Reason For Lying Quotes & Sayings

For that reason you can't write with music playing, and anyone who says he can is either writing badly, or not listening to the music, or lying. You need to hear what you're writing, and for that you need silence. — Philip Pullman

Beside all the small reasons we assign, there is a great reason for the existence of every extant fact; a reason which lies grandand immovable, often unsuspected behind it in silence. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Some of the most frantic lies on the face of life are told with modesty and restraint; for the simple reason that only modesty and restraint will save them. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

There are endless ways to amuse oneself and be idle, and most of them lie outside the woods. I assume that when a man goes to the woods he goes because he needs to. I think he is drawn to the wilderness much as he is drawn to a woman: it is, in its way, his opposite. It is as far as possible unlike his home or his work or anything he will ever manufacture. For that reason he can take from it a solace-an understanding of himself, of what he needs and what he can do without-such as he can find nowhere else. — Wendell Berry

Not being liked has a certain virtue about it, if the reason for the dislike does not lie in yourself! — Phyllis Bottome

You sold us out, Clark. You gave them the power that should have been ours. Just like your parents taught you. My parents taught me a different lesson ... lying on this street ... shaking in deep shock ... dying for no reason at all. They showed me that the world only makes sense when you force it to. — Frank Miller

America is a nation of liars, and for that reason science fiction has a special claim to be our national literature, as the art form best adapted to telling the lies we like to hear and to pretend we believe. — Thomas M. Disch

No Man is richer for having his Estate all in Money, Plate, etc. lying by him, but on the contrary, he is for that reason the poorer. — Dudley North

[W]e have more than two options ... a critique of reason does not have to be a call for the return of superstition and arbitrary power ... [O]ur problems do not lie with reason itself but with our obsessive treatment of reason as an absolute value. Certainly it is one of our qualities, but it functions positively only when balanced and limited by the others. — John Ralston Saul

After months of lies, the president has given millions of people around the world reason to doubt that he has sent Americans into battle for the right reasons, ... The fact that Americans are expressing these doubts shows that the president is losing his ability to lead. If the president refuses to resign for the sake of the nation, I believe he should be impeached and face Senate trial. — Dick Armey

Hopefully, Myfanwy Thomas had left instructions for a situation such as this. But was there time to peruse them? She risked a look over her shoulder and saw that the four figures had not roused themselves and were not headed toward her but in fact had ceased their twitching and were lying still. The receptionist did not seem to be in any danger of waking up. She sucked her teeth for a moment, weighing possibilities in her mind, and then reason won out over curiosity. Fuck it, I'll read in the car. — Daniel O'Malley

One would wonder to hear skeptical men disputing for the reason of animals, and telling us it is only our pride and prejudices that will not allow them the use of that faculty. Reason shows itself in all occurrences of life; whereas the brute makes no discovery of such a talent, but in what immediately regards his own preservation, or the continuance of his species. Animals in their generation are wiser than the sons of men; but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass. Take a brute out of his instinct, and you find him wholly deprived of understanding. — Joseph Addison

You are loved. You are valuable. You are crafted with beauty and purpose. I treasure you and this world needs you. There is no one like you. You don't need to look like the rest or talk like the rest or be like the rest. This worlds needs you as you are. There is no truth in the lie that you don't matter. You are loved. You were put here for a reason. You were not an accident. You are not a mistake. — Curt Mega

I missed her so much I wanted to die: a hard, physical longing, like a craving for air underwater. Lying awake, I tried to recall all my best memories of her - to freeze her in my mind so I wouldn't forget her - but instead of birthdays and happy times I kept remembering things like how a few days before she was killed she'd stopped me halfway out the door to pick a thread off my school jacket. For some reason, it was one of the clearest memories I had of her: her knitted eyebrows, the precise gesture of her reaching out to me, everything. Several times too - drifting uneasily between dreaming and sleep - I sat up suddenly in bed at the sound of her voice speaking clearly in my head, remarks she might conceivably have made at some point but that I didn't actually remember, things like Throw me an apple, would you? and I wonder if this buttons up the front or the back? and This sofa is in a terrible state of disreputableness. — Donna Tartt

Zen abhors repetition or imitation of any kind, for it kills. For the same reason Zen never explains, but only affirms. Life is fact and no explanation is necessary or pertinent. To explain is to apologize, and why should we apologize for living? To live - is that not enough? Let us then live, let us affirm! Herein lies Zen in all its purity and in all its nudity as well. — D.T. Suzuki

