Untruthful Quotes & Sayings

Life is composed of lights and shadows, and we would be untruthful, insincere, and saccharine if we tried to pretend there were no shadows. — Walt Disney

I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful manner. — James R. Clapper

Newspapers, television networks, and magazines have sometimes been outrageously abusive, untruthful, arrogant, and hypocritical. But it hardly follows that elimination of a strong and independent press is the way to eliminate abusiveness ... — Potter Stewart

Truth, an objective thing, is usually conceived of as something simple. Quite the opposite is correct: truth is enormously complicated; it calls for effort on several levels to arrive at its definition; it demands the utmost devotion in its service.
Do you doubt it? Then resolve evermore to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. You must hurt your friends, suffer the most pitiless scrutiny and persecution, turn the festive occasion into a nightmare of share words and recriminations. You will be called "a sour-puss," a curmudgeon, a difficult man, and very possibly a knave and an untruthful braggart.
The world, as it is organized, is a conspiracy against truth. Individuals, communities, nations, they are all afraid of the truth as if it were a medusa head which froze men to stone, even as it froze them to virtue. — Francis Beauchesne Thornton

In America, Rousseauism has turned Freud's conflict-based psychoanalysis into weepy hand-holding. Contemporary liberalism is untruthful about cosmic realities. Therapy, defining anger and hostility in merely personal terms, seeks to cure what was never a problem before Rousseau. Mediterranean, as well as African-American, culture has a lavish system of language and gesture to channel and express negative emotion. Rousseauists who take the Utopian view of personality are always distressed or depressed over world outbreaks of violence and anarchy. But because, as a Sadean, I believe history is in nature and of it, I tend to be far more cheerful and optimistic than my liberal friends. Despite crime's omnipresence, things work in society, because biology compels it. Order eventually restores itself, by psychic equilibrium. Films like Seven Samurai (1954) and Two Women (1961) accurately show the breakdown of social controls as a regression to animal-like squalor. — Camille Paglia

You make your work and you can't ask for approval when you're doing it. Otherwise, it's going to be untruthful in some way. — Michael Gira

[The media] cannot, month in month out and year in and year out, make the kind of untruthful, of bitter assault that they have made and not expect that brutal, violent natures, or brutal and violent characters, especially when the brutality is accompanied by a not very strong mind; they cannot expect that such natures will be unaffected by it. — Theodore Roosevelt

Untruthful?" said Ridcully. "Me? I'm as honest as the day is long! Yes, what is it this time?" Ponder had tugged at his robe and now he whispered something in his ear. Ridcully cleared his throat. "I am reminded that this is in fact the shortest day of the year," he said. "However, this does not undermine the point that I just made, although I thank my colleague for his invaluable support and constant readiness to correct minor if not downright trivial errors. I am a remarkably truthful man, sir. Things said at University council meetings don't count. — Terry Pratchett

True democracy or the swaraj of the masses can never come through untruthful and violent means. — Lal Bahadur Shastri

she'd put her idea to the group, they'd needed another sherry to steady their nerves. This was getting edgy. They were considering being untruthful. — John Wiltshire

God allows demonic power over the unfaithful, the untruthful and the cruel, as a path to their self-destruction. — Daniel Marques

Children are people, and they should have to reach to learn about things, to understand things, just as adults have to reach if they want to grow in mental stature. Life is composed of lights and shadows, and we would be untruthful, insincere, and saccharine if we tried to pretend there were no shadows. Most things are good, and they are the strongest things; but there are evil things too, and you are not doing a child a favor by trying to shield him from reality. The important thing is to teach a child that good can always triumph over evil. — Walt Disney Company

You had to deal every day with people who were foolish and lazy and untruthful and downright unpleasant, and you could certainly end up thinking that the world would be considerably improved if you gave them a slap. — Terry Pratchett

He's flying through Norway. Notice the fjords I created with hundreds of individually cut-out gray mosaic pieces? It's daylight there in the winter, it would be untruthful to have the night sky be so dark. — Felicia Day

The big problem, again, wasn't insanity, but that people's brains were much too big and untruthful to be practical. — Kurt Vonnegut

If you let a child know that you think he is lazy, sloppy, untruthful, unpleasant, and thoughtless, he'll probably prove you are right. Obviously, it is much better to make him stretch to reach a positive image than stoop to match one at ground level. — James Dobson

It is often necessary for a member of the Inner Party to know that this or that item of war news is untruthful, and he may often be aware that the entire war is spurious and is either not happening or is being waged for purposes quite other than the declared ones: — George Orwell

O, Need's a funny fish: it makes people untruthful. They all suffer from it, but they will not always admit. — Salman Rushdie

For some reason that only a sociologist might be able to accurately explain, the Brazilian Press was extremely unkind to me, reporting only selective derogatory untruthful rumors (some of which are still around), harsh criticism, and unwarranted sarcasm. I was very hurt by this. It was such great disappointment ... When I came back from Brazil at that time, I made a promise to myself that I would never, ever again sing in Brazil. So far [as of 2002], I have kept this promise, having declined each and every invitation or proposals to perform in Brazil. Once was enough! — Astrud Gilberto

There is a huge difference between giving out of love and giving out of guilt. Giving out of love is a genuine giving, it comes from the deepest place of honesty and compassion and it has no strings attached. On other hand giving out of guilt is untruthful giving that comes from the darkest dungeon of manipulation, hoping the guilt will go away. The person who gives out of guilt always reminds others about her giving and she/he demands a public appreciation. Gratitude comes from the pure thankful heart, people should not be forced to do it, let them voice it out on their
own time. — Euginia Herlihy

