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Lying is untruthfulness

• Lying: Not telling the truth. Oxford Dictionary
• Lying: The telling of lies, or false statements; untruthfulness.  Dictionary.com
• Lie: A false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth; a falsehood.  Dictionary.com
• Illusion,  Deceit,  Dishonesty,  Infidelityx,  Stealing,   Distrust,  Honesty,  Integrity

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The essence of lying is in the intention to deceive 

• All deception in the course of life is indeed nothing else but a lie reduced to practice, and falsehood passing from words into things. Robert South
• Don’t tell me of deception; a lie is a lie, whether it be a lie to the eye or a lie to the ear. Dr. Samuel Johnson
• Just because something isn’t a lie does not mean that it isn’t deceptive. A liar knows that he is a liar, but one who speaks mere portions of truth in order to deceive is a craftsman of destruction. Criss Jami
• Somewhere between the honest truth and the deceptive lie is the deceptive truth and the honest lie. Robert Brault
• The essence of lying is in deception, not in words. John Ruskin
• A lie does not consist in the indirect position of words, but in the desire and intention, by false speaking, to deceive and injure your neighbor. Jonathan Swift
• Deceit

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Many becry lying as a sin and a curse on society 

• Anything is better than lies and deceit! Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
• Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar but is a stab at the health of human society. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.   Thomas Paine
• Lies were lethal, however honourable the intentions of the liar. They deprived people of the opportunity to know the basic facts of their own lives. Sophie Hannah
• Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all. Oliver Wendell Holmes
• When a man lies, he murders some part of the world. Rospo Pallenberg and John Boorman
• Lying and stealing are next door neighbors. Arabic Proverb
• I’m a very firm believer that a liar is a cheat and a thief and a crook. I don’t like liars. I never lie. I always told my own child, “If you murder somebody, tell me. I’ll help you hide the body. But don’t you lie to me. Leona Helmsley
• Lying is a sin destructive to society; for there is no trade where there is no trust, and there is no trust where there is no truth. Wellins Calcott
• Sin

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Lying, they say, is bad for your soul and character 

• You can’t lie to your soul. Irvine Welsh
• False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. Plato
• Hard truths can be dealt with, triumphed over, but lies will destroy your soul. Patricia Briggs
• Little lies are very dangerous, because there are so many of them, and because each one of them scours upon the character as diamond- pointed. Henry Ward Beecher
• Character

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Lies have the power to destroy much … 

• Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies. Dorothy Allison
• Yeah, it never fails to amaze me how a single lie can undo an entire lifetime of good. Sherrilyn Kenyon

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… especially reputation and trust 

• There is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to be found false and perfidious. Francis Bacon
• A lie is a very short wick in a very small lamp. The oil of reputation is very soon sucked up and gone. And just as soon as a man is known to lie, he is like a two-foot pump in a hundred- foot well. He cannot touch bottom at all. Henry Ward Beecher
• Lies were like acid, corrosive: They could dissolve trust in a heartbeat. Rob Thurman
• A single lie destroys a whole reputation for integrity. Baltasar Gracian
• One lie has the power to tarnish a thousand truths. Al David
• When one’s character begins to fall under suspicion and disfavor, how swift, then, is the work of disintegration and destruction. Mark Twain
• Reputation,  Trust

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Tell lies and people stop believing you even if you’re telling the truth 

• I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you. Friedrich Nietzsche
• The liar suffers twice: he neither believes nor is believed. Baltasar Gracian
• A liar will not be believed even when he speaks the truth. Aesop
• Liars when they speak the truth are not believed. Aristotle
• Whoever has even once become notorious by base fraud, even if he speaks the truth, gains no belief. Phaedrus
• No one believes a liar. Even when she’s telling the truth. Sara Shepard
• Hell hath no fury like a habitual liar disbelieved when telling the truth. Tiptree
• She looks honestly upset, but then, I’ve learned that I can’t read her. The problem with a really excellent liar is that you have to just assume they’re always lying. Holly Black

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Tell lies and you become weakened and diminished 