A lie for a good reason is better than a truth that destroys. — Pawan Mishra

You lied about knowing me. You could lie about anything. People lie all the time, usually for no reason whatsoever. (Aiden)
But I'm not lying about being hungry. Could you toss me a piece of bread before the interrogation continues? Or do I have to beat your butt for a spoonful of peanut butter? (Leta) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

The foundation of the Buddha's teachings lies in compassion, and the reason for practicing the teachings is to wipe out the persistence of ego, the number-one enemy of compassion. — Dalai Lama

The statistical method is required in the interpretation of figures which are at the mercy of numerous influences, and its object is to determine whether individual influences can be isolated and their effects measured. The essence of the method lies in the determination that we are really comparing like with like, and that we have not overlooked a relevant factor which is present in Group A and absent from Group B. The variability of human beings in their illnesses and in their reactions to them is a fundamental reason for the planned clinical trial and not against it. — Austin Bradford Hill

This same economic system, based on short-term growth and endless profits is also the reason for pretty much everything else that is lousy in our society, from private prisons to Fox News. What I'm arguing is that, in fact, what we've been told is a lie. — Naomi Klein

We believe that part of the answer lies in pricing energy on the basis of its full costs to society. One reason we use energy so lavishly today is that the price of energy does not include all of the social costs of producing it. The costs incurred in protecting the environment and the health and safety of workers, for example, are part of the real costs of producing energy-but they are not now all included in the price of the product. — Richard M. Nixon

I was set free! I dissolved in the sea, became white sails and flying spray, became beauty and rhythm, became moonlight and the ship and the high dim-starred sky! I belonged, without past or future, within peace and unity and a wild joy, within something greater than my own life, or the life of Man, to Life itself!.. And several other times in my life, when I was swimming far out, or lying alone on a beach, I have had the same experience, became the sun, the hot sand, green seaweed anchored to a rock, swaying in the tide. Like a saint's vision of beatitude. Like the veil of things as they seem drawn back by an unseen hand. For a second you see, and seeing the secret, you are the secret. For a second there is meaning! Then the hand lets the veil fall and you are alone, lost in the fog again, and you stumble on towards nowhere for no good reason. — Eugene O'Neill

I WAKE TO a headache. I try to go back to sleep - at least when I'm asleep, I'm calm - but the image of Caleb standing in the doorway runs through my mind over and over again, accompanied by the sound of squawking crows.
Why did I never wonder how Eric and Jeanine knew that I had aptitude for three factions?
Why did it never occur to me that only three people in the world knew that particular fact: Tori, Caleb, and Tobias?
My head pounds. I can't make sense of it. I don't know why Caleb would betray me. I wonder when it happened - after the attack simulation? After the escape from Amity? Or was it earlier than that - was it back when my father was still alive? Caleb told us he left Erudite when he found out what they were planning - was he lying?
He must have been. I press the heel of my hand to my forehead. My brother chose faction over blood. There has to be a reason. She must have threatened him. Or coerced him in some way. — Veronica Roth

He [Stephen Douglas] is blowing out the moral lights around us, when he contends that whoever wants slaves has a right to hold them; that he is penetrating, so far as lies in his power, the human soul, and eradicating the light of reason and the love of liberty, when he is in every possible way preparing the public mind, by his vast influence, for making the institution of slavery perpetual and national. — Abraham Lincoln

People often become scholars for the same reason they become soldiers: simply because they are unfit for any other station. Their right hand has to earn them a livelihood; one might say they lie down like bears in winter and seek sustenance from their paws. — Georg C. Lichtenberg

Look in the mirror, Brooke. You're a mess, but you're a fucking gorgeous mess. There's a reason I didn't want to stay, and that's it. Don't blame me for waking up with a raging hard-on when you've been lying next to me in bed for six hours." I — Emma Hart

I love talking about the Kennedy assassination. The reason I do is because I'm fascinated by it. I'm fascinated that our government could lie to us so blatantly, so obviously for so long, and we do absolutely nothing about it. — Bill Hicks

What would you do if your cat suddenly went psycho and started to attack you for no apparent reason, lying in wait and pouncing or stalking you with a faraway look reminiscent of its predatory cousins and ancestors? — Nicholas Dodman

