"When hope lies dead—ah, when 'tis death to live, And wrongs remembered make the heart still bleed, Better are Sleep's kind lies for Life's blind need Than truth, if lies a little peace can give."

"An experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite picturesque liar."

"Some lie beneath the churchyard stone, And some before the Speaker."

"An animal may be cunning and ferocious enough, but it takes a real man to tell a lie."

"Now all the truth is out, Be secret and take defeat From any brazen throat, For how can you compete, Being honor bred, with one Who, were it proved he lies, Were neither shamed in his own Nor in his neighbors’ eyes?"

"An occasional little white lie such as Weston's probably won't cause any lasting damage. And at times, telling the truth—particularly the whole truth to a child who's not at an age to handle it—may do more harm than good, they say."

"Tell a lie and then tell the truth: it will be considered a lie."

"As long as you live you should not increase evil by telling lies; for if you do, to succumb will be your lot."

"A lie never lives to be old."

"Stop! I am not a real Sharkslayer! I lied."

"Everybody lies."

"It is better to be poor and walk in integrity than to be stupid and speak lies."

"When liars enter by the city gate, in front of them there is a finger pointing at them, behind them there is a finger pointing at them."

"For my part, if a lie may do thee grace, I'll gild it with the happiest terms I have."

"Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to the vice of lying!"

"These lies are like the father that begets them; gross as a mountain, open, palpable."

"Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying! I grant you I was down and out of breath; and so was he: but we rose both at an instant and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock."

"Whose tongue soe'er speaks false, Not truly speaks; who speaks not truly, lies."

"I mean you lie—under a mistake."

"'Tis as easy as lying."

"An evil soul producing holy witness Is like a villain with a smiling cheek; A goodly apple rotten at the heart: O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!"

"The Book of Daniel is especially fitted to be a battle-ground between faith and unbelief. It admits of no half-way measures. It is either Divine or an imposture. To write any book under the name of another, and to give it out to be his, is, in any case, a forgery, dishonest in itself, and destructive of all trustworthiness. But the case as to the Book of Daniel, if it were not his, would go far beyond even this. The writer, were he not Daniel, must have lied on a most frightful scale."

"The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie."

"He will lie, sir, with such volubility, that you would think truth were a fool."

"What’s the cadet motto at West Point? You will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do. I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. It’s — it was like — we had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment. — Texas A&M University (April 15, 2019)"

"There's a lot of lying in modern finance. ... I don't like lying."

"If there is a punishment for telling the truth, then many people will tell lies. If telling lies is incentivized, then many people will tell lies. And if you allow mobs of people online or off to intimidate people and don’t stand up to them, then many people will be intimidated. And they will change what they say accordingly."

"False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil."

"To lapse in fulness Is sorer than to lie for need, and falsehood Is worse in kings than beggars."

"My body aches from mistakes betrayed by lust We lied to each other so much that in nothing we trust."

"A lie is no less a lie because it is a thousand years old."

"For no falsehood can endure Touch of celestial temper."

"By telling a single lie to oneself or to another, by denying a single fact of the world as it has been created, one adds to the World’s Pain."

"Drummond: All shine, and no substance! Bert, whenever you see something bright, shining, perfect-seeming—all gold, with purple spots—look behind the paint! And if it’s a lie—show it up for what it really is!"

"Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth."

"If you want truth to go round the world you must hire an express train to pull it. But if you want a lie to go round the world, it will fly; it is light as a feather and a breath will carry it."

"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour."

"Trump undermines the free press because he wants to be the only legitimate source of information in society. He lies all the time to break down the processes by which we discern the truth about the world around us, and compile the observations and facts which make up the tapestry of reality. He has exposed the paper-thin vulnerability of our democratic society, which depends mightily on observing social norms—like yielding to shame—and a shared acceptance of some common set of truths.The American president is determined to bulldoze this architecture of social structures, and usher in an era where force, not deliberation and cooperation, determines the path our society will take. If he never acknowledges any truth besides his own, he never has to do anything outside his own direct interests. He does not have to actually respond to any kind of criticism, or ever reconsider his course of action. Relentless lying, after all, is a form of coercion, in which you bend others to your will by forcing them to accept the infrastructure of your false reality—or to give up caring whether anything is true or false in the first place. Don't believe your eyes and ears. Everybody was cheering for me."

"You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies."

"Education has paralleled the life of prospering white America: it has been characterized by reverence for efficiency, cultivation of competence unattended by concern for aim, big white lies, and the mainly successful blackout of Black life."

"Children and fooles can not ly."

"I always divide people into two groups. Those who live by what they know to be a lie, and those who live by what they believe, falsely, to be the truth."

"Half the world knows not how the other half lies."

"Show me a liar, and I will show thee a thief."

"One tells as few lies as possible only by telling as few lies as possible, and not by having the least possible opportunity to do so."

"Fire is to represent truth because it destroys all sophistry and lies; and the mask is for lying and falsehood which conceal truth."

"Ideas have consequences, and so do lies."

"Lying is such a central characteristic of life that better understanding of it is relevant to almost all human affairs. Some might shudder at that statement, because they view lying as reprehensible."

"Beyond a doubt truth bears the same relation to falsehood as light to darkness; and this truth is in itself so excellent that, even when it dwells on humble and lowly matters, it is still infinitely above uncertainty and lies, disguised in high and lofty discourses; because in our minds, even if lying should be their fifth element, this does not prevent that the truth of things is the chief nutriment of superior intellects, though not of wandering wits. But you who live in dreams are better pleased by the sophistical reasons and frauds of wits in great and uncertain things, than by those reasons which are certain and natural and not so far above us."