• If you tell the truth, you have infinite power supporting you; but if not, you have infinite power against you. Charles Gordon
• The truly scary thing about undiscovered lies is that they have a greater capacity to diminish us than exposed ones. They erode our strength, our self- esteem, our very foundation. Cheryl Hughes
• There is beauty in truth, even if it’s painful. Those who lie, twist life so that it looks tasty to the lazy, brilliant to the ignorant, and powerful to the weak. But lies only strengthen our defects. They don’t teach anything, help anything, fix anything or cure anything. Nor do they develop one’s character, one’s mind, one’s heart or one’s soul. José N. Harris
• We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to them. Samuel Butler
• My father always told me that what’s wrong with lying is that it’s an admission of weakness. If you’re the strongest, you can afford to tell the truth. K. J. Parker

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Tell lies and you lose your dignity and integrity 

• By a lie a man throws away and, as it were, annihilates his dignity as a man. Immanuel Kant
• He that loseth his honesty hath nothing else to lose. John Lyly
• Lose your temper and you lose a friend; lie and you lose yourself. Hopi Adage
• Dignity,  Integrity

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Tell a small lie and often it becomes a big lie 

• Those who think it is permissible to tell white lies soon grow color-blind. Austin O’Malley
• The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold. Aristotle

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Tell a lie and you have to stay true to it 

• Worse than telling a lie is spending the rest of your life staying true to a lie. Robert Brault
• With lies you may get ahead in the world – but you can never go back. Russian proverb

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Tell a lie and it often leads to a tangled web of more lies 

• Being manipulative is dishonest and immature. We often end up having to make up more lies to cover for inconsistencies in our original manipulation. In addition, it sets a terrible example for our children. While it may solve your initial problem, the tangled web that grows from such dishonesty is more trouble than it’s worth. Julie A., M.A. Ross and Judy Corcoran
• It is always better to tell the truth because you stay clean that way. When you tell a lie, you live a lie forever. Not only that, you almost always have to cover it up with new lies. It is a cycle that never ends. Celestine Chua
• Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive! Sir Walter Scott
• The biggest consequence to telling a lie is, it leads you to telling another one. Gary King
• He who tells a lie, is not sensible how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one. Alexander Pope

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Tell a lie and it can become a habit … 

• 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
• It seemed there was no end at all to the lies a person could tell, once she got started. Kim Edwards
• Lies are like sleeping pills. You should only use them when you absolutely have to. They spoil everything if you make a habit of them. Daniel Quinn
• Habit

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… until it becomes a way of life 

• Habitual liars invent falsehoods not to gain any end or even to deceive their hearers, but to amuse themselves. It is partly practice and partly habit. It requires an effort in them to speak truth. William Hazlitt
• All my life I have lied. I lied to escape, I lied to be loved, I lied for placement and power; I lied to lie. It was a way of living; lies are life’s almost-anagram. John Banville

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Tell a lie and you only fuel the fear that fed it 

• We tell lies when we are afraid… afraid of what we don’t know, afraid of what others will think, afraid of what will be found out about us. But every time we tell a lie, the thing that we fear grows stronger. Tad Williams
• Falsehood is invariably the child of fear in one form or another. Aleister Crowley
• I never lie because I don’t fear anyone. You only lie when you’re afraid.   John Gotti
• Lies are usually caused by undue fear of men. Hasidic Proverb
• Nobody believes a liar…even when he is telling the truth! Aesop
• Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are our own fears. Rudyard Kipling
• The man who fears no truth has nothing to fear from lies. Thomas Jefferson
• A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt dangerous. Alfred Adler
• Fear

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Tell a lie and you often lose touch with what the truth really us 

• Some liars are so expert they deceive themselves. Laurell K. Hamilton
• If you live in bad faith, lies will appear to you like the truth. Frank Herbert
• Truth

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Tell a lie and you tend to suspect others of lying too 

• It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place. Henry Louis Mencken
• The liar’s punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else. George Bernard Shaw

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Even a white lie can have a very dark hue 

• Those who think it is permissible to tell white lies soon grow color blind. Austin O’Malley
• People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I’ve learned is that a lie is an act of self- abdication, because one surrenders one’s reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one’s master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person’s view requires to be faked…The man who lies to the world, is the world’s slave from then on…There are no white lies, there is only the blackest of destruction, and a white lie is the blackest of all. Ayn Rand
• A small lie, if it actually is a lie, condemns a man as much as a big and black falsehood. If a man will deliberately cheat to the amount of a single cent, give him opportunity and he would cheat to any amount. H. Chapin
• Someone who lies about the little things will lie about the big things too. Terry McAuliffe

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Some argue that lies are by no means always bad … 