The author of the hymn 'Amazing Grace', John Newton, who once was a slave ship captain, and who became a Christian preacher and an enemy of the slave trade, once said: 'I have reason to praise [God] for my trials, for, most probably, I should have been ruined without them.' The author of The Gulag Archipelago , Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who suffered for twenty years in the hellish prison camps he describes in that book, wrote: 'Bless you prison, bless you for being in my life. For there, lying upon the rotting prison straw, I came to realize that the object of life is not prosperity as we are made to believe, but the maturity of the human soul.' This does not mean that Newton would have chosen to go through his trials, or that Solzhenitsyn in any way enjoyed the terrible suffering of his imprisonment. But it means that in retrospect they can see that God used those difficulties to bless them in the long run. — Eric Metaxas

I can at once become happy anywhere, for he is happy who has found himself a happy lot. In a word, happiness lies all in the functions of reason, in warrantable desires and virtuous practice. — Marcus Aurelius

The seed you sow today will not produce crop till tomorrow. For this reason, your identity does not lie in your current results. This is not who you are. your current results are who you were. — James Arthur Ray

Stupefaction overrode all other emotion when I saw this creature on the lookout, lying in wait for the game. For it was an ape, a large-sized gorilla. It was in vain that I told myself I was losing my reason: I could entertain not the slightest doubt as to his species. But an encounter with a gorilla on the planet Soror was not the essential outlandishness of the situation. This for me lay in the fact that the ape was correctly dressed, like a man of our world, and above all that he wore his clothes in such an easy manner. — Pierre Boulle

I propose a Constitutional Amendment providing that, if any public official, elected or appointed, at any level of government, is caught lying to any member of the public for any reason, the punishment shall be death by public hanging. — L. Neil Smith

Whoso turns his attention to the bitter strifes of these days and seeks a reason for the troubles that vex public and private life must come to the conclusion that a fruitful cause of the evils which now afflict, as well as of those which threaten us, lies in this: that false conclusions concerning divine and human things, which originated in the schools of philosophy, have crept into all the orders of the state, and have been accepted by the common consent of the masses. — Pope Leo XIII

Alas, human vices, however horrible one might imagine them to be, contain the proof (were it only in their infinite expansion) of man's longing for the infinite; but it is a longing that often takes the wrong route. It is my belief that the reason behind all culpable excesses lies in this depravation of the sense of the infinite. — Charles Baudelaire

The reason for you complaint lies, it seems to me, in the constraint which your intellect imposes upon your imagination. Here I will make an observation, and illustrate it by an allegory. Apparently, it is not good-and indeed it hinders the creative work of the mind-if the if the intellect examines too closely the ideas pouring in, as it were, at the gates. — Friedrich Schiller

Louis suggested that the ship be called 'Lying Bastard'. For their own reasons, Teela and Speaker agreed. For his own reason, Nessus did not object. — Larry Niven

We must put up with our clothes as they are - they have their reason for existing. They are on us to expose us - to advertise what we wear them to conceal. They are a sign; a sign of insincerity; a sign of suppressed vanity; a pretense that we desire gorgeous colors and the graces of harmony and form; and we put them on to propagate that lie and back it up. — Mark Twain

Reading is professionally important for me to keep tuned in to what's being written in my genre, let's not lie. But that's not the reason I read. I read for my own emotional and mental health. If I stopped reading, I'd probably just die. — Patrick Rothfuss

Why don't Republicans spend all their airtime attacking the media for lying about what Obama's amnesty does and what the Democrats are doing? It's hard to avoid concluding that Republicans aren't trying to make the right arguments. In fact, it kind of looks like they're intentionally throwing the fight on amnesty. If a Republican majority in both houses of Congress can't stop Obama from issuing illegal immigrants Social Security cards and years of back welfare payments, there is no reason to vote Republican ever again. — Ann Coulter

The moment he laid eyes on Kuga, I knew. There's a reason I'm doing this to him. I want to see it; how he's fallen in love with a guy, and how he makes him his own. And then what I've done will become a sharp knife, thrown right back at me.
That's right. I just wanted to see.
And the meaning behind the sharp knife flying towards me: Why not me? Why can't it be me? All this time, I would be lying if I said I've never wished for it, but by being merely an observer, I've somehow managed to distance myself.
Kuga is a bright light, like the sun. I, on the other hand ...
(Yashiro) — Kou Yoneda

I suggest that if you know history, then you might not be so easily fooled by the government when it tells you you must go to war for this or that reason -that history is a protective armor against being misled. — Howard Zinn

I don't know about lying for novelists. I look at some of the great novelists, and I think the reason they are great is that they're telling the truth. The fact is they're using made-up names, made-up people, made-up places, and made-up times, but they're telling the truth about the human being - what we are capable of, what makes us lose, laugh, weep, fall down, and gnash our teeth and wring our hands and kill each other and love each other. — Maya Angelou

