The trouble with lying and deceiving is that their efficiency depends entirely upon a clear notion of the truth that the liar and deceiver wishes to hide. — Hannah Arendt
Just because something isn't a lie does not mean that it isn't deceptive. A liar knows that he is a liar, but one who speaks mere portions of truth in order to deceive is a craftsman of destruction. — Criss Jami
Liars share with those they deceive the desire not to be deceived. — Sissela Bok
A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood. — William Shenstone
The secret to getting away with lying, is believing with all your heart. That goes for lying to yourself even more so than lying to another. — Elizabeth Bear
Sometimes lies were more dependable than the truth. — Orson Scott Card
The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool. — Stephen King
Lying is the same as alcoholism. Liars prevaricate even on their deathbeds. — Anton Chekhov
Cunning leads to knavery. It is but a step from one to the other, and that very slippery. Only lying makes the difference; add that to cunning, and it is knavery. — Ovid
Tell a lie and the truth will come to light. — Filipino Proverbs
All war is based on deception. — Sun Tzu
Who lies for you will lie against you. — John Locke
Before you can lie to another, you must first lie to yourself. — Naval Ravikant
Disguise, distortion, and deception were accepted as reality. — Annie Jacobsen
And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but the truth in a masquerade. — Alexander Pope
Lying And Deception Image Quotes
Tell a lie once and all your truths become questionable.
Lies And Deception Quotes
It is the cult of self that is killing the United States. This cult has within it the classic traits of psychopaths: superficial charm, grandiosity and self-importance ; a need for constant stimulation; a penchant for lying, deception and manipulation; and the incapacity for remorse or guilt. — Chris Hedges
Deceivers are the most dangerous members of society. They trifle with the best affections of our nature, and violate the most sacred obligations. — George Crabbe
Never lie unless you have to, and if you don’t have a dang good lie, stick to the truth. — American Proverbs
There is a battle of two wolves inside us all. One is evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, lies, inferiority and ego. The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy and truth. The wolf that wins? The one you feed.
Among other common lies, we have the silent lie - the deception which one conveys by simply keeping still and concealing the truth. Many obstinate truth-mongers indulge in this dissipation, imagining that if they speak no lie, they lie not at all. — Mark Twain
Art is a deception that creates real emotions - a lie that creates a truth. And when you give yourself over to that deception, it becomes magic. — Marco Tempest
Never lie to someone who trusts you and never trust someone who lies to you.
Art has no place in modern life. It will continue to exist as long as there is a mania for the romantic and so long as there are people who love beautiful lies and deception... Every modern cultured man must wage war against art, as against opium... Photograph and be photographed. — Alexander Rodchenko
The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others. — Friedrich Nietzsche
The most confused you will ever get is when you try to convince your heart and spirit of something your mind knows is a lie. — Shannon Alder
Lying And Cheating Quotes
Declare your jihad on thirteen enemies you cannot see - Egoism, Arrogance, Conceit, Selfishness, Greed, Lust, Intolerance, Anger, Lying, Cheating, Gossiping and Slandering. If you can master and destroy them, then will be ready to fight the enemy you can see. — Al-Ghazali
People do not expect to find chastity in a whorehouse. Why, then, do they expect to find honesty and humanity in government, a congeries of institutions whose modus operandi consists of lying, cheating, stealing, and if need be, murdering those who resist? — H. L. Mencken
What's wrong with our children? Adults telling children to be honest while lying and cheating. Adults telling children to not be violent while marketing and glorifying violence... I believe that adult hypocrisy is the biggest problem children face in America. — Marian Wright Edelman
If you focus on what you left behind, you will never be able to see what lies ahead.
We create an environment where it is alright to hate, to steal, to cheat, and to lie if we dress it up with symbols of respectability, dignity and love. — Whitney M. Young
If you have to lie, cheat, steal, obstruct and bully to get your point across, it must not be a point capable of surviving on its own merits. — Steven Weber
The problem with addicted people, communities, corporations, or countries is that they tend to lie, cheat, or steal to get their 'fix.' Corporations are addicted to profit and governments to power. — Helen Caldicott
A lie doesn't become truth, wrong doesn't become right, and evil doesnt' become good, just because it's accepted by a majority.
No one justifies lying, cheating, betraying, promise breaking, devastating and harming strangers. But we expect and we tolerate doing this to the one person in the world we promised most seriously to be faithful to forever: we justify divorce. — Peter Kreeft
I confess that I cannot understand how we can plot, lie, cheat and commit murder abroad and remain humane, honorable, trustworthy and trusted at home. — Archibald Cox
Never lie, steal, cheat, or drink. But if you must lie, lie in the arms of the one you love. If you must steal, steal away from bad company. If you must cheat, cheat death. And if you must drink, drink in the moments that take your breath away. — Will Smith
Hell is not fire and brimstone, not a place where you are punished for lying or cheating or stealing. Hell is wanting to be something and somewhere different from where you are. — Stephen Levine
Lies And Deceive Quotes
Let's not be naive, we're not talking about a simple political battle; it is a destructive pretension against the plan of God. We are not talking about a mere bill, but rather a machination of the Father of Lies that seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God. — Pope Francis
They say that it is the practiced liar who can deceive. But so often the practiced and chronic liar deceives only himself; it is the man who all his life has been selfconvicted of veracity whose lies find quickest credence. — William Faulkner
Lying is a false significance of speech, with a will to deceive, which cannot be cured but by shame and reason; it is a monstrous and wicked evil, that filthily depraved and defileth the tongue of man. — Jon Jones
Advertising is legalized lying.
