Falsehood Quotes

Dishonor waits on perfidy. A man should blush to think a falsehood; it is the crime of cowards.

C. Johnson.

Dare to be true; nothing can need a lie.

Herbert.

The lie of fear is the refuge of cowardice, and the lie of fraud the device of the cheat. The inequalities of men and the lust of acquisition are a constant premium on lying.

Edward Bellamy.

A lie has always a certain amount of weight with those who wish to believe it.

E.W. Rice.

If falsehood had, like truth, but one face only, we should be upon better terms; for we should then tale the contrary to what the liar says for certain truth; but the reverse of truth hath a hundred figures, and is a field indefinite without bound or limit.

Montaigne.

Falsehoods not only disagree with truths, but usually quarrel among themselves.

Daniel Webster.

The gain of lying is nothing else but not to be trusted of any, nor to be believed when we say the truth.

Sir W. Raleigh.

Some men relate what they think, as what they know; some men of confused memories, and habitual inaccuracy, ascribe to one man what belongs to another; and some talk on without though or care. A few men are sufficient to broach falsehoods, which are afterwards innocently diffused by successive relaters.

Johnson.

A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood.

Shenstone.

None but cowards lie.

Murphy.

He who tells a lie is not sensible how great a task he undertakes; for he must invent twenty more to maintain that one.

Pope.

No species of  falsehood is more frequent than flattery to which the coward is betrayed by fear, the dependent by interest, and the friend by tenderness.

Falsehood is never so successful as when she baits her hook with truth, and no opinions so fatally mislead us, as those that are not wholly wrong; as no watches so effectually deceive the wearer as those that are sometimes right.

Colton.

It is more from carelessness about that truth, than from intention of lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world.

Johnson.

Falsehood, like the dry rot, flourishes the more in proportion as air and light are excluded.

Waately.

When Aristotle was asked what a man could gain by telling a falsehood, he replied “Never to be credited when he speaks the truth.”

Although the devil be the father of lies, he seems, like other great inventors, to have lost much of his reputation by the continual improvements that have been made upon him.

Swift.

The telling of a falsehood is like the cut of a saber; for through the wound may heal, the scar of it will remain.

Saadi.

Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult! Examine your words well and you will find that even when you have no motive to be false it is very hard to say the exact truth, even about your own immediate feelings much harder than to say something fine about them which is not the exact truth.

George Eliot.

Not the least misfortune is a prominent falsehood is the fact that tradition is apt to repeat if for truth.

H.Ballou.

Falsehood, like poison, will generally be rejected when administered alone; but when blended with wholesome ingredients, may be swallowed unperceived.

Whately.

O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath; a goodly apple rotten at the heart!

Shakespeare.

Falsehood has na infinity of combinations, but truth has only one mode of being.

Rousseau.