Lying Tell The Truth Quotes & Sayings

If you tell the truth, it becomes a part of your past. If you lie, it becomes a part of your future. — John Spence

Deliver us from evil - from moral duplicity and weakness, from laziness and spiritual complacency, from those lies we tell ourselves from our fear of facing the truth. — Rich Mullins

If you tell a lie long enough, it becomes the truth. — Joseph Goebbels

It's not enough to be able to lie with a straight face; anybody with enough gall to raise on a busted flush can do that. The first way to lie artistically is to tell the truth - but not all of it. The second way involves telling the truth, too, but is harder: Tell the exact truth and maybe all of it ... but tell it so unconvincingly that your listener is sure you are lying. — Robert A. Heinlein

The best lies to tell," said Jane, "are the ones people want to believe. — Jasper Fforde

We don't lie to protect the other person. We lie to protect ourselves from the consequences. We lie because we don't want to deal with our own feelings. We lie because we don't want things to change. Not by our hand. So a wall starts to build. — Elisa Marie Hopkins

Truly, to tell lies is not honorable;
but when the truth entails tremendous ruin,
To speak dishonorably is pardonable. — Sophocles

It takes extraordinary mental discipline to transmit human experience without perversion. Truth telling is unnatural. Lying is an important aspect of humanity. We lie to other people to prevent hurt feelings and we deceive ourselves in order to protect our noble sense of being a good person. Dishonesty and inaccuracy preserves our quest seeking uninterrupted personal pleasure. I shall eschew pleasure seeking and cultivate precision of mind and moral character that precious truth telling necessitates. Reading and writing, along with observing nature and studious reflection on vivid personal experiences is the process methodology that will bring me closest to discovering inviolate verity of existence and becoming a doyen for all the immaculate truth, beauty, and goodness in this world. — Kilroy J. Oldster

I am my own judge of what truths I shall tell. The truth can do just as much harm as a lie. — Thornton Wilder

9. How can we tell if a politician is telling the truth? Is there a way to know for sure? You may remember the old joke: "How do you know if a politician is lying? If he's moving his lips." It's not that funny anymore, is it? Obviously, there is no certain way to know at the moment something is said. But remember this: past performance serves to reveal future behavior. A person who has exhibited a pattern of lying is a liar. — Andy Andrews

People can tell the truth much more freely when they're apparently lying. — Eric Idle

Don't forget that few people are likely to tell more than a small part of the truth: no one tells much of the truth, let alone the whole truth. Spoken words are facts in themselves, whether true or false. When people talk they reveal themselves, whether they're lying or telling the truth. — Halldor Laxness

People on the Continent either tell you the truth or lie; in England they hardly ever lie, but they would not dream of telling you the truth. — George Mikes

Anyone who'd ever kept a secret could tell you, the bigger the secret, the more draining it was to carry around with you. Every second, of every minute, of every day, lying to the people around you. Waiting for the inevitable moment that the truth would come out and you would have to deal with the fallout.
It was exhausting. — Violet Cross

Renewing the mind is a little like refinishing furniture. It is a two-stage process. It involves taking off the old and replacing it with the new. The old is the lies you have learned to tell or were taught by those around you; it is the attitudes and ideas that have become a part of your thinking but do not reflect reality. The new is the truth. To renew your mind is to involve yourself in the process of allowing God to bring to the surface the lies you have mistakenly accepted and replace them with truth. To the degree that you do this, your behavior will be transformed. — Charles Stanley

A cat met up with a big male rat in the attic and chased him into a corner. The rat, trembling, said, 'Please don't eat me, Mr. Cat. I have to go back to my family. I have hungry children waiting for me. Please let me go.' The cat said, 'Don't worry, I won't eat you. To tell you the truth, I can't say this too loudly, but I'm a vegetarian. I don't eat any meat. You were lucky to run into me.' The rat said, 'Oh, what a wonderful day! What a lucky rat I am to meet up with a vegetarian cat!' But the very next second, the cat pounced on the rat, held him down with his claws, and sank his sharp teeth into the rat's throat. With his last, painful breath, the rat asked him, 'But Mr. Cat, didn't you say you're a vegetarian and don't eat any meat? Were you lying to me?' The cat licked his chops and said, 'True, I don't eat meat. That was no lie. I'm going to take you home in my mouth and trade you for lettuce.' — Haruki Murakami