I have discovered the art of deceiving diplomats. I tell them the truth and they never believe me. — Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour
He who has made it a practice to lie and deceive his father, will be the most daring in deceiving others. — Horace
A lie does not consist in the indirect position of words, but in the desire and intention, by false speaking, to deceive and injure your neighbour. — Jonathan Swift
A lie has many variations, the truth none.
Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others. — Fyodor Dostoevsky
When a liar became too skilled at deception, he could lose the ability to discern truth, and could himself be more easily deceived. — Dean Koontz
Do we, holding that the gods exist, deceive ourselves with insubstantial dreams and lies, while random careless chance and change alone control the world? — Euripides
Though dreams can be deceiving; like faces are to hearts, they serve for sweet relieving, when fantasy and reality lie too far apart. — Fiona Apple
Deception Quotes
Our labor here is brief, but the reward is eternal. Do not be disturbed by the clamor of the world, which passes like a shadow. Do not let false delights of a deceptive world deceive you. — Clare of Assisi
Nothing is more unreliable than the populace, nothing more obscure than human intentions, nothing more deceptive than the whole electoral system. — Marcus Tullius Cicero
If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change. I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone: the harm is to persist in one's own self-deception and ignorance. — Marcus Aurelius
The church today is riddled with fad doctrines and new sounds that distract from the clear message of the Great commission in the New Testament. Any message that attracts you which does not bring glory to Christ is the message of a seducing spirit and the man giving it is in deception. — John Hagee
People always have been and they always will be stupid victims of deceit and self-deception in politics. — Vladimir Lenin
Our greatest weaknes lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just on more time.
Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions. — Niccolo Machiavelli
Men are gentle, honest and straightforward. Women are convoluted, deceptive and dangerous. — Erin Pizzey
Rationalization may be defined as self-deception by reasoning. — Karen Horney
They catch up with a liar sooner than with a limping dog. — Hungarian Proverbs
Honesty is the rarest wealth anyone can possess. — Josh Billings
And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but the truth in masquerade. — Jodi Picoult
Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.
Our world is very dishonest, and our leaders encourage dishonesty by setting bad examples - by lying, being corrupt, and using political sleight of hand to sustain power. — Stuart Wilde
A lie may take care of the present, but it has no future. — Croft M. Pentz
The only disadvantage of an honest heart is credulity. — Philip Sidney
There are some things that we know are just not as pleasant as the lies that we tell ourselves, and in that sense in order to endure existence everyone endures a certain amount of dishonesty in their everyday lives. — Todd Rundgren
Deceptionlying Quotes
It's easy to be in motion and convince yourself that you're making progress. — James Clear
I am convinced that human life is filled with many pure, happy, serene examples of insincerity, truly splendid of their kind-of people deceiving one another without (strangely enough) any wounds being inflicted, of people who seem unaware even that they are deceiving one another. — Osamu Dazai
Never chase a lie. Let it alone, and it will run itself to death.
Any politician or campaigner trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the public won't get very far. — Nicola Sturgeon
A real scoundrel turned up and they took off their hats to him — Greek Proverbs
All violence is the result of people tricking themselves into believing that their pain derives from other people and that consequently those people deserve to be punished. — Marshall B. Rosenberg
They are most cheated who cheat themselves. — Danish Proverbs
In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth. — Mahatma Gandhi
Fooled once, shame on you; fooled twice, shame on me. — American Proverbs
I always tell the truth. Even when I lie. — Al Pacino
Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity. — Louis Pasteur
There's a lie that all drivers tell themselves. Death is something that happens to other people, and that's how you find the courage to get in the car in the first place. The closer you are to death the more alive you feel. But more powerful than fear itself, is the will to win. — James Hunt
When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear. — Thomas Sowell
Live your own truth and it won't matter how many lies they tell about you. The truth will prove itself. — Tony Gaskins
A lie is profanity. A lie is the worst thing in the world. Art is the ability to tell the truth. — Richard Pryor
A virgin can conceive. A dead body can walk again. Your leprosy can be cured. The blind can see. Nonsense. It’s not moral to lie to children. It’s not moral to lie to ignorant, uneducated people and tell them that if they only would believe nonsense, they can be saved. It’s immoral. — Christopher Hitchens
Tell your friend a lie. If he keeps it secret, then tell him the truth. — Proverbs
Don't lie,Tell one lie,then you gotta tell another lie to compound on the first. — Meyer Lansky
Lies And Liars Quotes
If you tell the truth you do not need a good memory! — Mark Twain
All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed. — I. F. Stone
When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say. — George R. R. Martin
Never chase a lie. Let it alone, and it will run itself to death. — Lyman Beecher
