The Gods Lie Quotes & Sayings

I believe in religion, I believe in religious expression, and I believe that all gods are one God. I do not lie when I pray in the words of another religion, because I believe.
Oisce — Arin Murphy-Hiscock

I am a bomb but I mean you no harm. That I still am here to tell this, is a miracle: I was deployed on May 15, 1957, but I didn't go off because a British nuclear engineer, a young father, developed qualms after seeing pictures of native children marveling at the mushrooms in the sky, and sabotaged me. I could see why during that short drop before I hit the atoll: the island looks like god's knuckles in a bathtub, the ocean is beautifully translucent, corals glow underwater, a dead city of bones, allowing a glimpse into a white netherworld. I met the water and fell a few feet into a chromatic cemetery. The longer I lie here, listening to my still functioning electronic innards, the more afraid I grow of detonating after all this time. I don't share your gods, but I pray I shall die a silent death. — Marcus Speh

We all have choices, Nick. Even if it's nothing more than the choice between lesser evils. No one can take away your free will. Not even the gods. It's the one gift that can never be returned, stolen, or revoked. We can blame others for our bad decisions. We can say that we had no choice. But it's always a lie. No one puts your hand on the gun but you. Only you can decide if you pick it up or leave it alone. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Do you think my being someone else's wife will change anything? Don't you know that I'd lie with you in the groves, under the light of the moon? That I'd defy the laws of gods and men for you? — Richelle Mead

If one destroyed in museums and libraries, if one hurled down on the flagstones before the churches all the works and all the monuments of art that religions have inspired, what would remain of the great dreams of humanity? To give to men that portion of hope and illusion without which they cannot live, such is the reason for the existence of gods, heroes, and poets. During fifty years science appeared to undertake this task. But science has been compromised in hearts hungering after the ideal, because it does not dare to be lavish enough of promises, because it cannot lie — Gustave Le Bon

It sounds silly, I know. But for me, the power of music rests in its ability to reach inside and touch the places where the deepest cuts lie.
Like a benevolent god, a good song will never let you down.
And sometimes, when you're trying to find your way, one of those gods actually shows up and gives you directions. — Tiffanie DeBartolo

Athena: "What makes you human? What's different about you
from every other creature out there?"
"We can think?" a boy wearing a loose button up shirt and khakis called
from the front row.
"We have emotions?" a girl asked, pushing her glasses up the bridge of
her nose with her pinkie.
"We're self-aware? Like, we think about thinking and time and stuff?"
Gods, when had college kids become so uncertain? All their replies ended
with an upward lilt like they were asking a question instead of supplying
an answer.
After a couple of students gave faltering answers, I [Hades] called from the back
of the room, voice strong and certain, "They can lie."
Athena jerked her head toward me, panic flashing in her eyes as she
scanned the rows of students. When her gaze locked on mine, the color
drained from her face. "Class dismissed. — Kaitlin Bevis

I do not pretend to be able to prove that there is no God. I equally cannot prove that Satan is a fiction. The Christian god may exist; so may the gods of Olympus, or of ancient Egypt, or of Babylon. But no one of these hypotheses is more probable than any other: they lie outside the region of even probable knowledge, and therefore there is no reason to consider any of them. — Bertrand Russell

Elijah: You are a dangerous woman.
Valeria: You do not know the half of it, but I suppose you are not one to always dabble in safe waters either. So, do you still want to work with me?
Elijah: It will be my pleasure.
Valeria: Is there anything I need to know about you?
Elijah: No!
Valeria: That is a lie.
Elijah: Is there anything I need to know about you?
Valeria: No!
Elijah: That is also a lie.
Valeria, smiling: Then we are a pair of liars. — Cristina M. Sburlea

The time has come for us to admit our insignificance by making discoveries in the infinite unexplored cosmos. Only then shall we realize that we are nothing but ants in the vast state of the universe. And yet our future and our opportunities lie in the universe, where gods promised they would. — Erich Von Daniken

Answer me when I call to you,
O my righteous God.
Give me relief from my distress;
be merciful to me and hear my prayer.
How long, O men, will you turn my glory into shame?
How long will you love delusions and seek false gods?
Know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself;
the Lord will hear when I call to him.
In your anger do not sin;
When you are on your beds,
search your hearts and be silent.
Offer the right sacrifices
and trust in the Lord.
Many are asking, "Who can show us any good?"
Let the light of your face shine upon us, O Lord.
You have filled my heart with greater joy
than when their grain and new wine abound.
I will lie down and sleep in peace
for you alone, O Lord,
make me to dwell in safety. — King David

