No Point In Lying Quotes & Sayings

I can categorically say I will not be putting my hat in the ring. It's not something I have ever coveted and it's not a position I am interested in taking up at this point in time. I am loyal to Newcastle and they have been fabulous to me. I feel that is where my responsibility lies. — Rob Andrew

Tempting. But you see, I can simply insist on a lifetime contract with none of your silly restrictions, or kill you right now."
"You won't," Shane said. That made Morley's eyes open wide.
"Why not? Jacob and Patience were quite specific - they're concerned for Claire. Not for you, boy."
"Because if you kill me and Eve, you'll make her your enemy. This girl won't stop until she sees you all pay."
Claire had no idea whom he was talking about - she didn't feel like that Claire at all, until she imagined Shane and Eve lying dead on the ground.
Then she understood. "I'd hunt you down," she said quietly. "I'd use every resource I have to do it.
And you know I'd win."
Morley seemed impressed. "She is small, but I see your point, boy. Besides, she has the ear of Amelie, Oliver, and Myrnin; not a combination I would care to test. — Rachel Caine

We are not a couple,' she said softly. 'Therefore I cannot cuckold you.'
'Shall I pull out the note and point to the bit where it says we're lovers?'
Her lashes lowered a touch. 'Are you jealous, darling?'
'Sleep with whomever you please, Diane. But if you attempt to make me look the fool, I won't be so cooperative.' Even as he spoke the words he realized he was lying - which wasn't that unusual, except for the fact that he'd evidently been attempting to lie to himself. That was a damned useless waste of effort. — Suzanne Enoch

Mitch's take on humanity had deteriorated to the point where he assumed someone was lying if her lips were moving. — Jennifer Crusie

Though I have said that I envy the normal man to the point of exasperation, yet I would not care to be in his place as he is now (though I will not stop envying him. No, no; anyway the underground life is more advantageous!) There, at any rate, one can
bah! But after all, even now I am lying! I am lying because I know myself as surely as two times two makes four, that it is not at all underground that is better, but something different, quite different, for which I long but which I cannot find! Damn underground! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

So, in addition to being a full-time father of two and everything else in life, it isn't so much that I'm sitting around plotting an album. I just kinda follow my muse and wherever my interests lie, and at some point I decide, "Right. It's been a while, time to figure out how to get serious and make some music." — DJ Shadow

Eventually you will reach a point when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it. — Will Rogers

Clearly anyone who wants to dismiss Eichmann's testimonies on the grounds of their demonstrated unreliability and shameless self-serving lies can easily do so, and many of my colleagues have done precisely this. But what if our default position is not to dismiss everything Eichmann said and wrote just because he was lying most of the time, but rather to ask what among this mass of lies might nonetheless be of help to the historian, given his unique vantage point and the sheer volume of his testimony?

-- Collected Memories: Holocaust and Postwar Testimony, page 11 — Christopher R. Browning

You can only conceive of what lies beyond the state of mind you are in from the point of view of the state of mind you are in. — Frederick Lenz

It is necessary for us to explain the involuntary repugnance we possess for the nature and personality of the Jews ... The Jews have never produced a true poet. Heinrich Heine reached the point where he duped himself into a poet, and was rewarded by his versified lies being set to music by our own composers. He was the conscience of Judaism, just as Judaism is the evil conscience of our modern civilization. — Richard Wagner

The very act of sacrifice magnifies the one who sacrifices himself to the point where his sacrifice is much more costly to humanity than would have been the loss of those for whom he is sacrificing himself. But in his abnegation lies the secret of his grandeur. — Andre Gide

Don't lies in the end put us on the path to truth? And don't my stories, true or false, point to the same conclusion? Don't they have the same meaning? So, what does it matter whether they are true or false if, in either case, they signify what I have been and what I am? One can sometimes see more clearly in a person who is lying than in one who is telling the truth. Like light, truth dazzles. Untruth, on the other hand, is a beautiful dusk that enhances everything. — Albert Camus