• Lies are essential to humanity. They are perhaps as important as the pursuit of pleasure and moreover are dictated by that pursuit. Marcel Proust
• Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art. Oscar Wilde
• The truth is always an insult or a joke, lies are generally tastier. We love them. The nature of lies is to please. Truth has no concern for anyone’s comfort. Katherine Dunn
• Truly, to tell lies is not honorable; but when the truth entails tremendous ruin, To speak dishonorably is pardonable. Creusa
• Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• 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
• A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation. Saki
• Integrity is a bugger, it really is. Lying can get you into difficulties, but to really wind up in the crappers try telling nothing but the truth. David Mitchell

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… and can actually benefit society by lessening social frictions 

• Society can exist only on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly what he thinks. Lin Yutang
• Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, and lessens the frictions of social contacts. Clare Booth Luce
• Of course, I lie to people. But I lie altruistically – for our mutual good. The lie is the basic building block of good manners. That may seem mildly shocking to a moralist – but then what isn’t? Quentin Crisp

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There are even times when a lie does less damage than the truth 

• A truth that’s told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent. William Blake
• Lies that build are better than truths that destroy. Senegalese Proverb

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We’re often only too happy to swallow a lie that make us feel good 

• We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter. Denis Diderot
• Some lies are easier to believe than the truth. Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson
• A liar is a man who does now know how to deceive, a flatterer one who only deceives fools: he who knows how to make skillful use of the truth, and understands its eloquence, can alone pride himself in cleverness. Luc De Clapiers, Marquis De Vauvenargues
• An unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling falsehood. Aldous Huxley
• The lie that flatters I abhor the most. William Cowper
• His lies were so exquisite I almost wept. Dave Eggers

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In fact, some lies are much easier to believe and swallow than the truth 

• Some lies are easier to believe than the truth. Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson
• Most people will accept a likely lie to an unlikely truth. In fact, they prefer it. Laurell K. Hamilton
• Gradually I came to realize that people will more readily swallow lies than truth, as if the taste of lies was homey, appetizing: a habit. Martha Gellhorn

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The most believable lie always has some truth mixed in with it 

• If you wish to strengthen a lie, mix a little truth in with it. Zohar
• The most mischievous liars are those who keep on the verge of truth. Eliza Cook
• The closer to the truth, the better the lie, and the truth itself, when it can be used, is the best lie. Isaac Asimov
• The best lies are always at least partially true. Laurell K. Hamilton
• He who clips away a little truth and puts in a patch of falsehood to make measure, is likely to become a skillful manufacturer of lies. John Thornton
• It was so useful to lie with the truth. Tanith Lee

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A half-truth can do more damage than a whole lie 

• A half-truth is a whole lie. Yiddish Proverb
• A half-truth is the most cowardly of lies. Charles M. Schulz
• A lie that is half-truth is the darkest of all lies. Alfred Lord Tennyson
• Beware of the half-truth. You may have gotten hold of the wrong half.
• Half a truth is often a great lie. Benjamin Franklin
• It is twice as hard to crush a half-truth as a whole lie.
• Never forget that a half truth is a whole lie.
• There was a distinction between lying and telling half-truths, but it was a very narrow one. Alexander McCall Smith
• A half-truth does more mischief than a whole lie. Ivan Panin

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A lie tends to run sprints … 

• A lie can run around the world before the truth can get its boots on. James Watt
• A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. Mark Twain
• A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on. Winston Churchill
• A lie has no leg, but a scandal has wings. Thomas Fuller
• Truth travels slowly and gets weaker as it goes. Suitable lies are strong and run faster. Ariana Franklin

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… while the truth is more of a marathon runner 

• A lie has speed, but truth has endurance. Edgar J. Mohn
• Lies run sprints, but the truth runs marathons. Michael Jackson
• Truthful lips endure forever, the lying tongue, for only a moment. Proverbs 12:19
• A lie stands on one leg, truth on two. Benjamin Franklin
• Honesty is something you can’t wear out. Waylon Jennings
• Deceit is in haste, but honesty can wait a fair leisure. Proverb

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A lie tends to have a short shelf life – or does it? 

