32 Quotes About Lying

In a world where honesty is often touted as the best policy, the act of lying presents a curious contradiction. It weaves its way through personal relationships, fictional tales, and even historical events, shaping perceptions and influencing decisions. While deception is typically frowned upon, its complex and multifaceted nature cannot be ignored. To explore this paradox, we have curated a list of the top 32 quotes about lying, offering insights from philosophers, writers, and thinkers. These quotes delve into the motives, justifications, and consequences associated with lies, shedding light on why, despite its negative reputation, lying remains a prevalent aspect of human interaction.

1. “It's easier not to say anything. Shut your trap, button your lip, can it. All that crap you hear on TV about communication and expressing feelings is a lie. Nobody really wants to hear what you have to say.” - Laurie Halse Anderson

2. “It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving, it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.” - Thomas Paine

3. “There's a difference between playing and playing games. The former is an act of joy, the latter — an act.” - Vera Nazarian

4. “If any era should be aware of the temptations to rewrite history, it is our own.” - Marjorie Garber

5. “But keeping secrets is a discipline. I never use to think of myself as a good liar, but after having had some practice I had adopted the prevaricator's credo that one doesn't so much fabricate a lie as marry it. A successful lie cannot be brought into this world and capriciously abandoned; like any committed relationship it must be maintained, and with far more devotion than the truth, which carries on being carelessly true without any help. By contrast, my lie needed me as much as I needed it, and so demanded the constancy of wedlock: Till death do us part.” - Lionel Shriver

6. “There is a lie that acts like a virus within the mind of humanity. And that lie is, ‘There’s not enough good to go around. There’s lack and there’s limitation and there’s just not enough.’The truth is that there’s more than enough good to go around. There is more than enough creative ideas. There is more than enough power. There is more than enough love. There’s more than enough joy. All of this begins to come through a mind that is aware of its own infinite nature.There is enough for everyone. If you believe it, if you can see it, if you act from it, it will show up for you. That's the truth.” - Michael Beckwith

7. “It's not a lie if you don't tell the truth.But it's fucked up if you falsify the fact.” - Toba Beta

8. “If a man confessed anything on his death bed, it was the truth; for no man could stare death in the face and lie.” - richard wright

9. “...maybe it's only fitting that relationship that started with a lie would end with one.” - Ally Carter

10. “If you say that you never lie in life,you honestly insult my intelligence.” - Toba Beta

11. “Reality CheckHis lying is not contigent on who you are or what you do. His lying is not your fault. Lying is his choice and his problem, and if he makes that choice with you, he will make it with any other woman he’s with. That doesn’t mean you’re an angel and he’s the devil. It does mean that if he doesn’t like certain things about you, he has many ways to address them besides lying. If there are sexual problems between you, there are many resources available to help you. Nothing can change until you hold him responsible and accountable for lying and stop blaming yourself. The lies we tell ourselves to keep from seeing the truth about our lovers don’t feel like lies. They feel comfortable, familiar, and true. We repeat them like a mantra and cling to them like security blankets, hoping to calm ourselves and regain our sense that the world works the way we believe it ought to. Self-lies are false friends we look to for comfort and protection—and for a short time they may make us feel better. But we can only keep the truth at bay for so long. Our self-lies can’t erase his lies, and as we’ll see, the longer we try to pretend they can, the more we deepen the hurt.” - Susan Forward

12. “Je öfter sich ein Politiker widerspricht, desto größer ist er.” - Friedrich Dürrenmatt

13. “Perception is the lie that we convince ourselves exists” - Melissa Bradley

14. “Never hide things from hardcore thinkers. They get more aggravated, more provoked by confusion than the most painful truths.” - Criss Jami

15. “Being a practiced liar doesn't mean you have a powerful imagination. Many good liars have no imagination at all; it's that which gives their lies such wide-eyed conviction.” - Philip Pullman

16. “Smell shit when one's bragging.” - Toba Beta

17. “The lie, of course, is more interesting.” - John Irving

18. “Socrates said the perfect society would be based on a great lie. People would be told that lie from the cradle, and they would believe it, because human beings need to make order out of chaos.” - Anne Frasier

19. “The lie took form as she spoke, pulling on as many strands of truth as it could reach.” - Scott Westerfeld

20. “For people who say they hate being lied to, just start telling them nothing but the pure truth--about everything. That will teach them” - Seth Adam Brown

21. “Hate will only eat the truth, then spit out a lie.” - Anthony Liccione

22. “We both knew that what I said was the truth, as well as being a lie. The pure and honest answer was pinging between us, hovering above the weeds.” - Sonya Hartnett

23. “The walls were coming down around me, but still, I couldn't imagine telling the truth. Not now. It was too late. How can I tell Mom and Dad what we'd done? It would ruin everything. It would ruin their image of me; it would ruin every thought they'd ever had about who I was. It would be another death.Another loss. Another miscarriage.” - Dana Reinhardt

24. “Chi è bravo a mentire tiene la testa alta. Non ha timore. Chi non sa mentire dstoglie gli occhi.” - Guenassia Jean-Michel

25. “In the lie of truth lies the truth.” - Dejan Stojanovic

26. “[the only acting advice he would give] What is acting but lying and what is good lying but convincing lying?” - Laurence Olivier

27. “I'm far from perfect- maybe beautifully flawed- but I don't lie” - Jayde Scott

28. “Nothing good will come out with lying.” - Son Jae Ho

29. “Talking is not easy. Talking intends to convey what you mean. Lying is easy, not talking. When one lies, one doesnot care, and that’s the easy part.” - Ravindra Shukla

30. “Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

31. “To find out if she really loved me, I hooked her up to a lie detector. And just as I suspected, my machine was broken.
” - Dark Jar Tin Zoo

32. “It was just a lie that seemed real.It was a promise that was never meant to be true.The forever that had a deadline.It felt like falling in love, but it was falling in aheartbreak café!” - Moffat Machingura