Careful crossing the street," Tommy called back to her as he crossed. [Jody is drunk]
"Ha!" Jody said. "I am a finely tuned predator. I am a superbeing. I
" And at that point she bounced her forehead off a light pole with a dull twang and was suddenly lying on her back, looking at the streetlights above her, which kept going out of focus, the bastards. — Christopher Moore

What our grandmothers told us about playing hard to get is true. The whole point of the game is to impress and capture. It's not about honesty. Many men and women, when they're playing the courtship game, deceive so they can win. Novelty, excitement and danger drive up dopamine in the brain. And both sexes brag. — Helen Fisher

I have no problem with my age. I've been acting for 50 years in Australia and everyone knows my age because I started at 15. So there was never any point in lying about it. — Jacki Weaver

I remember watching Romeo + Juliet when I was 14 and listening to the soundtrack. When I hear that soundtrack now, all those emotions come back. It's really beautiful when you're at a certain point in your life where most of the adventure lies ahead of you. And it's a sad thing when you feel like you've lost that. But you can get it back. — Lykke Li

George W. Bush spoke to the camera, his face so decisively earnest that it was clear he was lying, his button eyes lit up with amateurish subterfuge. Only truly great men can be adept at shameless lying, Joshua thought. This dude was straining to the point of snapping. — Aleksandar Hemon

I would always say I'm doing a video project. About dancing or birthday parties. Of course, the video becomes more than that. It goes deeper than that. But it's not a lie. It's a starting point. — Laurel Nakadate

At some point, all lies are brought to the surface and truth comes forth no matter how hard we try to hide it. — Gabrielle Bernstein

Jealousy can instigate the cruellest act, or more to the point, hatred can. Miss Bennett was the one who found Nathan lying at the bottom of the stairs in the cellar, said he must have slipped or something, especially with one leg being so much weaker than the other. They as good people never would have suspected their own daughter of pushing him. That she never showed emotion over her brother's death was put down to trauma. I could see what they could not - a child incapable of any kind of feeling apart from selfishness. I can still picture him now, lying on his stomach, his head twisted at an unnatural angle, eyes glazed like one of Rhiannon's dolls. She was then about seven years old with the face of an angel and a nature as cruel as anyone on death row. — Tami Egonu

The squaring of the circle is a stage on the way to the unconscious, a point of transition leading to a goal lying as yet unformulated beyond it. It is one of those paths to the centre. — Carl Jung

When experts say nuclear power generation is safe and doesn't cost much and this is the only way to go if we want to stop relying on coal, well, we believe them. But they've been lying to us for years. And the point is, we've never really known anything about nuclear power generation. We had little interest in it before 3/11, and we certainly had no idea how difficult it is to control nuclear energy. — Junichiro Koizumi

On the roof, on the duvet under the steam vent, with the planets overhead, he let her scream all she wished. She screamed into the night. To the stars. At one point, with his lying atop her, he said, "Look over my left shoulder. Venus is visible tonight." Then he pulled the covers away from her, wrestling her for the duvet, as he called, "Here she is, all you Venusians" - he lifted out his arm, using it to span the celestial horizon- - "and the rest of you planets out there: the most beautiful woman on Earth, spread-eagled for your pleasure!" He laughed. "At my disposal, mm-m-m!" He bent down, nibbling, kissing her neck with his teeth, his lips, his mouth. — Judith Ivory

I am probably going to pay for this at some point, but I think pretty much everyone I come into contact with is fair game. So I use real names sometimes if the poem says it happened like that. It feels right if I use the real person I reference. Of course the poem is all lies, even when it's true, so I guess I can sleep at night. — Randall Mann

There is a time in our lives, usually in mid-life, when a woman has to make a decision - possibly the most important psychic decision of her future life - and that is, whether to be bitter or not. Women often come to this in their late thirties or early forties. They are at the point where they are full up to their ears with everything and they've "had it" and "the last straw has broken the camel's back" and they're "pissed off and pooped out." Their dreams of their twenties may be lying in a crumple. There may be broken hearts, broken marriages, broken promises. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