Sarcasm is when you tell someone the truth by lying on purpose. — Chuck Klosterman

Lying has become so much the accepted norm that people lie even when it would be simpler to tell the truth. — Bell Hooks

On the whole, lying is a cheerful affair. Embellishments are intended to give pleasure. People long to tell you what they imagine you want to hear. They want to amuse you; they want to amuse themselves; they want to show you a good time. This is beyond hospitality. This is art. — Isabel Fonseca

You know, they say that there is a part
of the human chest that it you strike it hard enough,
it makes the person's heart explode. This sounds like
such a lie that I have to believe it's the truth. If I were
science, I'd never tell anyone where this place is.
If I were science, I'd have named this place after you. — Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

Unethical conduct is actually the conduct of destruction and fear; lies are told because one is afraid of the consequences should one tell the truth; thus, the liar is inevitably a coward, the coward is inevitably a liar. — L. Ron Hubbard

[On Richard M. Nixon:] Americans began with a president who couldn't tell a lie and now they have one who can't tell the truth. — Benazir Bhutto

The slickest way in the world to lie is to tell the right amount of truth at the right time-and then shut up. — Robert A. Heinlein

Someone who is elated with wine speaks the truth on all subjects, even without meaning to. In the same way, anyone who is inebriated with the spirit of penitence will never be able to tell lies. — John Climacus

Don't be sorry for the truth. A harsh truth is less damaging than a tender lie, and the worst lies are the ones we tell ourselves. — Dianna Hardy

It is, perhaps, a debatable question, whether a person who has always been notoriously in the habit of lying, has a right to tell the truth; it is, of course, the only device by which he can deceive people. — George D. Prentice

A lie is profanity. A lie is the worst thing in the world. Art is the ability to tell the truth. — Richard Pryor

But a funny thing happens when you tell a man that you don't want to get married: they don't believe you. They think you're lying to yourself or to them or you're trying to trick them in some way and you end up being made to feel worse for just telling the truth. — Jami Attenberg

It's been unsettling to discover that every form of narrative, even one that purports to tell the truth, is a kind of lying. — Damon Galgut

To stretch the truth is to tell a lie. — Robert Breault

The problem a guy who lies all the time faces is he never can tell when anybody else is telling the truth. — Deacon Jones

Don't be afraid to tell the truth. It's better to hurt someone by truth than to make them happy by lies. — Khaled Hosseini

Every time I see this one particular movie star on a magazine, I can't help but feel terribly sorry for her because nobody respects her at all, and yet they keep interviewing her. And the interviews are all the same thing.
They start with what food they are eating in some restaurant. "As _ gingerly munched her Chinese Chicken Salad, she spoke of love." And all the covers say the same thing: "_ gets to the bottom of stardom, love, and his/her hit new movie/television show/album."
I think it's nice for stars to do interviews to make us think they are just like us, but to tell you the truth, I get the feeling that it's all a big lie. The problem is I don't know who's lying. — Stephen Chbosky

Let our lives be firmly rooted in Truth. Abstain from lies. In this dark age of materialism, adherence to truth is the greatest austerity. We might have to tell lies now and then to protect somebody or to sustain dharma, but we must be careful not to speak lies for our own selfish purposes. — Mata Amritanandamayi

The writer's first job is not to have opinions but to tell the truth ... and refuse to be an accomplice of lies and misinformation. Literature is the house of nuance and contrariness against the voices of simplification. — Susan Sontag

Live your own truth and it won't matter how many lies they tell about you. The truth will prove itself. — Tony Gaskins

I have come to make distinctions between what I call the academy and literature, the moral equivalents of church and God. The academy may lie, but literature tries to tell the truth. — Dorothy Allison

Why would you tell us the truth? If Christina really wasn't here, you'd tell us she was, to stall us from finding her. If James taught us one thing, it's how to detect a lie. You just want us to leave so you can get her to talk. By the way, good luck with that
Ida can't even get her to admit that she stole her cousin's candy at Halloween last year. And that was pretty obvious. — Embee

Cruel', O'Kelly laughed, 'it's cruel to tell children the truth. If anything convinces me of God's mercy, then it's his gift of making us unable to lie. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Sometimes we mask ourselves to further reveal ourselves, and it's always been connected to me with being a writer: We tell lies to tell a greater truth. The story is a mask; the characters you create are masks. That appeals to me. Aside from that, too, in the carnival the masks were beautiful, and offered a vision of Haitian creativity. — Edwidge Danticat

