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- 3-Apr-20 - The Peter Principle (1969) | WIST on The Observer (1788).
- 3-Apr-20 - Peter's Almanac, "3 December" (1982) | WIST on (Attributed).
- 31-Mar-20 - Dave on “As O. O. McIntyre Sees It,” syndicated column (2 Jan 1937).
- 24-Mar-20 - Scott on “As O. O. McIntyre Sees It,” syndicated column (2 Jan 1937).
- 20-Mar-20 - Post, alt.fan.pratchett (14 Jun 1998) | WIST on (Attributed).
- 16-Mar-20 - Quoted in Washington Post (23 Dec 1973) | WIST on (Attributed).
Quotations about lying
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
Of course I lie to people. But I lie altruistically — for our mutual good. The lie is the basic building block of good manners. That may seem mildly shocking to a moralist — but then what isn’t?
Quentin Crisp (1908-1999) English writer and raconteur [b. Denis Pratt]
Manners from Heaven: A Divine Guide to Good Behavior (1984)
(Source)
Villainy, when detected, never gives up, but boldly adds impudence to imposture.
Oliver Goldsmith (1730-1774) Irish poet, playwright, novelist
“A City Night-Piece,” The Bee, #4 (27 Oct 1759)
(Source)
You must not tell lies because if you do you will find yourself unable to believe anything that is told to you.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism, and Fascism, ch. 74 (1928)
Lying is done with words, and also with silence.
Adrienne Rich (1929-2012) American poet, essayist, feminist
“Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying” (1975)
The more lies are told, the more important it becomes for the liars to justify themselves by deep moral commitments to high-sounding objectives that mask the pursuit of money and power.
Bertram M. Gross (1912-1997) American social scientist, academic, bureaucrat
Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America, ch. 9 (1980)
The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.
Samuel Butler (1835-1902) English novelist, satirist, scholar
The Way of All Flesh, ch. 39 (1903)
I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy.
Samuel Butler (1835-1902) English novelist, satirist, scholar
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler, ch. 19 [ed. Festing-Jones] (1907)
One lies more to one’s self than to anyone else.
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) English poet
Journal (6 Dec 1813)
An Ambassador is an honest man, sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.
[Legatus est vir bonus, peregrè missus ad mentiendum Reipublicae causâ.]
Henry Wotton (1568-1639) English author, diplomat, politician
Reliquiae Wottonainae (1651)
(Source)
Wotton wrote in an apology to Velserus in 1612, that during his travel through Augsburg in 1604, "This merry definition of an ambassador I had chanced to set down at my friend's, Mr. Christopher Fleckamore, in his Album". It seems to have been intended as a pun when translated to English. Sometimes translated as "An ambassador is an honest gentleman sent to lie abroad for the good of his country."
A man who himself does not believe what he tells another … has even less worth than if he were a mere thing. For a thing, as something real and given, has the property of being serviceable. … But the man who communicates his thoughts to someone in words which yet (intentionally) contain the contrary of what he thinks on the subject has a purpose directly opposed to the natural purposiveness of the power of communicating one’s thoughts, and therefore renounces his personality and makes himself a mere deceptive appearance of man, not man himself.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German philosopher
Metaphysics of Morals [Metaphysik der Sitten], “The Doctrine of Virtue [Tugendlehre]” (1797) [tr. Gregor (1964)]
By a lie a man throws away and, as it were, annihilates his dignity as a man.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German philosopher
Metaphysics of Morals [Metaphysik der Sitten], “The Doctrine of Virtue [Tugendlehre]” (1797) [tr. Gregor (1964)]
The worst of all deceptions is self-deception.
Socrates (c.470-399 BC) Greek philosopher
In Plato, Cratylus (c. 360 BC)
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.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
Virginibus Puerisque, “Virginibus Puerisque,” sec. 4 (1881)
(Source)
The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has. Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don’t know when it’s through if you are a crook or a martyr.
Will Rogers (1879-1935) American humorist
“Helping Girls With Their Income Tax,” syndicated column (7 Apr 1923)
(Source)
Collected by Rogers as "Helping the Girls with Their Income Taxes," The Illiterate Digest (1924).
You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all the time.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)
A possible precursor to this quote is the widely-republished Jacques Abbadie, "Traité de la Vérité de la Religion Chrétienne," ch. 2 (1684): "One can fool some men, or fool all men in some places and times, but one cannot fool all men in all places and ages. [… ont pû tromper quelques hommes, ou les tromper tous dans certains lieux & en certains tems, mais non pas tous les hommes, dans tous les lieux & dans tous les siécles.]" A similar passage was used in Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert, ed., Encyclopédie: ou Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers, Vol. 4 (1754).
First attributed to Lincoln by Fred F. Wheeler, interviewed in the Albany Times (8 Mar 1886): "You can fool part of the people some of the time, you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all of the time."
First cited in detail in Alexander K. McClure, “Abe” Lincoln’s Yarns and Stories, (1904), in the above form; it was cited as a speech in Clinton, Ill. (2 Sep 1858), but the passage is not found in any surviving Lincoln documents. No Lincoln reference is found in contemporary writings.
Also attributed to P.T. Barnum and Bob Dylan. See also Lawrence J. Peter. More detailed discussion of the quotation can be found here.
The truth is often a terrible weapon of aggression. It is possible to lie, and even to murder with the truth.
Get the facts first. You can distort them later.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
(Attributed)