You see, I'm a mighty proud gal and I can't for the life of me, find any valid reason why anyone should lie about their origin or anything else for that matter. Frankly, I do not ascribe to the stupid theory of white supremacy and to try to hide the fact that I am a Negro for economic or any other reasons, if I do I would be agreeing to be a Negro makes me inferior and that I have swallowed whole hog all of the propaganda dished out by our fascist-minded white citizens. — Fredi Washington

I often think about this, that is, I imagine to myself that here is Vera, dead, totally motionless, lying on the table, in a coffin... and I too, of course can no longer live. But for some reason this gives me pleasure, a terrible amount of pleasure to imagine so the one I love: earlier I imagined grandmother and then my fiance in this manner, even my favorite animals, Sparky our cat with the fiery bursts of red on his gray-black fur.

("Thirty-Three Abominations") — Lydia Zinovieva-Annibal

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

At times to be silent is to lie. You will win because you have enough brute force. But you will not convince. For to convince you need to persuade. And in order to persuade you would need what you lack: Reason and Right — Miguel De Unamuno

[This world] exists nonnecessarily, improbably, and causelessly. It exists for absolutely no reason at all. It is inexplicably and stunningly actual ... The impact of this captivated realisation upon me is overwhelming. I am completely stunned. I take a few dazed steps in the dark meadow, and fall among the flowers. I lie stupefied, whirling without comprehension in this world through numberless worlds other than this one. — Quentin Smith

Ron Karenga wrote a book back in 1968, and in that book, he said that the reason, part of his motivation for starting Kwanzaa was because he felt that Christianity was the white man religion, and he didn't like Jews, and so he made up this lie. And he called it an African holiday because he was concerned that if he didn't call it an African holiday, that black Americans would not participate in it. — Tucker Carlson

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

... He has finally learned that lying to oneself is an offense for which human beings seldom grant themselves absolution.
He comes to believe that acceptance of a wintry place in the soul and a refusal to speak about it to others is as much consolation as a man gets, and for some odd reason that thought seems to bring him peace. — James Lee Burke

Things rarely happen for a single reason. Even the cleverest and most skilled manipulators recognize that their real art lies in making use of that which they cannot predict. — Tom Clancy

wounded prisoners. I wish I could hope, Miss Oliver - it would help, I suppose. But hope seems dead in me. I can't hope without some reason for it - and there is no reason." When Miss Oliver had gone to her own room and Rilla was lying on her bed in the moonlight, praying desperately for a little strength, Susan stepped in like a gaunt shadow and sat down beside her. "Rilla, dear, do not you worry. Little Jem is not dead." "Oh, how can you believe — L.M. Montgomery

There are some good people. But a good chunk of them will lie for no reason at all - it'll be ten o'clock and they'll tell you it's nine. You're looking at the clock and you can't even fathom why they're lying. They just lie because that's what they do. — John Cusack

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

And what has come to prevail in democracies is the very reverse of beneficial, in those, that is, which are regarded as the most democratically run. The reason for this lies in the failure properly to define liberty. For there are two marks by which democracy is thought to be defined: "sovereignty of the majority" and "liberty." "Just" is equated with what is equal, and the decision of the majority as to what is equal is regarded as sovereign; and liberty is seen in terms of doing what one wants. — Aristotle.

It is the human wish to be told lies that keep us as primitive morally and socially as we are. I am persuaded that a lie grounded in human desire is too powerful for mere reason to kill. — David Horowitz

I used to be a Catholic, and when I first started police work, I worried about that. I saw a lot of people dead or dying for no apparent reason . . . not people I killed, just people. Little kids who'd drowned, people dying in auto accidents and with heart attacks and strokes. I saw a lineman burn to death, up on a pole, little bits and pieces, and nobody could help . . . . I watched them go, screaming and crying and sometimes just lying there with their tongues stuck out, heaving, with all the screaming and hollering from friends and relatives . . . and I never saw anyone looking beyond. I think, Michael, I think they just blink out. That's all. I think they go where the words on a computer screen go, when you turn it off. One minute they exist, maybe they're even profound, maybe the result of a great deal of work. The next . . . . Whiff. Gone. — John Sandford

A failure to learn about Satan's plan for man here on earth would be fatal to the full exercise of free agency. The reason for this lies in the fact that ... free agency is the opportunity to choose between good and evil. To intelligently make such a choice one must understand the alternatives-both of them. To the extent one is ignorant of these alternatives, to that same extent he has not made a complete choice. Until a person understands Satan's plan, he can never be certain he does not believe in it and is not helping to carry it out. — H. Verlan Andersen

