Lying Truth Quotes

There were people who lied for gain, people who lied from pain, people who lied simply because the concept of telling the truth was utterly alien to them ... and then there were people who lied because they were waiting for it to be time to tell the truth. ~ Stephen King

I always tell the truth. Even when I lie. ~ Al Pacino

Never lie when the truth is more profitable. ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

Sometimes the truth is arrived at by adding all the little lies together and deducting them from the totality of what is known. ~ Terry Pratchett

Cruel', O'Kelly laughed, 'it's cruel to tell children the truth. If anything convinces me of God's mercy, then it's his gift of making us unable to lie. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

No. Men should die for lies. But the truth is too precious to die for. ~ Terry Pratchett

But the truth is that no person ever understands another, from beginning to end of life, there is no truth that can be known, only the story we imagine to be true, the story they really believe to be true about themselves; and all of them lies. ~ Orson Scott Card

Truth is the lie you once told returning to haunt you ~ Dermot Healy

Truth is a risky proposition. It's the nature of mediocre human beings to believe that lies are necessary, that they serve a purpose, that truth is subversive, that candor is dangerous, that the very scaffold of communal life is supported by lies. ~ Anne Rice

The truth was more powerful than a lie could ever be (Eric) ~ Shannon A. Thompson

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. ~ Jose N Harris

Perhaps I really was disillusioned; unable to see myself for who, and what, I really was. Maybe I really was an ungrateful wretch who just refused to take responsibility for my own actions. Maybe I was lying to myself because I didn't want to admit to being a bad person. Maybe… ~ J.M. Northup

Strict and literal truthfulness was a trivial game and might even be a disagreeable neurotic affliction. ~ Saul Bellow

The truth is always easier than a lie or an evasion - easier to deal with and easier to live with. ~ J.K. Rowling

People only tell lies when the truth is disagreeable to them, or frightens them, or to cover sin. ~ Anne Perry

Lying is a defiance of the truth. Bullshitting is a wholesale dismissal of the truth. ~ Brene Brown

Alanna didn't approve of lying, but in a pinch a lie was sometimes better than the truth. ~ Tamora Pierce

Only the difference between truth and lies, courage and cowardice. ~ J.K. Rowling

No one believes a liar. Even when she's telling the truth. ~ Sara Shepard

Maybe I could dole out the truth in tiny pieces that, once assembled, would make a picture that resembled a reality in which I hadn't done anything wrong. ~ Paula Stokes

I was only half-lying. No, not lying. Omitting the truth – half of it, anyway. ~ Tabitha G. Kelly

Do What?'
'Lie,' he said. 'Why do you fabricate these outlandish stories?'
'Well,' I wanted to say, 'there are those of us who create because all around us, things visible and invisible are crumbling. We are like the stonemasons of Babylon, forever working, as it says in Jeremiah, to shore up the city of walls.'
I didn't say that, of course. What I did say was: 'I don't know. ~ Alan Bradley

He who lies artistically, treads closer to the truth than ever he knows. ~ Fritz Leiber

I lie about lying, which means I can lie ~ Alex

Eyes aren't good liars. ~ Shannon Wiersbitzky

The only part of you that hurts when you're given the truth is the part that lives on lies. ~ Stefan Molyneux

People who say "no" right away are usually lying. A truthful person is perfectly capable of saying "no" but generally they stop and think about it first. And they add "sorry" or something like that. Maybe they come out with some questions of their own. It's human nature. They say, "Sorry, no, why, what happened? ~ Lee Child

A harmful truth is better than a useful lie. ~ Thomas Mann

The lies are in the dialogue, the truth is in the visuals. ~ Kelly Reichardt

In your novels do you lie deliberately or just out of ignorance?"
Laughter. A murmur of approval. The writer hesitated a few seconds. Then counter-attacked:
"I'm a liar by vocation," he shouted. "I lie with joy! Literature is the only chance for a true liar to attain any sort of social acceptance."
Then more soberly, he added - his voice lowered - that the principal difference between a dictatorship and a democracy is that in the former there exists only one truth, the truth as imposed by power, while in free countries every man has the right to defend his own version of events.
Truth, he said, is a superstition. ~ Jose Eduardo Agualusa

The best way to make liars out of children is to punish them for telling the truth. ~ Marty Rubin

Telling one lie almost always requires another, and before the storyteller knows it, they will be caught inside of their own web. ~ Jenna Alatari

Is a lie still a lie
if you say it pretty? ~ Fortesa Latifi

The truth hurts, but those lies heal. ~ Drake

Truth is dissent, where all power resides in the Big Lie. ~ Allen Ginsberg

How easily the truth is lost, and how persistent lies are. ~ Sergei Lukyanenko

One man's gospel truth is another man's blasphemous lie. The dangerous thing about people is the way we'll try to kill anyone whose truth doesn't agree with ours. ~ Mira Grant

The naked truth is always better than the best-dressed lie. ~ Ann Landers

The Truth, believed, is a lie. ~ Werner Erhard

Remembering lies is a full-time job, one best to quit. ~ Rich DiSilvio

Meg invited me to come again, but I always had reasons why I couldn't: my schedule was busy, bus fare wasn't cheap. Both of which were true, even if they weren't the truth. ~ Gayle Forman

Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. ~ John F. Kennedy

Nowadays, anyone who wishes to combat lies and ignorance and to write the truth must overcome at least five difficulties. He must have the courage to write the truth when truth is everywhere opposed; the keenness to recognize it, although it is everywhere concealed; the skill to manipulate it as a weapon; the judgment to select those in whose hands it will be effective; and the running to spread the truth among such persons. ~ Bertolt Brecht

Truth and love will overcome lies and hatred. ~ Vaclav Havel

A truth is what it is. A lie, a thought out deception more brutal than a truth could ever be. ~ Charlotte Armstrong

People can tell the truth much more freely when they're apparently lying. ~ Eric Idle

Don't compare the insides of your marriage to the outsides of other people's marriages. Pictures don't tell the truth. Smiling faces on Christmas cards don't reveal the pain behind the scenes. While your struggles are very personal and often very painful, but they are not unique. ~ Jill Savage

He who has realized the Truth, Nirvāna, is the happiest being in the world. He is free from all 'complexes' and obsessions, … He does not repent the past, nor does he brood over the future. He lives fully in the present. … As he is free from selfish desire, hatred, ignorance, conceit, pride … , he is pure and gentle, full of universal love, compassion, kindness, sympathy, understanding and tolerance. His service to others is of the purest, for he has no thought of self. He gains nothing, accumulates nothing, not even spiritual, because he is free from the illusion of self, and the 'Thirst' for becoming. ~ Walpola Rahula

I began to pray those same fervent prayers, lying in bed at night, hoping to see a scroll unrolled from the ceiling with a message from God just for me. ~ James Green Somerville

But the truth is it's hard for me to know what I really think about any of the stuff I've written. It's always tempting to sit back and make finger-steeples and invent impressive sounding theoretical justifications for what one does, but in my case most of it'd be horseshit. As time passes I get less and less nuts about anything I've published, and it gets harder to know for sure when its antagonistic elements are in there because they serve a useful purpose and when their just covert manifestations of this "look-at-me-please-love-me-I-hate you" syndrome I still sometimes catch myself falling into. Anyway, but what I think I meant by "antagonize" or "aggravate" has to do with the stuff in the TV essay about the younger writer trying to struggle against the cultural hegemony of TV. One thing TV does is help us deny that we're lonely. With televised images, we can have the facsimile of a relationship without the work of a real relationship. It's an anesthesia of "form." The interesting thing is why we're so desperate for this anesthetic against loneliness. You don't have to think very hard to realize that our dread of both relationships and loneliness, both of which are like sub-dreads of our dread of being trapped inside a self (a psychic self, not just a physical self), has to do with angst about death, the recognition that I'm going to die, and die very much alone, and the rest of the world is going to go merrily on without me. I'm not sure I could give you a steeple-fingere ~ David Foster Wallace

He said that journeys involving the company of the dead were notorious for their difficulty but that in truth every journey was so accompanied. ~ Cormac McCarthy

In English, we were still on the Introduction to Poetry Unit, and I'm not lying, if I ever meet Percy Bysshe Shelley walking down the streets of Marysville, I'm going to punch him right in the face. ~ Gary D. Schmidt

The nutritionist said I should eat root vegetables.
Said if I could get down thirteen turnips a day
I would be grounded, rooted.
Said my head would not keep flying away
to where the darkness lives.

The psychic told me my heart carries too much weight.
Said for twenty dollars she'd tell me what to do.
I handed her the twenty. She said, "Stop worrying, darling.
You will find a good man soon."

The first psycho therapist told me to spend
three hours each day sitting in a dark closet
with my eyes closed and ears plugged.
I tried it once but couldn't stop thinking
about how gay it was to be sitting in the closet.

The yogi told me to stretch everything but the truth.
Said to focus on the out breath. Said everyone finds happiness
when they care more about what they give
than what they get.

The pharmacist said, "Lexapro, Lamicatl, Lithium, Xanax."

The doctor said an anti-psychotic might help me
forget what the trauma said.

The trauma said, "Don't write these poems.
Nobody wants to hear you cry
about the grief inside your bones."

But my bones said, "Tyler Clementi jumped
from the George Washington Bridge
into the Hudson River convinced
he was entirely alone."

My bones said, "Write the poems. ~ Andrea Gibson

Val cupped Peter's chin and held him close. "But you are mine, aren't you?"
"You're the devil, Val." Peter lowered his lashes, but not before Val had seen the truth there. ~ Kate Pearce

Make an island of yourself, make yourself your refuge; there is no other refuge. Make truth your island, make truth your refuge; there is no other refuge. ~ Gautama Buddha

Keep an open mind. The right person coming to you at the right time will change everything you ever thought was true. ~ Kate McGahan

That was the ace hidden up the sleeves of the Jardines, Mathesons and Dents of the world. Despite all their cacklings about Free Trade, the truth was that their commercial advantages had nothing to do with markets or trade or more advanced business practices – it lay in the brute firepower of the British Empire's guns and gunboats. ~ Amitav Ghosh

Many years ago someone told me something that I flatly refused to accept. And I still don't accept it now, despite all the times I've seen it proved right.
"The common good and the individual good rarely coincide ... "
Sure, I know, it's true.
But some truths are probably worse than lies. ~ Sergei Lukyanenko

I will settle, in the short term," said Dumbledore, with a bite of impatience in his voice, "for a lack of open hostility. You will shake hands. You are on the same side now. Time is short, and unless the few of us who know the truth stand united, there is no hope for any of us. ~ J.K. Rowling

We're on your side, but we need the truth. The only thing that makes you look bad is you holding out on us. ~ Gillian Flynn

A man in trouble laments that he did not listen to his teachers, and thus he finds himself in a sad state, utter ruin. A candid admission of a blunder is refreshing and not often heard in human affairs. It is the saint alone who is large-minded enough to think and speak in this way. This is part of his authenticity.
The person who is swift to hear and slow to respond is a stranger to an all-knowing illuminism. He believes that others, too, have some truth, and he is willing to be instructed by them. He is ready for the mind of God. ~ Thomas Dubay

At least she had a clear picture of what the Lying Game was now: Girl Scouts for psychopaths. ~ Sara Shepard

I've come to the conclusion that liking a person we are required to have dealings with is not of paramount importance. But respect is crucial, on both sides, as is tolerance, and a depth of understanding of those influences that sculpt a character. ~ Jacqueline Winspear

The pursuit of truth in science transcends national boundaries. It takes us beyond hatred and anger and fear. It is the best of us. ~ Arthur Eddington

When you are in love, reality becomes
illusion and illusion become reality. ~ Debasish Mridha

OK snark, settle. You're telling me you don't have the tiniest crush on him? Tell the truth, Grace," she said, cornering me over by the dishwasher.
"I don't have a crush," I debated.
"Well, maybe I have half a crush. I have a 'cruh'," I admitted, giggling.
"But it's strickly Joshua inspired," I added, knowing that was not entirely true. ~ Alice Clayton

The first thing you ought to do is verify what I present. Just because I say it doesn't make it true. So check it out, see what looks correct, what looks wrong, look at other material which wasn't discussed, figure out what the truth really is. That's what you've got a brain for. ~ Noam Chomsky

Underneath the visible problems with reading and writing lies the deeper problem of 'illearnacy': an acquired disabling of learning courage and learning initiative. ~ Guy Claxton

The firmness with which the (American) people have withstood the ... abuses of the press, the discernment they have manifested between truth and falsehood, show that they may safely be trusted to hear everything true and false and to form a correct judgment between them. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Smartass Disciple: Master, you keep preaching the truth. They don't listen.
Master of Stupidity: Oh that's not bad. That attitude keeps us in the business. ~ Toba Beta

History is idle gossip about a happening whose truth is lost the instant it has taken place. ~ Gore Vidal

If you really want truth, you need to escape the black hole of power, and allow yourself to waste a lot of time wandering here and there on the periphery. Revolutionary knowledge rarely makes it to the centre, because the centre is built on existing knowledge. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

Looking back, I see that I was born with the subtle sense that material treasures alone, no matter how grand, would never be enough to satisfy the longing in my heart to see the light, to know the truth. ~ Rod Stryker

The driving force of a nation lies in its spiritual purpose, made effective by free, tolerant but unremitting national will. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

And I knew that the Spirit that had gone forth to shape the world and make it live was still alive in it. I just had no doubt. I could see that I lived in the created world, and it was still being created. I would be part of it forever. There was no escape. The Spirit that made it was in it, shaping it and reshaping it, sometimes lying at rest, sometimes standing up and shaking itself, like a muddy horse, and letting the pieces fly. ~ Wendell Berry

Lying is forbidden in Iraq. President Saddam Hussein will tolerate nothing but truthfulness as he is a man of great honour and integrity. Everyone is encouraged to speak freely of the truths evidenced in their eyes and hearts. ~ Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf

The scarcity of truth is atoned for by the abundance of affidavits; if a rumor be impugned, its veracity is easily strengthened by additional emphasis of affirmation, until at last "everybody says so," and then it is undeniable. ~ Samuel Laman Blanchard

No one knows what capacities for doing and suffering he has in himself, until something comes to rouse them to activity: just as in a pond of still water, lying there like a mirror, there is no sign of the roar and thunder with which it can leap from the precipice, and yet remain what it is; or again, rise high in the air as a fountain. When water is as cold as ice, you can have no idea of the latent warmth contained in it. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Schooling will give you knowledge to make your living, but education is for living a life. ~ Debasish Mridha

Truth remains hidden to the man filled with desire and hatred" (Buddha)…. Which is to say, to every man alive. ~ Emil M. Cioran

And when we talk about race today, with all the pain packed into that conversation, the Holy Spirit remains in the room, This doesn't mean the conversations aren't painful, aren't personal, aren't charged with emotion. But it does mean we can survive. We can survive honest discussions about slavery, about convict leasing, about stolen land, deportation, discrimination, and exclusion. We can identify the harmful politics of gerrymandering, voter suppression, criminal justice laws, and policies that disproportionately affect people of color negatively. And we can expose the actions of white flight, the real impact of all-white leadership, the racial disparity in wages, and opportunities for advancement. We can lament and mourn. We can be livid and enraged. We can be honest. We can tell the truth. We can trust that the Holy Spirit is here. We must.
For only by being truthful about how we got here can we begin to imagine another way. ~ Austin Channing Brown

I think the mistake lots of people make when it comes to a psychopath is that they completely write off their actions as cruel, callous and completely calculated, but actually, the truth is that they have interests and reasons behind their actions. ~ James Norton

Love is never perfect, big brother. It's what you make of the imperfections in it that makes the ride worthwhile. ~ Jay Crownover

Dear Internet: You are very good at spreading rumors. Truth is more valuable and much harder to come by. ~ Mark Frost

Truth - An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. ~ Ambrose Bierce