• A lie may take care of the present, but it has no future.
• A lie never lives to be old. Sophocles
• The history of our race, and each individual’s experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal. Mark Twain

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A lie repeated often enough convinces many of its truth 

• A lie told often enough becomes the truth. Lenin
• If a lie is repeated often enough all the dumb jackasses in the world not only get to believe it, they even swear by it. Billy Boy Franklin
• If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed. Adolf Hitler
• Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it. Adolf Hitler
• Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth. D. Roosevelt
• The continued utterance of a lie does not make it true, but it does convince many that it is, particularly if you can squelch most efforts to expose the lie. Shapley R. Hunter

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With time, some lies even become self-fulfilling truths 

• Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophesies come true, but they can lie and make their lies come true. Eric Hoffer
• Lies are sufficient to breed opinion, and opinion brings on substance. Francis Bacon
• A lie told often enough becomes the truth. Lenin

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Believing a lie doesn’t make the truth go away 

• A concealed truth, that’s all a lie is. Either by omission or commission we never do more than obscure. The truth stays in the undergrowth, waiting to be discovered. Josephine Hart
• A lie is just the truth waiting to be itself. Terri Guillemets
• And, after all, what is a lie? ‘Tis but the truth in masquerade. Lord Byron
• No denial of the truth will ever invalidate it. Nikki Rosen
• When the lies are all told and forgot the truth will be their yet. Cormac Mccarthy 
• There must be repressed truth even in lies. Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz

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A truth misunderstood can become a lie 

• There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it. William James

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Sometimes the best way to introduce truth is with a lie 

• I have always loved truth so passionately that I have often resorted to lying as a way of introducing it into the minds which were ignorant of its charms. Giacomo Casanova

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Admitting you’re a liar is sometimes the most truthful you can be 

• Not only did I lie about lying, but I lied about lying about lying. And you’d better believe that’s the truth. Jarod Kintz
• A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar. Mark Twain

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A lie can reveal truth about the liar 

• Our lies reveal as much about us as our truths. M. Coetzee
• Sometimes it is easier to see clearly into the liar than into the man who tells the truth. Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object. Albert Camus
• Sometimes you can learn things from the way a person denies something. The choice of lies can be almost as helpful as the truth. Laurell K. Hamilton

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The tongue may lie but the eyes tell the truth 

• When the tongue lies, the eyes tell the truth. George Horace Lorimer
• Understand that the tongue can conceal the truth, but the eyes–never! Mikhail Bulgakov

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More thoughts on lies verse truth

• A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood. William Shenstone
• A lie is often the mirror image of the truth; by examining it carefully, you can reconstruct the fact that lie was designed to conceal. K. J. Parker
• When truth is divided, errors multiply.  Eli Siegel
• Falsehood is often rocked by truth, but she soon outgrows her cradle and discards her nurse. Charles Caleb Colton
• The art of living is the art of knowing how to believe lies. The fearful thing about it is that, not knowing what truth may be, we can still recognize lies. Cesare Pavese
• Tell your friend a lie. If he keeps it secret, then tell him the truth. Proverb

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The easiest person to lie to is yourself 

• Am I lying to you if I tell you the same lie I tell myself? Robert Brault
• I lie to myself all the time. But I never believe me. S.E. Hinton
• I suppose we all lie to ourselves sometimes. Cassandra Clare
• If it is necessary sometimes to lie to others, it is always despicable to lie to oneself. William Somerset Maugham
• It is not only by dint of lying to others, but also of lying to ourselves, that we cease to notice that we are lying. Marcel Proust
• Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others. Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Stop lying to yourself. When we deny our own truth, we deny our own potential. Steve Maraboli
• The lies we tell other people are nothing to the lies we tell ourselves. Derek Landy
• We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves. Eric Hoffer
• The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves. V. S. Naipaul
• 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 visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others. Friedrich Nietzsche

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Often, we tell ourselves lies to justify our lies 

• Every lie is two lies — the lie we tell others and the lie we tell ourselves to justify it. Robert Brault
• Lies are a little fortress; inside them you can feel safe and powerful. Through your little fortress of lies you try to run your life and manipulate others. But the fortress needs walls, so you build some. These are the justifications for your lies. You know, like you are doing this to protect someone you love, to keep them from feeling pain. Whatever works, just so you feel okay about the lies. Paul young

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The person we most often lie about is our self 

• The best lies about me are the ones I told. Patrick Rothfuss

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The worst person to lie to is the one you love 

• I love you, and because I love you, I would sooner have you hate me for telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies. Pietro Aretino
• I never lie,” I said offhand. “At least not to those I don’t love. Anne Rice
• Oh, what lies there are in kisses. Heinrich Heine
• As important in a trusting relationship as the truths you share are the lies you never have to tell. Robert Brault