And then I heard the ring of metal on concrete, and I went cold, because one of them had found a piece of rebar lying around, and I knew with sudden certainty that these guys were going to kill me right here on this stupid sidewalk, for nothing, without even the reason of knowing my name or hating my politics. They were just going to kill me because they needed to kill something, and I was handy.
At least zombies would have had a reason. — Rachel Caine

Therefore, be honest with yourself as to why you are choosing to do a particular thing. Then, do it gladly, knowing that you are always getting to do what you want. The statement "I have no choice" is a lie. You can choose. You simply do not prefer the alternatives available to you, for whatever reason. So you select the outcome that you most prefer. — Neale Donald Walsch

Maybe secrets were part of life; maybe everyone had something they were lying to themselves about, or something they were hiding.
I looked up at the cross again and wondered if I was supposed to hear this particular sermon at this particular moment for a reason. I decided that the people who had said God didn't love me, who said I didn't have a place on Earth - they were wrong. God wanted me to live, and this was the only way I knew how to survive, so this was what God wanted. This was what I wanted. I had chosen to live, and it seemed like, finally, I was doing just that. — Meredith Russo

We tend to look at sin according to the world's moral standards. We think that lying is wrong because it betrays trust, that stealing is wrong because it destroys society. Homosexual adoption is said to be wrong by many people because children need a mother and a father. If the "morality" of something is based on what works, then it is fine for spouses to lie to each other as long as they find a way to have a relationship that works. Or stealing is morally okay as long as no one notices that he has been ripped off. Or if children raised by homosexuals are proven to be stable and happy, then the lifestyle of homosexuality becomes acceptable. But this perspective is a mistaken one. Rather, sin is wrong for one reason only: God says it's wrong. — Ray Comfort

The world exists, not for what it means but for what it is. The purpose of mushrooms is to be mushrooms, wine is in order to be wine: things are precious before they are contributory. It is a false piety that walks through creation looking only for lessons which can be applied somewhere else. To be sure, God remains the greatest good; but, for all that, the world is still good in itself. Indeed, since He does not need it, its whole reason for being must lie in its own natural goodness; He has no use for it, only delight. — Robert Farrar Capon

I was the biggest liar for no reason, and then as I got older, I thought, 'Why am I lying to everybody?' I would hear other people lie and be like, 'You sound so stupid.' So then I would just change my lies. The only person I lie to is my little sister, when I steal her clothes. — Kendall Jenner

No, on the outside view there was nothing for anyone to notice about me. I remained one pillar of a trinity, another pillar was lying only temporarily (temporarily! temporarily! temporarily!) in the hospital, I was the pilot of a three-engine aircraft, one of whose engines had stalled: there is no reason to panic, this is not a crash landing, the pilot has thousands of flight hours behind him, he will land the plane safely on the ground. — Herman Koch

There are ideologies of control lying behind the insistence on the need for instrumentally rational tools and techniques. In reflecting these ideologies, some believe that without the tools and techniques organizations would not be able to produce success; indeed, they would be ungovernable. Others believe that without the tools and techniques it would be impossible to improve the human condition or take action to sustain the planet. There is a very powerful belief that 'we' must be able to improve whole organizations intentionally. For some, these beliefs are impervious to reason, perhaps because it is too disappointing to accept the humbler realization that success and failure, sustainability and destruction, all emerge across populations through myriad local interactions and all anyone can do is participate as meaningfully and as influentially as possible, acting on practical judgment, in these local interactions. — Ralph D. Stacey

If there's reason for hope, it lies in man's occasional binges of cooperation. To save our planet, we'll need that kind of heroic effort, in which all types of people join forces for the common good — George Meyer

There are times when telling lies are not a bad thing. It can be a compassionate thing. But to make it benign, you have to be aware of your compassionate reasons for telling that lie. — Richard Gere

And the reason is found in the first lie-the lie which you hold as the truth about God-that God cannot be trusted; that God's love cannot be depended upon; that God's acceptance of you is conditional; that the ultimate outcome is thus in doubt. For if you cannot depend on God's love to always be there, on whose love can you depend? If God retreats and withdraws when you do not perform properly, will not mere mortals also? — Neale Donald Walsch

He was lying there on his death bed, and he asked for her as his last wish.
She came with tears in her eyes. He held her hand and said with a smile," I wish I died daily", And then a flat line. — Nishikant