The publisher Jeff Johnson, who has offered not a word of explanation to me, has privately told people that he hated every word that I wrote. I assume that mostly refers to my exposing the lies used by President Bush to justify the invasion of Iraq. Fortunately 60 percent of Americans now get the point but only after tens of thousand of Americans and Iraqis have been killed and maimed as the carnage spirals out of control. My only regret is that my pen was not sharper and my words tougher. — Robert Scheer

Our point isn't to make an examination of popular film but to illustrate that the yearning for a heroic adventure lies just beneath the surface of our consciousness; film, television, literature, sports, and travel are in a sense vicarious adventures. — Alan Hirsch

His head was swimming, and he was far from certain even of the direction they had been going in when he had his fall. He guessed as well as he could, and crawled along for a good way, till suddenly his hand met what felt like a tiny ring of cold metal lying on the floor of the tunnel. It was a turning point in his career, but he did not know it. He put the ring in his pocket almost without thinking; certainly it did not seem of any particular use at the moment. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Now how do we know you're really from Edenton?" he said.
"And the point of lying would be?" Gabriel asked. "So we could have a complete stranger chauffeur us to another complete stranger's house for proper English tea at," he looked at a clock on the bookshelf, "two in the morning? Mia, he's discovered our nefarious plan."
Edgar rubbed his black shorn hair and squinted at Gabriel "Smartass teenagers. My favorite. — Elisa Nader

There is a pivotal point in every interaction between humans which sets the course in their relationship. Do you hide or do you shine? Which way are you going to go?
Hide or shine? — Ava Ayers

Nobody can hide their birthdays anymore, so there's no point in lying. — Jessica Walter

It had seemed entirely sensible at the time. A simple way to test the truth of her claim that she had lain with de Villiers. To show her that lying to him was useless. To make a point.
Instead, he had ignited a desire that burned him like none he had ever felt before.
He had expected Lady Laurien d'Amboise to be a timid little convent mouse. Quiet and passive and pliant. Easily manageable. Instead she was outspoken and strong-willed...and stunning in a way he could not even describe.
An innocent beauty caught up in a deadly game that was none of her making....
Malcolm rose to leave, chuckling.
"And what is there to laugh about?"
Darach gave his jovial friend a dour look.
Malcolm stopped just long enough to do his best imitation of Darach. "'Simple. Kidnap one French lass, hold her for a fortnight, and return her to de Villiers after he meets our demands. Perfectly simple. — Shelly Thacker

God is intelligent; but in what manner? Man is intelligent by the act of reasoning, but the supreme intelligence lies under no necessity to reason. He requires neither premise nor consequences; nor even the simple form of a proposition. His knowledge is purely intuitive. He beholds equally what is and what will be. All truths are to Him as one idea, as all places are but one point, and all times one moment. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Make a point never go clear, it is great odds that a man whose habits and the bent of whose mind lie a contrary way, shall be unable to comprehend it. So weak a thing is reason in competition with inclination. — George Berkeley

We seem to prefer a comfortable lie to the uncomfortable truth. We punish those who point out reality, and reward those who provide us with the comfort of illusion. Reality is fearsome .. but experience tells us that more fearsome yet is evading it. — Bill Moyers

For many of us, the job-hunt offers a chance to make some fundamental changes in our whole life. It marks
a turning point in how we live our life.
It gives us a chance to ponder and reflect, to extend our mental horizons, to go deeper into the subsoil
of our soul.
It gives us a chance to wrestle with the question, "Why am I here on Earth?" We don't want to feel that
we are just another grain of sand lying on the beach called humanity, unnumbered and lost in the billions
of other human beings.
We want to do more than plod through life, going to work, coming home from work. We want to find
that special joy, "that no one can take from us," which comes from having a sense of Mission in our life.
We want to feel we were put here on Earth for some special purpose, to do some unique work that only
we can accomplish.
We want to know what our Mission is. — Richard N. Bolles

The heaven is spherical in shape, and moves as a sphere; the earth too is sensibly spherical in shape, when taken as a whole; in position it lies in the middle of the heavens very much like its center; in size and distance it has the ratio of a point to the sphere of the fixed stars; and it has no motion from place to place. — Ptolemy