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Don’t tolerate lies in a relationship 

• Cheating and lying aren’t struggles, they’re reasons to break up. Patti Callahan Henry
• When your lover is a liar, you and he have a lot in common, you’re both lying to you! Susan Forward

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Where you discover one lie, there are usually more 

• Like the layers of an onion, under the first lie is another, and under that another, and they all make you cry. Derrick Jensen

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You can’t trust people who lie 

• Who lies for you will lie against you. Bosnian Proverb
• Someone who lies about the little things will lie about the big things too. Terry McAuliffe
• A small lie, if it actually is a lie, condemns a man as much as a big and black falsehood. If a man will deliberately cheat to the amount of a single cent, give him opportunity and he would cheat to any amount. H. Chapin

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It takes great skill to lie well 

• Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well. Samuel Butler

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To be a good liar, you need to have an excellent memory 

• A liar should have a good memory. De Institutione Oratoria
• If you don’t want to slip up tomorrow, speak the truth today. Bruce Lee
• If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything. Mark Twain
• It is not without good reason said, that he who has not a good memory should never take upon him the trade of lying. Michel de Montaigne
• Liars need good memories. French Proverb
• No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar. Abraham Lincoln
• A good memory is needed once we have lied. Pierre Corneille
• 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
• Memory

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To tell a good lie, disguise it with some truth 

• He who clips away a little truth and puts in a patch of falsehood to make measure, is likely to become a skillful manufacturer of lies. John Thornton
• The slickest way in the world to lie is to tell the right amount of truth at the right time-and then shut up. Robert A. Heinlein
• If you wish to strengthen a lie, mix a little truth in with it. Zohar
• It was so useful to lie with the truth. Tanith Lee
• People always overdo the matter when they attempt deception. Charles Dudley Warner
• The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way. Samuel Butler
• The closer to the truth, the better the lie, and the truth itself, when it can be used, is the best lie. Isaac Asimov
• The most mischievous liars are those who keep on the verge of truth. Eliza Cook
• The best lies are always at least partially true. Laurell K. Hamilton

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To tell a good lie, lie as little as possible 

• The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way. Samuel Butler
• People always overdo the matter when they attempt deception. Charles Dudley Warner

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To tell a good lie, don’t make it sound too fluent and rehearsed 

• Great talker, great liar. Proverb
• A flow of words is a sure sign of duplicity. Honore De Balzac

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Sometimes we lie by leaving things out 

• And this wasn’t lying, not really. It was leaving out. Stephen King

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Sometimes we lie by being inaccurate with the truth 

• I don’t mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy. Samuel Butler
• A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation. Saki
• It contains a misleading impression, not a lie. It was being economical with the truth. Robert Armstrong
• That’s not a lie, it’s a terminological inexactitude. Also, a tactical misrepresentation. Alexander Haig
• Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy, of dishonesty. Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Sometimes we lie by exaggeration

• Exaggeration is a blood relation to falsehood and nearly as blamable. Hosea Ballou

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Sometimes we lie through secrecy

• Secret is the mother of all lies. Toba Beta

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Sometimes we lie through silence – and that can be the cruelest lie of all 

• The cruelest lies are often told in silence. Adlai Stevenson
• When truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie. Yevgeny Yevtushenko
• It was easier to lie with a gesture than a word. Samuel R. Delany

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Very often, we lie in the excuses we give 

• A lie is an excuse guarded. Jonathan Swift
• It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one. George Washington
• Very sorry can’t come. Lie follows by post. Lord Charles Beresford
• Excuses

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No one lies like a politician 

• It is sometimes necessary to lie damnably in the interests of the nation. Hilaire Belloc
• On average, women are better liars than men. But the best liars are men, because politicians are still predominantly men. Jarod Kintz
• The best time to listen to a politician is when he’s on a stump on a street corner in the rain late at night when he’s exhausted. Then he doesn’t lie. Theodore H. White
• The difference in golf and government is that in golf you can’t improve your lie. George Deukmejian
• The law requires a paper towel ad to be scrupulously honest but allows political candidates to lie without reproach. What’s wrong with this picture? Jef I. Richards
• The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they’re lying, they know we know they’re lying, but they keep lying to us, and we keep pretending to believe them. Elena Gorokhova
• When it comes to controlling human beings, there is no better instrument than lies. Because, you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. Michael Ende
• Politics

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Women are liars.  And so are men. 