My father once told me
that there are no gods;
only the cruel manipulations
of evil people
who pretended that their power was good
and their exploitation was love.
But if there are no gods;
why are we so hungry to believe in them?
Just because evil liars
stand between us and the gods
and block our view of them
does not mean that the bright halo
that surrounds each liar
is not the outer edges of a god, waiting
for us to find our way around the lie. — Orson Scott Card

Without individuals we see only numbers: a thousand dead, a hundred thousand dead, "casualties may rise to a million." With individual stories, the statistics become people - but even that is a lie, for the people continue to suffer in numbers that themselves are numbing and meaningless. — Neil Gaiman

Again, truth should be highly valued; if, as we were saying, a lie is useless to the gods, and useful only as a medicine to men, then the use of such medicines should be restricted to physicians; private individuals have no business with them. — Plato

Sometimes I think that the biggest difference between men and women is that more men need to seek out some terrible lurking thing in existence and hurl themselves upon it like Ahab with the White Whale. Women know where it lives but they can let it alone. Even in martiarchal societies I doubt that there were ever female Beowulfs. Women lie with gods and demons but they don't go looking for monsters to fight with. Ariadne gave Theseus a clew but the minotaur was his business. — Russell Hoban

I am content to be hated, and bloody, and outnumbered. For in this sickened world, it is better to believe in something too fiercely than to believe in nothing."
Words, words, wonderful words. But lies too.
"No, it isn't!" shouted Mosca the Housefly, Quillam Mye's daughter. "Not if what you're believin' isn't blinkin' well True! You shouldn't just go believin' things for no reason, pertickly if you got a sword in your hand! Sacred just means something you're not meant to think about properly, an' you should never stop thinking! Show me something I can kick, and hit with rocks, and set fire to, and leave out in the rain, and think about, and if it's still standing after all that then maybe, just maybe, I'll start to believe in it, but not till then. An' if all we're left with is muck and wickedness and no gods, then we'd better face it and get used to it because it's better than a lie. — Frances Hardinge

Call that a wonder, Cretan-born woman? 9970 Never listened when poetry Sang its sweet lessons? Ionia's and Hellas's Ancientest legends Of a gods-and-heroes abundance, Never heard them? Nothing that's done today's More than a pitiful Echo of glorious Ancestral days; 9980 Nothing, your story is, Compared with the lovely lie, More trustworthy than truth, That is sung about Maia's son. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Petyr 'Littlefinger' Baelish: The realm. Do you know what the realm is? It's the thousand blades of Aegon's enemies, a story we agree to tell each other over and over, until we forget that it's a lie.

Lord Varys: But what do we have left, once we abandon the lie? Chaos? A gaping pit waiting to swallow us all.

Petyr 'Littlefinger' Baelish: Chaos isn't a pit. Chaos is a ladder. Many who try to climb it fail and never get to try again. The fall breaks them. And some, are given a chance to climb. They refuse, they cling to the realm or the gods or love. Illusions. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is. — George R R Martin

The gods lie. They lie because it's the best they can do. We reach out for their lies and we keep on living. — Kaori Ozaki

Confidence, of course is an admirable asset to a golfer, but it should be an unspoken confidence. It is perilous to put it into speech. The gods of golf lie in wait to chasten the presumptious. — P.G. Wodehouse

They made these improving remarks to one another, but Apollo leaned aside to say to Hermes: "Son of Zeus, beneficent Wayfinder, would you accept a coverlet of chain, if only you lay by Aphrodite's golden side?" To this the Wayfinder replied, shining: "Would I not, though, Apollo of distances! Wrap me in chains three times the weight of these, come goddesses and gods to see the fun; only let me lie beside the pale-golden one!" The — Homer

There's not a Fey warrior born who does not dream of finding his truemate, so at night, after my parents went to bed, I would sneak out of the shellaba and lie beneath the stars and ask the gods if they could somehow find a way to give a tairen a truemate. — C.L. Wilson

Nayrol is without speech and therefore never lies ... (Nayrol is) one of the nature gods of the Red River people. Objective evidence is the ultimate authority. Recorders may lie, but Nature is incapable of it. — Walter M. Miller Jr.