The great festival of Lughnasa was held at Carmun once every three years. The site of Carmun was eerie. In a land of wild forest and bog, it was an open grassy space that stretched, green and empty, halfway to the horizon. Lying some distance west of the point where, if you were following it upstream, the Liffey's course began to retreat eastwards on the way to its source in the Wicklow Mountains, the place was absolutely flat, except for some mounds in which ancestral chiefs were buried. The festival lasted a week. There were areas reserved for food and livestock markets, and another where fine clothes were sold; but the most important quarter was where a large racetrack was laid out on the bare turf. — Edward Rutherfurd

There's a tipping point with lies, a point where you've said something so many times that it feels truer than the truth. — Holly Black

It was that time of the year, the turning-point of summer, when the crops of the present year are a certainty, when one begins to think of the sowing for next year, and the mowing is at hand; when the rye is all in ear, though its ears are still light, not yet full, and it waves in gray-green billows in the wind; when the green oats, with tufts of yellow grass scattered here and there among it, droop irregularly over the late-sown fields; when the early buckwheat is already out and hiding the ground; when the fallow lands, trodden hard as stone by the cattle, are half ploughed over, with paths left untouched by the plough; when from the dry dung-heaps carted onto the fields there comes at sunset a smell of manure mixed with meadow-sweet, and on the low-lying lands the riverside meadows are a thick sea of grass waiting for the mowing, with blackened heaps of the stalks of sorrel among it. — Leo Tolstoy

A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others. Not respecting anyone, he ceases to love, and having no love, he gives himself up to passions and coarse pleasures, in order to occupy and amuse himself, and in his vices reaches complete bestiality, and it all comes from lying continually to others and to himself. A man who lies to himself is often the first to take offense. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

There was no point in lying. "Yes. I am following you."
Her carefully controlled exterior faltered. "Why?"
"Because I like you. I'm sorry if that makes you nervous."
All the color drained from her face. "I thought you thought I was crazy."
"I like crazy."
"You're unbelievable," she grumbled.
"So I've been told. — Anne Greenwood Brown

There was no point in lying. Despite various sources throughout history saying otherwise, no one can do magic on you just because they know your name. If they could, a big portion of the world's inhabitants would be up to their neck in curses. — Steve McHugh

You're a Dhampir," I breathed.
"So are you." he teased.
"Yeah, but I just thought - "
"That I was human? Because of the bite marks?"
"Yeah." I admitted, No point in lying.
"We all have to survive," he said "And dhamphirs are good at figuring ways out to. — Richelle Mead

Whereas I think: I'm lying here in a haystack ... The tiny space I occupy is so infinitesimal in comparison with the rest of space, which I don't occupy and which has no relation to me. And the period of time in which I'm fated to live is so insignificant beside the eternity in which I haven't existed and won't exist ... And yet in this atom, this mathematical point, blood is circulating, a brain is working, desiring something ... What chaos! What a farce! — Ivan Turgenev

Whether you're transgender or not, most of us get to a point in our lives where we can no longer lie to ourselves. — Laverne Cox

During episodes of unemployment I find it rewarding to sleep as much as possible-anything from twelve to fourteen hours a day is a good starting point. Sleep spares you humiliation and saves money at the same time: nothing to eat, nothing to buy, just lie back and dream your life away. — David Sedaris

Where no guiding ideals are left to point the way, the scale of values disappears and with it the meaning of our deeds and sufferings, and at the end can lie only negation and despair. Religion is therefore the foundation of ethics, and ethics the presupposition of life. — Werner Heisenberg

When there is no longer any point in lying, no one will lie — Joyce Carol Oates

No man will subject himself to the ridicule of pretending that any natural connection subsists between the sun or the seasons, and the period within which human virtue can bear the temptations of power. Happily for mankind, liberty is not, in this respect, confined to any single point of time, but lies within extremes, which afford sufficient latitude for all the variations which may be required by the various situations and circumstances of civil society. — James Madison

The reasons and purposes for habits are always lies that are added only after some people begin to attack these habits and to ask for reasons and purposes. At this point the conservatives of all ages are thoroughly dishonest: they add lies. — Friedrich Nietzsche