Let me tell you the truth: The truth is what is. And what should be is a fantasy a terrible, terrible lie that someone gave the people long ago. — Lenny Bruce

These white folk have newspapers, magazines, radios, spokesmen to get their ideas across. If they want to tell the world a lie, they can tell it so well that it becomes the truth; and if I tell them that you're lying, they'll tell the world even if you prove you're telling the truth. Because it's the kind of lie they want to hear ... — Ralph Ellison

I deny the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man for fear of alarming him; you have no business with consequences, you are to tell the truth. — Samuel Johnson

Lying eats into the soul. If it becomes a habit it frays the edge of your spirit. Truth telling, although sometimes harder to do, strengthens your heart. It serves a person ill not to tell the truth. — Theresa Breslin

He who has once deviated from the truth, usually commits perjury with as little scruple as he would tell a lie.
[Lat., Qui semel a veritate deflexit, hic non majore religione ad perjurium quam ad mendacium perduci consuevit.] — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Once you tell a lie, the truth is your enemy; and every truth connected to that truth, and every ally of truth in general; all of these you must oppose, to protect the lie. Whether you're lying to others, or to yourself. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

Cherish the friend who tells you a harsh truth, wanting ten times more to tell you a loving lie. — Robert Breault

If someone lies to you, be quick to forgive & they'll be more apt
to tell you the truth. — Marshall Sylver

The process [of mass-media deception] has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt ... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies all this is indispensably necessary. — George Orwell

Let every
writer
tell his
own
lies
That's freedom
of the
press. — Norman Mailer

Some will tell you that there are multiple worldviews. The Bible says we have only 2: the Truth and the Lie. — Mark Driscoll

I have said to you to speak the truth is a painful thing. To be forced to tell lies is much worse. — Oscar Wilde

I lie more convincingly than I tell the truth. — Simona Panova

I'll tell you something that's completely true - you can, as a man, obtain everything you want with the truth. If you lie, first of all you've got to be a very good lying actor, which is tres difficile. And it's going to give you poison inside the body. — Jean Reno

It is a tragicomic fact that our proper upbringing has become an ally of the secret police. ( ... ) The "Tell the truth!" imperative drummed into us so automatically that we feel ashamed of lying even to a secret policeman. — Milan Kundera

RULES OF LYING:
1. Figure out your lie before you open your mouth.
2. Play on your opponent's sympathies and weaknesses
3. Dance around the lie with distracting truth. They're far more convincing.
4. Picture the lie in your head as if it were the truth. They want to see how it's coming up.
5. Never forget which is the lie and which is the truth.
6. If you say something that brings you trouble, pretend that was actually the lie. Lie and say you were joking before, and aren't you funny? It's a quick escape from a sticky situation. It's the liars trapdoor.
7. Avoid it if at all possible.
8. Keep up your poker face. Never have a "tell" or a physical gesture that will give yourself away and let your opponent know your bluffing. — Kristin Walker

The indispensable requirement for a good newspaperman - as eager to tell a lie as the truth. — Norman Mailer

Since I wasn't able to leave a succession of beautiful lies, I want to leave the smidgen of truth that the falsehood of everything lets us suppose we can tell. — Fernando Pessoa

The first step toward telling the truth is to tell the whole lie. — Robert Breault

Art is lies that tell the truth. — Pablo Picasso

You think I lead these people for my own whim? I lead these people, honorable knight, because they have no one but me. Because they came to me when the humans slaughtered their families and drove them out. And I'll keep this place safe for them no matter how much spying and lying and killing it takes. You've never been a commander, lordling, or you'd know that it's easy to prate about honor when you're not responsible for others' lives. But let me tell you a bit of truth
sometimes honor doesn't get it done. — Hilari Bell

The difference between a baby and adult is that a baby believes in everything while the adult doubts everything. Babies also only tell the truth until they learn what a lie is. — Alan Watts

*Oh, I know I could say were through And tell myself I'm over you But even if I made a vow I promise not to miss you now And try to hide the truth inside I fell cause I, I just can't live a lie * — Carrie Underwood

There are some people so addicted to exaggeration that they can't tell the truth without lying. — Josh Billings