• On average, women are better liars than men. But the best liars are men, because politicians are still predominantly men. Jarod Kintz
• Men are liars. We’ll lie about lying if we have to. I’m an algebra liar. I figure two good lies make a positive. Tim Allen

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Parents are liars because it’s in their job description 

• But mothers lie. It’s in the job description. John Green
• How is it possible that our parents lied to us?” “Let’s see: Santa, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter bunny, um, God. You’re the prettiest kid in school. This won’t hurt a bit. Your face will freeze like that. Everything’s going to be alright. Brian K. Vaughan
• What does the truth matter? Haven’t we mothers all given our sons a taste for lies, lies which from the cradle upwards lull them, reassure them, send them to sleep: lies as soft and warm as a breast! Georges Bernanos

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Children learn and lie back 

• The thing about lying to your parents is, you have to do it to protect them. It’s for their own good. Sophie Kinsella
• Children and fools cannot lie. Proverb

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Lies would hardly exist at all if there were no questions 

• Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no fibs. Oliver Goldsmith
• Ask no questions and you’ll hear no lies. James Joyce
• If you do not wish to be lied to, do not ask questions. If there were no questions, there would be no lies. B. Traven

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History and legend are lies agreed upon 

• Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age. H. L. Mencken
• History is a set of lies agreed upon. Napoleon Bonaparte

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Nothing thrives in war like lies 

• It’s often been observed that the first casualty of war is the truth. But that’s a lie, too, in its way. The reality is that, for most wars to begin, the truth has to have been sacrificed a long time in advance. L. Neil Smith
• People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election. Otto von Bismarck
• How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print. Karl Kraus

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Advertisements lie – or do they? 

• Telling lies does not work in advertising. Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
• Advertising is legalized lying. H.G. Wells
• Regardless of the moral issue, dishonesty in advertising has proved very unprofitable. Leo Burnett
• Advertising

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Ambition often tends to lie 

• Ambition drove many men to become false; to have one thought locked in the breast, another ready on the tongue. Sallust
• It is the nature of ambition to make men liars and cheats, to hide the truth in their breasts, and show, like jugglers, another thing in their mouths, to cut all friendships and enmities to the measure of their own interest, and to make a good countenance without the help of good will. Sallust
• Ambition

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The innocent always fall for lies the hardest 

• It is not difficult to deceive the first time, for the deceived possesses no antibodies and is unvaccinated by suspicion. John Updike
• The trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful tool. Stephen King

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The camera cannot lie – or can it? 

• The camera cannot lie, but it can be an accessory to untruth. Harold Evans
• While photographs may not lie, liars may photograph. Lewis Hine
• I believe it was probably less than ten minutes that went by from the invention of photography to the point where people realized that they could lie with photographs. Errol Morris

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Liars are always ready to take oaths 

• A liar is always lavish of oaths. Pierre Corneille
• Liars are always ready to take oaths. Vittorio Alfieri

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The best fiction is imaginative lies that reveal truth 

• Fiction was invented the day Jonah arrived home and told his wife that he was three days late because he had been swallowed by a whale. Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez
• Romantic literature is in effect imaginative lying. Oscar Wilde
• Writing fiction is the act of weaving a series of lies to arrive at a greater truth. Khaled Hosseini
• A lie, sometimes, can be truer than the truth, which is why fiction gets written. Tim O’Brien
• Fiction is the truth inside the lie. Stephen King

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Never lie (unless you absolutely have to) 

• Dare to be true: nothing can need a lie:  A fault, which needs it most, grows two thereby.   George Herbert
• Don’t lie if you don’t have to. Leo Szilard
• Lies don’t fix things. They don’t even make things easier, at least not in the long run. Best to tell the truth and then clean up an honest mess. C. Cast & Kristin Cast

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Leaving out a lie can bring great reward 

• A lie will easily get you out of a scrape, and yet, strangely and beautifully, rapture possesses you when you have taken the scrape and left out the lie. Charles Edward Montague

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First time liars are the most believed 

• They say that it is the practiced liar who can deceive. But so often the practiced and chronic liar deceives only himself; it is the man who all his life has been self-convicted of veracity whose lies find quickest credence. William Faulkner

