid to hope, because hope breeds expectation, and expectation can lead to disappointment. And — R.A. Salvatore

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

I loved Emma.' The words, so flat and final, explode into the air. 'But she lied to me. I thought perhaps I could have the love without the lies. With you, I mean. Do you remember your application letter? How you talked about integrity and honesty and trust? That was what made me think it might work, that it might be better this time. But I've never loved you the way I loved her. — J.P. Delaney

A liar only uses the truth when they want their lies to sound truthful. — Al David

Honesty lies in understanding our close and necessary relationship with not wanting to hear the truth. — David Whyte

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

If you don't find the right set of eyes to see through your bull, you will always be surrounded by friends that will tell you white lies because they like your company and don't want to ruin the evening. — Shannon L. Alder

Force persuades a person to speak, but it cannot guarantee his honesty. Quite the reverse: it will extract confessions from innocents and lies from simple sinners ... — Meredith Duran

I don't want my life to not be the way I expected.
I may not be scared of crowds. Or the dark. Or small spaces. But I am afraid.
I am afraid of responsibility; I am afraid of not living up to expectations, of the changing future, of growing up, not knowing, sex, relationships, hardship, secrets, grades, judgement, falling short, loneliness, change, confusion, arguments, curiosity, love, hate, losing, pressure, differences, honesty, lies.
I am afraid of me.
Yet, despite this, I know I am brave. I know I am brave because I've accepted my invisible fears and haven't let them overcome me.
I want you to know that you're brave because you know your fears. You're brave because you introduced yourself. You're brave because you said 'No, I don't understand.' You're brave because you are here. — Emily Trunko

Avarice cripples virtue and lies in ambush for honesty. My — Maya Angelou

You know there's no such thing as a complete lie. There's always some truth in there. — David Levithan

Don't spoil me with your lies, love me with your truth. — T.F. Hodge

Most of us would rather kill ourselves than be, particularly if who we think we are keeps dying. Many of us do. — Brad Blanton

That's the purity of nature. It may be harsh in its honesty, but it never lies to you. — Carine McCandless

Lies aren't true, so why would anyone tell them? — Brian Clevinger

According to Hugh Thomas, author of 'A History of the World', the greatest medical advance in history has been garbage collection. The greatest psychological advance in history is just around the corner and will also have to do with cleaning up. Cleaning up lies and "coming out of the closet" is getting more attention these days. Some day we will look back on these years of suffocation in bullsh*t in the same way we look back on all the years people lived in, and died from, their garbage. — Brad Blanton

I have, and always will, respect people that keep it real no matter what. Most people say "Just keep it real with me," but the fact of the matter is this: Most people can't handle the truth, don't want to accept the truth, deny the truth, or simply aren't willing to face THEIR truth. The next time that you tell somebody to be honest with you, make sure that you mean what you say. Have the courage to pay more attention, listen, and observe. But have greater courage to acknowledge "what is" and face YOUR truth with boldness. The truth is better than a lie any day. Be fearless! — Stephanie Lahart

Even if I had gone further than in all honesty I should have done, my lies, those lies born of pity, had made her happy; and to make a person happy could never be a crime. — Stefan Zweig

Honey, she says, honest ain't the half of what I'm not. — Alden Bell

Sincerity is not part of the political vocabulary. If it is used or implied bells should ring — Bangambiki Habyarimana

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

always tell the truth and you'll never have to remember your words. — Kiki Archer

Was it necessary to tell me that you wanted nothing in the world but me?'
The corners of his mouth drooped peevishly.
Oh, my dear, it's rather hard to take quite literally the things a man says when he's in love with you.'
Didn't you mean them?'
At the moment. — W. Somerset Maugham

A partial truth is the most common path to an entire lie. — Fred Munoz

I'd rather someone be honest and tell me something that I didn't want to hear, rather than dishonest and tell me something I want to hear. — Charles F. Glassman

I've always believed the lies we use to make our fictions reveal the truth with far more honesty than any history or herstory or life story. — Charles De Lint

The hype cheapens the hyped, as right things are then made wrong by exaggeration. — Criss Jami

No matter how many lies you use to disguise it or how many excuses you bury it beneath, the truth will never cease to be true. — Richelle E. Goodrich

People who are brutally honest get more satisfaction out of the brutality than out of the honesty. — Richard J. Needham

It may be that Christians, notwithstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their fellowship in service, may still be left to their loneliness. The final break-through to fellowship does not occur, because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy. The fact is that we are sinners! — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

When words don't add up in love, it is because of six possible reasons:
1. They are afraid to tell you the truth because you will leave them.
2. They enjoy being a liar or playing people because of ego reasons and/or control.
3. They don't know the truth themselves.
4. They are undecided.
5. They refuse to let their guard down and be vulnerable because you or someone else have hurt them tremendously.
6. You are not being told all the information because of a break down in communication. — Shannon L. Alder

I would like to raise them as I was. I would like for them to learn naturally, effortlessly, almost without knowing it, that the love of beautiful things, critical thinking, and intellectual honesty are the three essential virtues. This way, they will like things for themselves, will judge for themselves. This way, they will be real men, as there used to be, they won't be fooled by intellectual snobs and political scoundrels. They will know how to live above and outside of a century which is only getting deeper into infamy, lies, and stupidity. I love you my dears because I know that it is because of you that I possess some of these virtues that I wish for them to have. — Sean B. Carroll

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

Those who think it is permissible to tell white lies soon grow color-blind. — Austin O'Malley

I tell lies somewhere else, but not here, not in front of myself. — Robert Walser

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

Naturally, I always place my word over anyone else's simply because I know why I said what I said. — Criss Jami

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

[I]t struck me how easy it is to bamboozle an uneducated audience if you have prepared beforehand a set of repartees with which to evade awkward questions."
...
"You can go on and on telling lies, and the most palpable lies at that, and even if they are not actually believed, there is no strong revulsion either. We are all drowning in filth. When I talk to anyone or read the writings of anyone who has an axe to grind, I feel that intellectual honesty and balanced judgment have simply disappeared from the face of the earth. Everyone's thought is forensic, everyone is simply putting a 'case' with deliberate suppression of his opponent's point of view, and, what is more, with complete insensitiveness to any sufferings except those of himself and his friends ... . But is there no one who has both firm opinions and a balanced outlook? Actually there are plenty, but they are powerless. All power is in the hands of paranoiacs. — George Orwell

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

Often the truth is in front of your face, but your eyes and heart are so full of lies that you can't see it. — Shannon L. Alder