The worst part was that I had things I wanted to tell my mother, too many to count, but none of them would go down so easy. She'd been through too much, between my siters-I could not add to the weight. So instead, I did my best to balance it out, bit by bit, word by word, story by story, even if none of them were true. — Sarah Dessen

It's all about truth," he said. "We don't trust governments because they don't tell us the truth. They make every story sound like it's good news, even when it's not. Those who are in power sing their own praises. Those who aren't in power criticise those that are. And no-one tells the whole truth. That's why we look for conspiracies. We know we are being lied to. We just don't know what they are lying to us about. — Will Once

She was lying to him."
"But she is lying to him. You are lying to him aren't you?" Darren asked
as he turned to me.
"Of course!"
"But the priest didn't know she was lying. Afterward, Moira had to chase
Jacobi down to tell him the truth and then he hit her."
"He hit you?!"
"Just in the arm. And even though it was supposed to be a hit it felt
more like a love tap."
"You guys! Y'all are making me skip over the best part!"
"Right, the part where Moira is doomed to burn in hell. I almost forgot.
Go ahead," Darren encouraged. — Kaitlin Scott

Then if any one at all is to have the privilege of lying, the rulers of the State should be the persons; and they, in their dealings either with enemies or with their own citizens, may be allowed to lie for the public good. But nobody else should meddle with anything of the kind; and although the rulers have this privilege, for a private man to lie to them in return is to be deemed a more heinous fault than for the patient or the pupil of a gymnasium not to speak the truth about his own bodily illnesses to the physician or to the trainer, or for a sailor not to tell the captain what is happening about the ship and the rest of the crew, and how things are going with himself or his fellow sailors. Most — Plato

We reveal more of ourselves in the lies we tell than we do when we try to tell the truth. — Dorothy Salisbury Davis

When the tongue lies, the eyes tell the truth. — George Horace Lorimer

In the penitentiary you learn this: don't lie. Don't lie, man. If someone catches you in a lie you leave yourself open to get snuffed. And all my life I lived in that eye of: tell the truth. Pay your debts. Don't get involved in other people's business. Do your number, do your time. And you learn to stand on your own. So, I am walking and standing on my own. People see me standing on my own and not too many people in your world can do that. And I don't realize that at that particular time. I don't realize how weak and mindless you people are. — Charles Manson

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

Cathy's lies were never innocent. Their purpose was to escape punishment, or work, or responsibility, and they were used for profit. Most liars are tripped up either because they forget what they have told or because the lie is suddenly faced with an incontrovertible truth. But Cathy did not forget her lies, and she developed the most effective method of lying. She stayed close enough to the truth so that one could never be sure. She knew two other methods also
either to interlard her lies with truth or to tell a truth as though it were a lie. If one is accused of a lie and it turns out to be the truth, there is a backlog that will last a long time and protect a number of untruths. — John Steinbeck

The young must grow old
Whilst old ones grow older.
And cowards will shrink
As the bold grow bolder.
Courage may blossom in quiet hearts,
For who can tell where bravery starts?
Truth is a song, oft lying unsung,
Some mother bird protecting her young.
Those who lay down their lives for friends,
The echo rolls onward, it seldom ends.
Who never turned and ran, but stayed?
This is a warrior, born, not made.
Living in peace, aye many a season,
Calm in life and sound in reason,
Till evil arrives, a wicked horde
Driving the warrior to pick up his sword
The challenger rings then, straight and fair,
Justice is with us, beware, beware. — Brian Jacques

It is a rule of mine never to ask unsolicited questions of people over twenty-one. I am only giving them the option of lying if they choose to. They would tell me the truth without my asking if they wanted me to know. To me that's fair enough. — Dorothy West

You can't be reluctant to give up your lie and still tell the truth. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

How much luckier than all the rest of mankind are the astrologers who, if they tell one truth among a hundred lies, obtain so much credit that even their lies are believed. — Francesco Guicciardini

I was starting to realize the extent of the problem here: everyone is always lying to each other, and even when they're trying to tell the truth, it can still be misleading or wrong. In fact, it almost always is wrong from at least one angle. I mean, the truth is really just a better class of lie. — Frank Portman

The best way to do business with a liar is confront them with the truth. Tell them that you do business as a partner. If your lying customer still can't see the light, tell him that you may not be the best choice for business, and that you think you have someone that can serve him better. Then, refer him to the competitor that you hate the most. — Jeffrey Gitomer

