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- O, what a tangled web we weave;
- When first we practice to deceive!
SIR WALTER SCOTT, Marmion
The cruelest lies are often told in silence.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, Virginibus Puerisque
It is planned speeches that contain lies or dissimulations, not what you blurt out so spontaneously in one instant.
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, Forward to Sweet Bird of Youth
Falsehood has a perennial spring.
EDMUND BURKE, speech on American Taxation, 1774
Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no fibs.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH, She Stoops to Conquer
A good memory is needed once we have lied.
PIERRE CORNEILLE, Le Menteur
There are worse things than a lie... I have found... that it may be well to choose one sin in order that another may be shunned.
ANTHONY TROLLOPE, Doctor Wortle's School
I hate deception, even where the imagination only is concerned.
GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter to Dr. John Cochran, Aug. 16, 1779
The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool.
STEPHEN KING, Needful Things
The lie that flatters I abhor the most.
WILLIAM COWPER, Table Talk
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
MARK TWAIN, Autobiography
- No mask like open truth to cover lies,
- As to go naked is the best disguise.
WILLIAM CONGREVE, The Double Dealer
I never encourage deceit, and falsehood, especially if you have got a bad memory, is the worst enemy a fellow can have. The fact is truth is your truest friend, no matter what the circumstances are.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, letter to George E. Pickett, Feb. 22, 1841
He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, leter to Peter Carr, Aug. 19, 1785
- And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but
- The truth in masquerade.
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