Will you put this in my hair? — Kaori Ozaki

Penance is in my bones. So's a desire to confess, even when it isn't technically necessary. I think it stems from seeds of superstition left over from a childhood belief in an omniscient creator. I imagine this creator, this observer, as a sort of annoying sibling in the sky, forever calling me on my bullshit. When I lie or cheat, I actually feel like that annoying sibling in the sky calls down, "Bullshit, Suzie, BULLSHIT!" and that anyone nearby, if they're at all sensitive to the catcalls of the gods, can hear him. And so I behave accordingly, and try to make amends for what I have done. — Suzanne Morrison

The Happy Trinity is her home: nothing can trouble her joy.
She is the bird that evades every net: the wild deer that leaps every pitfall.
Like the mother bird to its chickens or a shield to the armed knight: so is the Lord to her mind, in His unchanging lucidity.
Bogies will not scare her in the dark: bullets will not frighten her in the day.
Falsehoods tricked out as truths assail her in vain: she sees through the lie as if it were glass.
The invisible germ will not harm her: nor yet the glittering sunstroke.
A thousand fail to solve the problem, ten thousand choose the wrong turning: but she passes safely through.
He details immortal gods to attend her: upon every road where she must travel.
They take her hand at hard places: she will not stub her toes in the dark.
She may walk among lions and rattlesnakes: among dinosaurs and nurseries of lionettes.
He fills her brim full with immensity of life: he leads her to see the world's desire. — C.S. Lewis

Your call will become clear as as your mind is transformed by the reading of Scripture and the internal work of God's Spirit. The Lord never hides His will from us. In time, as you obey the call first to follow, your destiny will unfold before you. The difficulty will lie in keeping other concerns from diverting your attention. — Charles R. Swindoll

The gods in bounty work up storms about us, that give mankind occasion to exert their hidden strength and throw out into practice virtues that shun the day, and lie concealed in the smooth seasons and the calms of life. — Joseph Addison

You are like a god, like an immortal one,' she whispered to me one night in our bed, her naked body pressed to mine, our sweat golden and glistening in the candlelight. 'Oh, my love,' I whispered back to her, 'I am more mortal than all. It seems that a part of me dies every night that I lie with you. — Roman Payne

The gods do not exists, and even if they exist they do not trouble themselves about people, and we have nothing in common with them. The piety and devotion to the gods that the majority of people invoke is a lie devised by swindlers and con men and, if you can believe it, by legislators, to keep criminals in line by putting the fear of God into them. — Epictetus

Live and lie reclined On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind. For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurled Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curled Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

But which stories do you mean, he said; and what fault do you find with them? A fault which is most serious, I said; the fault of telling a lie, and, what is more, a bad lie. But when is this fault committed? Whenever an erroneous representation is made of the nature of gods and heroes, - as when a painter paints a portrait not having the shadow of a likeness to the original. Yes, — Plato

For in this sickened world, it is better to believe in something too fiercely than to believe in nothing.' Words, words, wonderful words. But lies too. 'No, it isn't!' shouted Mosca the Housefly, Quillam Mye's daughter. 'Not if what you're believin' isn't blinkin' well True! You shouldn't just go believin' things for no reason, pertickly if you got a sword in your hand! Sacred just means something you're not meant to think about properly, an' you should never stop thinking! Show me something I can kick, and hit with rocks, and set fire to, and leave out in the rain, and think about, and if it's still standing after all that then maybe, just maybe, I'll start to believe in it, but not till then. An' if all we're left with is muck and wickedness and no gods, then we'd better face it and get used to it because it's better than a lie. Which is what you are, Mr Kohlrabi.' Mosca — Frances Hardinge

I didn't know the real reason that she was crying. I was just carried away by the feeling of her in my arms, trembling and warm. — Kaori Ozaki

If you expect a bad lie for even one second, the gods will know it and give you a bad lie. — Michelle Wie

We enjoy telling ourselves that we will soon be gods, masters of the planet, manipulating the genes of living creatures and rebuilding the world at a nano-level as we lie back in our hammocks, attended by our robot servants. I don't believe a word of it, and I'm not sure many of us do. — Paul Kingsnorth