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• A gold mine is a hole in the ground with a liar on top. Mark Twain
• A new study found that most people can’t go 10 minutes without lying. But since the study took 20 minutes nobody knows what to believe. Jimmy Fallon
• A recent study found that people lie more when they are texting. Yeah, especially that one lie: “Sorry, just got your text!” Jimmy Fallon
• According to a recent survey, men say the first thing they notice about a woman is their eyes and women say the first thing they notice about men is they’re a bunch of liars.
• Advertising: Legalized lying. H.G. Wells
• All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it. H. L. Mencken
• Always tell the truth. Even if you have to make it up.
• Always telling the truth is no doubt better than always lying, although equally pathological. Robert Brault
• Any dentist who says, “This won’t hurt a bit is lying through your teeth.” Alfred E. Neuman
• Anybody who says they are a good liar obviously is not, because any legitimately savvy liar would always insist they’re honest about everything. Chuck Klosterman
• 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
• Diplomacy: The patriotic art of lying for one’s country. Ambrose Bierce
• Etiquette: A convenient code of conduct which makes lying a virtue and snobbishness a righteous deed.
• Euphemism is a euphemism for lying. Bobbie Gentry
• Fiction was invented the day Jonah arrived home and told his wife that he was three days late because he had been swallowed by a whale. Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez
• Figures won’t lie but liars can figure. Fletcher Knebel
• Fishing is a delusion entirely surrounded by liars in old clothes. Don Marquis
• Hell hath no fury like a habitual liar disbelieved when telling the truth. Tiptree
• I always tell the truth. Even when I lie. Al Pacino
• I am a lie who always speaks the truth. Jean Cocteau
• I do not mind lying but I hate inaccuracy. Samuel Butler
• I know of no sentence that can induce such immediate and brazen lying as the one that begins “Have you read ” Wilson Mizner
• I lie to myself all the time. But I never believe me. S.E. Hinton
• I must choose my words carefully in order to avoid any negative interpretation; among politicians this is a tactic known as lying. Pat Paulsen
• I wasn’t lying, I was just writing fiction with my mouth.
• If a person told you they were a pathological liar, should you believe them?
• Imagination, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership. Ambrose Bierce
• Isn’t it great to live in a society where the penalty for lying to a congressman can be up to 30 years in jail but the penalty for a congressman lying to you is another two years in office. Peter Schmuck
• It is always the best policy to speak the truth–unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar. Jerome K. Jerome
• It takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen. Homer Simpson
• Lying is like alcoholism. You are always recovering. Steven Soderbergh
• Lying is the most fun a woman can have without taking her clothes off. Natalie Portman
• My father told me all about the birds and the bees, the liar – I went steady with a woodpecker till I was twenty-one. Bob Hope
• One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives. Mark Twain
• People tell about two lies a day, or at least that is how many they will admit to. Bella DePaulo
• People who read the tabloids deserve to be lied to. Jerry Seinfeld
• Please don’t lie to me, unless you’re absolutely sure I’ll never find out the truth. Ashleigh Brilliant
• Politeness is half good manners and half good lying. Mary Wilson Little
• Retirement: The time of life when you stop lying about your age and start lying about the house.
• Tact: To lie about others as you would have them lie about you. Oliver Herford
• That’s not a lie, it’s a terminological inexactitude. Also, a tactical misrepresentation. Alexander Haig
• The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way. Samuel Butler
• The biggest liar in the world is the golfer who claims that he plays the game merely for exercise. Tommy Bolt
• The main difference between a cat and a lie is that a cat only has nine lives. Mark Twain
• The naked truth is always better than the best dressed lie. Ann Landers
• The reason I talk to myself is because I’m the only one whose answers I accept. George Carlin
• The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age. Lucille Ball
• There are two types of actors: those who say they want to be famous and those who are liars. Kevin Bacon
• These days the only time politicians tell the truth is when they call each other a liar. Alfred E. Neuman
• Very sorry can’t come. Lie follows by post. Lord Charles Beresford
• We can always tell when you are lying. Your lips move.
• What does the word ‘meteorologist’ mean in English? It means liar.   Lewis Black
• When I was a little boy they called me a liar but now that I am grown up they call me a writer. Isaac Singer
• When you stretch the truth, watch out for the snapback. Bill Copeland
• Whoever said nothing is impossible is a liar. I’ve been doing nothing for years.
• There are lies, damned lies and statistics. Mark Twain

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