It's essential to tell the truth at all times. This will reduce life's pain. Lying distorts reality. All forms of distorted thinking must be corrected. — John Bradshaw

The man stands behind the man.
The seated man thinks,
"For heaven's sake, stop standing behind me.
You are driving me mad. It is February and it is impossible.
Someone has thrown onion skins all over the stairwell. Now I will have to clean them up - though I love to sweep. But still, it is disgusting."
But all he says is "I have to go soon."
Why can't people tell the truth?
It is impossible not to lie.
It is February and not lying is impossible. — Maira Kalman

When everyone in America knows you're in a dreadful position, admit you're in a dreadful position. Don't lie about it and make them roll their eyes, tell the truth and make them blink. — Peggy Noonan

We also hate lying because it is more than just fibbing, it is a personal slight. It is the liar's way of saying, "I don't respect you." That is precisely what we tell God when we lie. Lying is our special way of saying to God, "I hate the truth. I hate you. — Todd Friel

One of my father's lessons that stuck: lying to someone gives them power. Makes them the judge and you the defendant. Tell the truth and deal with the results. Lying's for pussies. — Isaac Marion

The first trick to lying is to tell the truth as often as possible. If out start lying about everything, big and small, it becomes impossible to keep things straight and you'll get caught. Once suspicion is planted it becomes exponentially harder to sell the next lie. — Victoria Schwab

It's a weird thing about the truth: It protects you. What really makes you vulnerable is when you're lying because you're going to get caught. When you tell the truth, there's a strange relief that comes. — Eve Ensler

Lyra learns to her great cost that fantasy isn't enough. She has been lying all her life, telling stories to people, making up fantasies, and suddenly she comes to a point where that's not enough. All she can do is tell the truth. She tells the truth about her childhood, about the experiences she had in Oxford, and that is what saves her. True experience, not fantasy - reality, not lies - is what saves us in the end. — Philip Pullman

We [ with Russel Crowe] had an Arabic coach there [ in the Body of Lies] that was really helpful, because it was more so than any accent. You have to be so exact, and there's different dialects of Arabic from country to country so it was really, really difficult to tell you the truth. And one of the hardest things I've ever had to do language-wise, because it comes from the throat. It's different. And also learning about the customs and the culture and all that, so we had advisors for that sort of thing. — Leonardo DiCaprio

There are no secrets.' The thing smiled, showing a row of even, childlike teeth. 'None worth keeping. Only the ones you hide from yourself, which are the most damaging and hurtful of all. Truth is truth, and lie is lie. Tell yourself one's the other and all the world turns kilter. — David Hewson

So sophisticated and smart, but our eyes tell us lies, or at best the truth in part. — Chris Murphy

By our attitude, we decide to read, or not to read. By our attitude, we decide to try or give up. By our attitude, we blame ourselves for our failure, or we blame others. Our attitude determines whether we tell the truth or lie, act or procrastinate, advance or recede, and by our own attitude we and we alone actually decide whether to succeed or fail. — Jim Rohn

This is what I've been waiting for my whole life. A President who's not afraid to tell the truth about being a lying a**hole. — Lewis Black

You didn't tell a lie, you just left a big hole in the truth. — Helen Thomas

Wherever you go you will find people lying to you, and as your awareness grows, you will notice that you also lie to yourself. Do not expect people to tell you the truth because they also lie to themselves. You have to trust yourself and choose to believe or not to believe what someone says to you. — Miguel Ruiz

A liar is not believed even though he tell the truth. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

To anger a conservative, lie to him. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth. — Theodore Roosevelt

I have a hard time keeping a story straight when I tell the truth because when you start lying you have to remember what you said, and I'm not very good at that. — Lisa Vanderpump

Unfortunately, as much as I am gullible, I also hate lying. I tend to tell the truth a lot ... lying just isn't worth it. But I think I'm guilty of telling people that I'm 5 minutes away when really I'm about 45 or an hour away. — Monica Raymund

You can't build a future if you do not know who you are. You can't become who you are meant to be if you can't tell the truth about who you are, what you have, and everything about your life. The truth is the absolute essence to your success, while lies are the absolute essence to your failures. — Suze Orman

or the need for a Trump 2012 presidential campaign ("This is what I've been waiting for my whole life, a president who's not afraid to tell the truth about being a lying asshole!"), — Chris Smith