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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"Lying is a disgraceful vice, and one that Plutarch paints in most disgraceful colors, when he says that it is "affording testimony that one first despises God, and then fears men." It is not possible more happily to describe its horrible, disgusting, and abandoned nature; for can we imagine anything more vile than to be cowards with regard to men, and brave with regard to God."
"In my opinion it is the happy living, and not, as Antisthenes said, the happy lying, in which human happiness consists."
"What kind of truth is it which has these mountains as its boundary and is a lie beyond them?"
"The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use; some men have lived long, and lived little; attend to it while you are in it. It lies in your will, not in the number of years, for you to have lived enough."
"True courage lies in the middle, between cowardice and recklessness."
"When you look at yourself in a mirror, do you like what you see, or do you judge your body and use the word to tell yourself lies? If you believe that you are not attractive enough, then you believe a lie, and you are using the word against yourself, against the truth."
"You know that if you lie to yourself, surely other people lie to themselves. And if they lie to themselves, they will lie to you also."
"For thousands of years, there have been lies about being gay or not being gay. If you know they're lies, you're free."
"Help me to change the world is an invitation to be authentic, to follow your heart, to be free of superstitions and lies. And I'm not asking you to try to change the world. Don't try: just do it."
"The truth is still the truth whether or not you believe it. Can we say the same about lies? No, lies only exist because we believe them. If we don't believe in lies, they simply disappear."
"So much of the knowledge in our minds is based on lies and superstitions that come from thousands of years ago. Humans create stories long before we are born, and we inherit those stories, we adopt them, and we live in those stories."
"That is why every brother and sister will react differently according to how they learn to defend themselves and adapt to different circumstances. When our parents are constantly fighting, when there is disharmony, disrespect, and lies, we learn the emotional way of being like them."
"You can recover the truth of what you really are. When you finally see yourself as you are, when you finally take responsibility for your creation, you will cleanse the lies from your own creation."
"Take your faith out of the lies! Free your faith, and you will see how powerful you become."
"You aren't staying in heaven because you still need to purify the mind. Your faith is powerful, but it is invested in what you believe you are, and most of what you believe about yourself is a lie."
"Humans are born in truth, but we grow up believing in lies."
"You deliver a message every time you speak. Do you deliver the truth, or do you deliver lies? When the message you deliver comes from truth and love, you are happier."
"Here lies a gentleman bold Who was so very brave He went to lengths untold, And on the brink of the grave Death had on him no hold. By the world he set small store-- He frightened it to the core-- Yet somehow, by Fate's plan, Though he'd lived a crazy man, When he died he was sane once more."
"The girl was grateful to the young man for every bit of flattery; she wanted to linger for a moment in its warmth and so she said, 'You're very good at lying.' 'Do I look like a liar?' 'You look like you enjoy lying to women,' said the girl, and into her words there crept unawares a touch of the old anxiety, because she really did believe that her young man enjoyed lying to women."
"What does it mean to live in truth? Putting it negatively is easy enough: it means not lying, not hiding, and not dissimulating."