I really thought I was quite a respectable lad, and might have been half inclined to boast that I was not like other boys, - untruthful, dishonest, disobedient, swearing, Sabbath-breaking, and so on. But, all of a sudden, I met Moses, — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Speak kind words to mankind and the unkind will attack you. Speak common sense using all your senses, and you will attacked by the senseless. Speak truth and you will be attacked by the untruthful. Speak about absolutely nothing and absolutely nothing will speak back, but then nothing at all will ever change. — Suzy Kassem

I don't like reverse-angle shots - I find them very fake and very untruthful to the viewer. — Abbas Kiarostami

Revealing secrets can bring us pain or get us into trouble, but worse pain and worse trouble await us if we keep silent ... Revealing secrets can bring us pain or get us into trouble, but worse pain and worse trouble await us if we keep silent... we become habitually untruthful. The door to our creativity closes. gr we become habitually untruthful. The door to our creativity closes. — Eric Maisel

I have often remarked that it is hardest of all to live with people who are untruthful and insincere. I can endure anything except that. — Leo Tolstoy

A witch didn't do things because they seemed a good idea at the time! That was practically cackling. You had to deal every day with people who were foolish and lazy and untruthful and downright unpleasant, and you could certainly end up thinking that the world would be considerably improved if you gave them a slap. But you didn't because, as Miss Tick had once explained:
a) it would make the world a better place for only a very short time;
b) it would then make the world a slightly worse place; and
c) you're not supposed to be as stupid as they are. — Terry Pratchett

One of the most untruthful things possible, you know, is a collection of facts, because they can be made to appear so many different ways. — Karl A. Menninger

In court, there is the legal doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means untruthful in one part, untruthful in all. — Michael Crichton

Do we throw off the false 'cloak' at a party, or do we merely put on an untruthful yellow dress? — Jeremy Hawthorn

At the risk of repetition let me say again that my plea is not for immunity to, but for the most unsparing exposure of, the politician who betrays his trust, of the big business man who makes or spends his fortune in illegitimate or corrupt ways. There should be a resolute effort to hunt every such man out of the position he has disgraced. Expose the crime, and hunt down the criminal; but remember that even in the case of crime, if it is attacked in sensational, lurid, and untruthful fashion, the attack may do more damage to the public mind than the crime itself. — Theodore Roosevelt

I have been young and am now old, and have not yet known an untruthful man to come to a good end. — Berthold Auerbach

There's no right or wrong just truthful or untruthful. — Robert Duvall

Out of curiosity, would you be willing to take a lie detector test?"
"I'm afraid not," he said. "It goes against my religion."
His brow furrowed. "How?"
"Only God can judge me. I certainly don't trust a machine to do it."
"You only have to worry if you're untruthful. Do you plan to lie?"
"No, I prefer to sit, thank you. — J.M. Darhower

Don't calculate the world." This world is untruthful. Don't stop to do calculation, just keep on moving. — Dada Bhagwan

I am edgy, raw, offensive, vulgar, untruthful, but intelligent. My jokes are always realistic. I do not make fun of children or people who cannot fight back. That is my limitation. — Vir Das

The untruthful soldier trifles with the lives of his countrymen and the honor and safety of his country. — Douglas MacArthur

Nonjudgmentalism is not really nonjudgmental. It is the judgment that ... everything is the same, nothing is better. This is as barbaric and untruthful a doctrine as has yet emerged from the fertile mind of man. — Theodore Dalrymple

A deceitful tongue will always be good at twisting the truth. — Dennis Adonis

Human nature is rarely so amusing as when trying to get a house off its hands. Women at this task can be untruthful enough, but their untruth lacks the infusion of candor which a skillful male liar can introduce. — E. V. Lucas

Untruthful! My nephew Algernon? Impossible! He is an Oxonian. — Oscar Wilde

As soon as we lose the moral basis, we cease to be religious. There is no such thing as religion over-riding morality. Man, for instance, cannot be untruthful, cruel or incontinent and claim to have God on his side. — Mahatma Gandhi

I pressed my dark issues to the back of my mind and smiled a slight untruthful happiness . . . — Bethany Anne Miller

The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered ... it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful. — G.K. Chesterton

The History of Truth

In that ago when being was believing,
Truth was the most of many credibles,
More first, more always, than a bat-winged lion,
A fish-tailed dog or eagle-headed fish,
The least like mortals, doubted by their deaths.

Truth was their model as they strove to build
A world of lasting objects to believe in,
Without believing earthenware and legend,
Archway and song, were truthful or untruthful:
The Truth was there already to be true.

This while when, practical like paper-dishes,
Truth is convertible to kilowatts,
Our last to do by is an anti-model,
Some untruth anyone can give the lie to,
A nothing no one need believe is there. — W. H. Auden

My landscapes are not only beautiful, or nostalgic, with a Romantic or classical suggestion of lost Paradises, but above all 'untruthful.' By 'untruthful,' I mean the glorifying way we look at Nature. Nature, which in all its forms is always against us, because it knows no meaning, no pity, no sympathy, because it knows nothing and is absolutely mindless, the total antithesis of ourselves. — Gerhard Richter

It's like there is a huge balance scale in the sky, weighing the relative strength of two opposing fields of Influence. One side represents those opening to a higher personal spirituality, and thus acting to lift others into that consciousness. The other side of the scale represents those who are still stuck in fear and anger, who are acting to pull people down into a simmering, untruthful fear and rage. The statement hit me hard. That meant there was a contagion from both sides, and the balance shifted daily depending on how consistently those in Alignment could hold their truth with others. — James Redfield