One of the principal obstacles to the rapid diffusion of a new idea lies in the difficulty of finding suitable expression to convey its essential point to other minds. Words may have to be strained into a new sense, and scientific controversies constantly resolve themselves into differences about the meaning of words. On the other hand, a happy nomenclature has sometimes been more powerful than rigorous logic in allowing a new train of thought to be quickly and generally accepted. — Arthur Schuster

One hope no sooner dies in us but another rises up in its stead. We are apt to fancy that we shall be happy and satisfied if we possess ourselves of such and such particular enjoyments; but either by reason of their emptiness, or the natural inquietude of the mind, we have no sooner gained one point, but we extend our hopes to another. We still find new inviting scenes and landscapes lying behind those which at a distance terminated our view. — Joseph Addison

I can't believe you lied about chocolate," Mallory said. "Lying about chocolate is ... sanctimonious. Do you remember all those bad girl lessons you gave me?"
Amy rubbed the spot between her eyes where a headache was starting. "You mean the lessons that landed you the sexy hunk you're currently sleeping with?"
"Well, yes. But my point is that maybe you need good girl lessons. And good girl lesson number one is never tease when it comes to chocolate."
-Amy and Mallory — Jill Shalvis

How did the American people ever reach this point where they believe that US aggression in the Middle East will make us safe when it does the opposite? How did the American people ever reach the point where they believe that fighting unconstitutional wars is required to protect our freedoms and our Constitution? Why do we allow the NSA, CIA, FBI, TSA, etc. to destroy our liberty at home, as part of the Global War on Terror, with a pretext that they are preserving our liberty? Why are the lying politicians reelected and allowed to bankrupt our country, destroy our money, and enter wars without the proper consent? Why do the American people suffer in silence and not scream "Enough is enough!"? We've had enough of the "humanitarian do-gooders" and the proponents of "American exceptionalism" who give us nothing but war, economic suffering, and less freedom. This can and must be stopped. — Ron Paul

This was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling "conciousness expansion" without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him too seriously. After West Point and the Priesthood, LSD must have seemed entirely logical to him ... but there is not much satisfaction in knowing that he blew it very badly for himself, because he took too many others down with him. — Hunter S. Thompson

My point is, I would never hurt you or your family."
I raised my chin at him. "If you tried to hurt my mother, I would totally kick your ass."
"Aha."
"Yes. You would be lying on the ground, crying, 'No more, no more,' and I would be kicking you in the stomach, wham, wham, wham!"
He laughed softly. — Ilona Andrews

The reality is just the opposite: the master does nothing. It is in your becoming a disciple that the whole mystery lies. It is in your surrender of the ego that the whole search comes to an authentic point. It is in putting your mind aside. That is what sannyas is: an authentic discipleship. It means putting your mind aside. You have lived according to your mind up to now. If that is fulfilling, then there is no need for anybody to become a sannyasin. — Rajneesh

Number, as it were, lies behind the psychic realm as a dynamic ordering principle, the primal element of which Jung called spirit. As an archetype, number becomes not only a psychic factor, but more generally, a world-structuring factor. In other words, numbers point to a background reality in which psyche and matter are no longer distinguishable. — Marie-Louise Von Franz

They call me "a teacher, a fomenter of violence." I would say point blank, "That is a lie. I'm not for wanton violence, I'm for justice. — Malcolm X

The tyranny of Harvard and Yale is another thing that transcends this problem of the set point. But what's so striking about [Louis] Brandeis is he had this vision of cultural pluralism that completely gave the lie to the idea that there was any inconsistency between being Jewish or being a woman or being African American and being fully American. — Jeffrey Rosen

When my son Lowell was eight years old, one day he and I had just finished playing. Tired and exhausted, we were lying on the bed talking. He sat up in the bed and started to trace his finger over the scar behind my neck. He asked me with concern in his voice,
'Daddy, how you got this cut behind your neck?'

I hesitated for a while, wondering how much I should tell him, or if I should even tell him at all. I decided to tell him some of it, leaving out the part about the shooting. So I told him,
'I got that from fighting with one of my friends.'

