Quotes About Lies

“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.”
― Mark Twain

“I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“The reason I talk to myself is because I’m the only one whose answers I accept.”
― George Carlin

“I lie to myself all the time. But I never believe me.”
― S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders

“There are three types of lies -- lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
― Benjamin Disraeli

“So you're always honest," I said.
"Aren't you?"
"No," I told him. "I'm not."
"Well, that's good to know, I guess."
"I'm not saying I'm a liar," I told him. He raised his eyebrows. "That's not how I meant it, anyways."
"How'd you mean it, then?"
"I just...I don't always say what I feel."
"Why not?"
"Because the truth sometimes hurts," I said.
"Yeah," he said. "So do lies, though.”
― Sarah Dessen, Just Listen

“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.”
― Leo Tolstoy, The Kreutzer Sonata

“If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.”
― Virginia Woolf

“A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.”
― William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

“It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.”
― George Washington

“It is an occupational hazard that anyone who has spent her life learning how to lie eventually becomes bad at telling the truth.”
― Ally Carter, Heist Society

“Lies require commitment.”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent

“If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.”
― Adolf Hitler

“All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

MY POINT EXACTLY.”
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

“Clinton lied. A man might forget where he parks or where he lives, but he never forgets oral sex, no matter how bad it is.”
― Barbara Bush

“Nothing is ever certain.”
― Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones

“Anyone who believes what a cat tells him deserves all he gets.”
― Neil Gaiman, Stardust

“I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won't.”
― Mark Twain

“Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies.”
― Oliver Goldsmith

“I guess sometimes you have to lie to find the truth. ”
― Scott Westerfeld

“History is a set of lies agreed upon.”
― Napoleon Bonaparte

“Knowing can be a curse on a person's life. I'd traded in a pack of lies for a pack of truth, and I didn't know which one was heavier. Which one took the most strength to carry around? It was a ridiculous question, though, because once you know the truth, you can't ever go back and pick up your suitcase of lies. Heavier or not, the truth is yours now.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees:

“Don't cry, I'm sorry to have deceived you so much, but that's how life is.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

“It [feminism] is mixed up with a muddled idea that women are free when they serve their employers but slaves when they help their husbands.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“I'm telling you a lie in a vicious effort that you will repeat my lie over and over until it becomes true”
― Lady Gaga

“Mal: Half of writing history is hiding the truth”
― Joss Whedon

“A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.”
― Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

“She says he says, but she could be lying to me, and he could be lying to her, so I can’t believe her, even if I could believe her.
”
― Jarod Kintz, This is the best book I've ever written, and it still sucks

“I told him I was going to betray you, and betray Lyra, and he believed me because I was corrupt and full of wickedness; he looked so deep I felt sure he'd see the truth. But I lied too well. I was lying with every nerve and fiber and everything I'd ever done...I wanted him to find no good in me, and he didn't. There is none.”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass