Lying quotes
11.7K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside lying — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Do not grudge your brother his rest. He has at last become free, safe and immortal, and ranges joyous through the boundless heavens; he has left this low-lying region and has soared upwards to that place which receives in its happy bosom the souls set free from the chains of matter. Your brother has not lost the light of day, but has obtained a more enduring light. He has not left us, but has gone on before."
"Behind every mystery lies another mystery."
"The meaning lies in the appropriation."
"Beauty is an inner phenomenon. Beauty is not in objects, not in people, not even in the eyes of the beholder. It lies in the heart of every person"
"And his paths shall be many, and who shall know his name, for he shall be beorn among us many times, in many guises, as he has been and ever will be, time without end. His coming shall be like the sharp edge of the plow, turning our lives in furrows form out of the places where we lie in our silence. The breaker of binds; the forger of chains. The maker of futures; the unshaper of destiny. -from Commentaries on the Prophecies of the Dragon, by Jurith Dorine, Right Hand to the Queen of Almoren, 742 AB, the Third Age"
"It is usual for a woman, even though she may ardently desire to give herself to a man, to feign reluctance, to simulate alarm or indignation. She must be brought to consent by urgent pleading, by lies, adjurations, and promises. I know that only professional prostitutes are accustomed to answer such an invitation with a perfectly frank assent -- prostitutes, or simple-minded, immature girls."
"The cruelest lies are often told in silence. A man may have sat in a room for hours and not opened his teeth, and yet come out of that room a disloyal friend or a vile calumniator. And how many loves have perished because, from pride, or spite, or diffidence, or that unmanly shame which withholds a man from daring to betray emotion, a lover, at the critical point of the relation, has but hung his head and held his tongue?"
"I love you too much to lie to you, Lisey. I love you with all that passes for my heart. I suspect that kind of all-out love becomes a burden to a woman in time, but it's the only kind I have to give. I think we're going to be quite a wealthy couple in terms of money, but I'll almost certainly be an emotional pauper all my life. I've got the money coming, but as for the rest I've got just enough for you, and I won't ever dirty or dilute it with lies. Not with the words I say, not with the ones I hold back."
"Success lies in a masterful consistency around a few fundamentals. It really is simple. Not easy. But simple."
"A fear is just a lie that you've rehearsed so many times you believe it's true."
"I thought I was fooling people. But it's the old thing of 'they say vodka doesn't smell'. No, not until you sweat. And you just lie and lie and you think 'I can deal with this'. And then you finally go, 'No you can't'. And then you give up."
""It's just literally being afraid. And you think, oh, [the alcohol] will ease the fear. And it doesn't." What was he afraid of? "Everything. It's just a general all-round arggghhh. It's fearfulness and anxiety." He added, "For that first week you lie to yourself, and tell yourself you can stop, and then your body kicks back and says, no, stop later. And then it took about three years, and finally you do stop.""
"I called to wish you an unhappy birthday because you're evil and you lie and if you should die I may feel slightly sad, but I won't cry."
"If a lady comes up to you and tells you that your dear mama is lying in a faint on the pavement round the corner, don't you believe her, don't have anything to do with her, do not go with her into the cab. It is the White Slave Traffic."
"Every individual has in himself perfection. It lies within the dark recesses of his physical being."
"Is it the sea you hear in me? Its dissatisfactions? Or the voice of nothing, that was your madness? Love is a shadow. How you lie and cry after it."
"What have I eaten? Lies and smiles."
"I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly, as the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands. I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions."
"A ring of gold with the sun in it? Lies. Lies and a grief."
"Turns out it was mostly a lie. But, at least for a short while, it was a beautiful one."