Lowell didn't respond right away. After a moment of silence and tracing his finger over the scar, my son said something to me that I had never even considered up to that point. He said,
'Daddy, your friend tried to kill you! — Drexel Deal

It is said that the camera cannot lie, but rarely do we allow it to do anything else, since the camera sees what you point it at: the camera sees what you want it to see. — James A. Baldwin

To deny that music powerfully influences our thoughts and conduct is either ignorant or a deliberate lie. Anyone who listens to music has been moved by it. It's music, that's the point. — Dessa Darling

Tell me about your master."
I nod. "He is eighth in line to the throne, the son of - "
"No, no," Caspida interrupts irritably. "Tell me what he is like."
"He is a gambler," I say. There is no point in lying about these things. "He is bold, but reckless. Brave, but impetuous. A man who . . . holds grudges." Pausing, I finish in a whisper, "He would risk his life to save someone else, without even thinking twice."
Caspida turns her head a bit, interest growing in her eyes. "And he sets out on a mad voyage and sails straight into a nest of jinn."
"My master is noble," I say with a smile, "but I made no suggestions as to his intelligence. — Jessica Khoury

Wisdom is looking at life from God's point of view. You look at life's difficulties and tests as God looks at them. You look at family life and child rearing as God looks at them. You interpret current events as God would interpret them. You see the truth even though all around you are deception and lies. — Charles R. Swindoll

They have lied to us. They can't keep us from dying, so They lie to us about death. A cooperative structure of lies. What have they ever given us in return for the trust, the love--They actually say 'love'--we're supposed to owe Them? Can They keep us from even catching cold? from lice, from being alone? from anything? Before the Rocket we went on believing, because we wanted to. But the Rocket can penetrate, from the sky, at any given point. Nowhere is safe. We can't believe Them any more. Not if we are still sane, and love the truth. — Thomas Pynchon

Mastery lies not merely in stilling the mind, but in directing it towards whatever point we desire, in allowing it to be active as far as we wish, in using it to fulfill our purpose, in causing it to be still when we want to still it. He who has come to this has created his heaven within himself; he has no need to wait for a heaven in the hereafter, for he has produced it within his own mind now. — Hazrat Inayat Khan

Weeks passed, Vincent did nothing - just ate, slept or sat staring at one point. [ ... ] He wandered around the neighborhood in order to stretch his legs or just for pleasure. He walked because he was annoyed to lie, to sit or to stand. When he got tired of walking, he was sitting, lying or standing. — Irving Stone

The point, dear Davis, is that sometimes what you want is nothing more than to put your name beside someone else's, someone whom you love. Stretch your name out alongside theirs as though it was you, lying next to them. — Helen Humphreys

It is a considerable point in all good legislation to determine exactly the credibility of witnesses and the proofs of a crime. Every reasonable man, everyone, that is, whose ideas have a certain interconnection and whose feelings accord with those of other men, may be a witness. The true measure of his credibility is nothing other than his interest in telling or not telling the truth; for this reason it is frivolous to insist that women are too weak [to be good witnesses], childish to insist that civil death in a condemned man has the same effects as a real death, and meaningless to insist on the infamy of the infamous, when they have no interest in lying. — Cesare Beccaria

There's no point in lying saying I am doing really, really well because I'm not; I'm cult level. — Gary Numan

Someone once said to me, 'Some of us choose to live with a lifeboat just a little bit out of our reach.' I'd like to reach a point where I no longer bullshit myself. I think that's the natural human condition - to lie to yourself. Because the truth is painful. — Dustin Hoffman

Part of what I feel is that the so-called bad fairies are really only there to get you to pay some attention. They trick you up until you're lying flat on your back and you literally have another point of view. They're about loosening up being rigid. They trip you over to break the barrier between you and the world. So their so-called "badness" actually can be quite instrumental in helping you with things. — Brian Froud

There's a kind of mystery to our being and from my point of view, regarding my own parents and their parents, I'd as soon let it lie than find out who my mother's father was. — T.C. Boyle

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