Lying

Lying is the act of making a statement that the speaker knows to be untrue. It is a form of dishonesty.

Quotes

• And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but
  The truth in masquerade.
  • Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto XI, Stanza 37.

• I tell him, if a clergyman, he lies!
  If captains the remark, or critics, make,
  Why they lie also—under a mistake.
  • Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24).

• Resolved to die in the last dyke of prevarication.
  • Edmund Burke, Impeachment of Warren Hastings (May 7, 1789).

• Quoth Hudibras, I smell a rat;
  Ralpho, thou dost prevaricate.
  • Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part I (1663-64), Canto I, line 821.

• As we all know, the most effective lies are the ones sprinkled with the most actual truths.
  • Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism (2008), p. 60.

• Half the world knows not how the other half lies.
  • George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum (1651).

• Show me a liar, and I will show thee a thief.
  • George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum (1651).

• For no falsehood can endure
  Touch of celestial temper.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book IV, line 811.

• He will lie, sir, with such volubility, that you would think truth were a fool.
  • William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well (1600s), Act IV, scene 3, line 283.

• To lapse in fulness
  Is sorer than to lie for need, and falsehood
  Is worse in kings than beggars.
  • William Shakespeare, Cymbeline (1611), Act III, scene 6, line 12.

• Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth.
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act II, scene 1, line 63.

• 'Tis as easy as lying.
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act III, scene 2, line 372.

• These lies are like the father that begets them; gross as a mountain, open, palpable.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I (c. 1597), Act II, scene 4, line 249.

• 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.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I (c. 1597), Act V, scene 4, line 149.

• For my part, if a lie may do thee grace,
  I'll gild it with the happiest terms I have.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I (c. 1597), Act V, scene 4, line 161.

• Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to the vice of lying!
  • William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part II (c. 1597-99), Act III, scene 2, line 325.

• Whose tongue soe'er speaks false,
  Not truly speaks; who speaks not truly, lies.
  • William Shakespeare, King John (1598), Act IV, scene 3, line 91.

• 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!
  • William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (late 1590s), Act I, scene 3, line 100.

• I mean you lie—under a mistake.
  • Jonathan Swift, Polite Conversation (c. 1738), Dialogue 1. Same phrase used by De Quincey, Southey, Landor.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 485-87.

• A giurar presti i mentitor son sempre.
  • Liars are always most disposed to swear.
  • Vittorio Alfieri, Virginia, II. 3.

• Se non volea pulir sua scusa tanto,
  Che la facesse di menzogna rea.
  • But that he wrought so high the specious tale,
    As manifested plainly 'twas a lie.
  • Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando Furioso (1516), XVIII. 84.

• And none speaks false, when there is none to hear.
  • James Beattie, The Minstrel (1771), Book II, Stanza 24.

• You lie—under a mistake—
  For this is the most civil sort of lie
  That can be given to a man's face, I now
  Say what I think.
  • Calderon, El Magico Prodigioso, scene 1. Translation by Shelley.

• Ita enim finitima sunt falsa veris ut in præcipitem locum non debeat se sapiens committere.
  • So near is falsehood to truth that a wise man would do well not to trust himself on the narrow edge.
  • Cicero, Academici, IV. 21.

• Mendaci homini ne verum quidem dicenti credere solemus.
  • A liar is not believed even though he tell the truth.
  • Cicero, De Divinatione, II. 71. Same idea in Phædrusm Fables, I, 10, 1.

• The silent colossal National Lie that is the support and confederate of all the tyrannies and shams and inequalities and unfairnesses that afflict the peoples—that is the one to throw bricks and sermons at.
  • Mark Twain, My First Lie.

• An experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite picturesque liar.
  • Mark Twain, My Military Campaign.

• Un menteur est toujours prodigue de serments.
  • A liar is always lavish of oaths.
  • Pierre Corneille, Le Menteur, III. 5.

• Il faut bonne mémoire après qu'on a menti.
  • A good memory is needed once we have lied.
  • Pierre Corneille, Le Menteur, IV. 5.

• Some truth there was, but dash'd and brew'd with lies,
  To please the fools, and puzzle all the wise.
  • John Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel.

• Wenn ich irre kann es jeder bemerken; wenn ich lüge, nicht.
  • When I err every one can see it, but not when I lie.
  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Sprüche in Prosa, III.

• As ten millions of circles can never make a square, so the united voice of myriads cannot lend the smallest foundation to falsehood.
  • Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield (1768), Volume II, Chapter VIII.

• Dare to be true: nothing can need a lie;
  A fault which needs it most, grows two thereby.
  • George Herbert, Church Porch.

• Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.
  • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858), VI.

• Who dares think one thing, and another tell,
  My heart detests him as the gates of hell.
  • Homer, The Iliad, Book IX, line 412. Pope's translation.

• Urge him with truth to frame his fair replies;
  And sure he will; for wisdom never lies.
  • Homer, The Odyssey, Book III, line 25. Pope's translation.

• For my part getting up seems not so easy
  By half as lying.
  • Thomas Hood, Morning Meditations.

• Splendide mendax.
  • Splendidly mendacious.
  • Horace, Carmina, III. 11. 35.

• Round numbers are always false.
  • Samuel Johnson, Johnsoniana; Apothegms, Sentiment, etc. From Hawkins' Collective Edition.

• Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.
  • False in one thing, false in everything.
  • Law Maxim.

• Qui ne sent point assez ferme de memoire, ne se doit pas mêler d'être menteur.
  • Who is not sure of his memory should not attempt lying.
  • Michel de Montaigne, Of Liars, Book I, Chapter IX.

• Hercle audivi esse optimum mendacium.
  Quicquid dei dicunt, id rectum est dicere.
  • By Hercules! I have often heard that your piping-hot lie is the best of lies: what the gods dictate, that is right.
  • Plautus, Mostellaria, III. 1. 134.

• Playing the Cretan with the Cretans (i.e. lying to liars).
  • Plutarch, quoting a Greek proverb used by Paulus Æmilius.

• Some lie beneath the churchyard stone,
  And some before the Speaker.
  • Winthrop Mackworth Praed, School and School Fellows.

• I said in my haste, All men are liars.
  • Psalms. CXVI. 11.

• Mendacem memorem esse oportet.
  • It is fitting that a liar should be a man of good memory.
  • Quintilian, IV. 2. 91.

• Ce mensonge immortel.
  • That immortal lie.
  • Rev. Père de Ravignan. Found in Poujoulat's Sa Vie, ses Œuvres.

• Had I a heart for falsehood framed.
  I ne'er could injure you.
  • Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The Duenna, Act I, scene 5.

• This shows that liars ought to have good memories.
  • Algernon Sidney, Discourses on Government, Chapter II, Section XV.

• A lie never lives to be old.
  • Sophocles, Acrisius, Fragment 59.

• That a lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies;
  That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright—
  But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight.
  • Alfred Tennyson, The Grandmother, Stanza 8.

• And he that does one fault at first,
  And lies to hide it, makes it two.
  • Isaac Watts, Song XV.

• I give him joy that's awkward at a lie.
  • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night VIII, line 361.