It is worse for a liar to tell the truth than for a lover of truth to lie.... There is a truth which is of Satan. Its essence is that under the semblance of truth it denies everything that is real. It lives upon hatred of the real world which is created and loved by God. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer
People lie. They use you and they lie, all the while feeding you bullshit about being loyal and never leaving you. No one can make that promise, because life is all about seasons, and seasons change. — Tarryn Fisher
Falsehoods not only disagree with truths, but usually quarrel among themselves. — Daniel Webster
No one believes a liar. Even when she's telling the truth. — Sara Shepard
If you tell the truth, you don't need a long memory. — Jesse Ventura
Unethical conduct is actually the conduct of destruction and fear; lies are told because one is afraid of the consequences should one tell the truth; thus, the liar is inevitably a coward, the coward is inevitably a liar. — L. Ron Hubbard
Truth And Lies Quotes
The truth is the greatest enemy of the State. — Unknown Author
Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth. — William Faulkner
Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it. — Unknown Author
Truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is, and you must bend to its power or live a lie. — Miyamoto Musashi
The Republican Party can lead any person to believe that their promises will be fulfilled in the future. They follow the Hitler line – no matter how big the lie; repeat it often enough and the masses will regard it as truth. — John F. Kennedy
A lie doesn't become truth, wrong doesn't become right and evil doesn't become good, just because it's accepted by a majority. — Rick Warren
Humility is nothing but truth, and pride is nothing but lying. — Vincent de Paul
Truth is the ultimate power. When the truth comes around, all the lies have to run and hide. — Ice Cube
American traditions and the American ethic require us to be truthful, but the most important reason is that truth is the best propaganda and lies are the worst. To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful. It is as simple as that. — Edward R. Murrow
The naked truth is always better than the best-dressed lie. — Ann Landers
Deceit Quotes
In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act. — George Orwell
We hardly ever realize that we can cut anything out of our lives, anytime, in the blink of an eye. — Carlos Castaneda
Only fools argue whether to eat meat or not. They don't understand truth nor do they meditate on it. Who can define what is meat and what is plant Who knows where the sin lies, being a vegetarian or a non vegetarian — Guru Nanak
I’m a human being, I’m not anyone’s mascot! And I am America’s conscience. And that’s what they don’t want to look at. They would rather look at a cartoon character than at the deceit of this country and this government. — Russell Means
A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends. — Henry A. Wallace
Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection. — Henry A. Wallace
It seems we are capable of immense love and loyalty, and as capable of deceit and atrocity. It's probably this shocking ambivalence that makes us unique. — John Scott
The supreme value is not the future but the present. The future is a deceitful time that always says to us, 'Not Yet,' and thus denies us... Whoever builds a house for future happiness builds a prison for the present. — Octavio Paz
I have nothing but contempt for the deceitful thing men call 'happiness,' and find myself with no choice but to push my characters, whom I pour my heart and soul out to create, into the abyss of tragedy. — Gen Urobuchi
An honorable man or woman is one who is truthful; free from deceit; above cheating, lying, stealing, or any form of deception. An honorable man or woman is one who learns early that one cannot do wrong and feel right. A man's character is judged on how he keeps his word and his agreements. — Ezra Taft Benson
I lie to myself all the time. But I never believe me. — S. E. Hinton
Above all, do not lie to yourself. — Fyodor Dostoevsky
All deception in the course of life is indeed nothing else but a lie reduced to practice, and falsehood passing from words into things. — Robert Southey
The Good News means we can stop lying to ourselves. The sweet sound of amazing grace saves us from the necessity of self-deception. It keeps us from denying that though Christ was victorious, the battle with lust, greed, and pride still rages within us. — Brennan Manning
By a lie a man throws away and, as it were, annihilates his dignity as a man. A man who himself does not believe what he tells another ... has even less worth than if he were a mere thing. ... makes himself a mere deceptive appearance of man, not man himself. — Immanuel Kant
I became a virtuoso of deceit. It wasn't pleasure I was after, it was knowledge. I consulted the strictest moralists to learn how to appear, philosophers to find out what to think and novelists to see what I could get away with. — Christopher Hampton
Deception, machination and mendacity lie at the core of human intelligence, like worms coiled at the core of a apple — Mark Rowlands
Fearful leaders side-step issues instead of dealing with them, cover up mistakes instead of owning up to mistakes; they skulk back into the shadows and hope that the crisis-whatever it is-will somehow blow over instead of facing their fears. Worse, they resort to lies and deception to cover up the truth. — Leon F. "Lee" Ellis
The foreground in a picture is always unattractive... Art demands that the interest of the canvas should be placed in the far distance, where lies take refuge, those dreams which blossom out of fact and are man's only love. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine
Somewhere between the honest truth and the deceptive lie is the deceptive truth and the honest lie. — Robert Breault
The theatre has always been to me a place where beautiful lies are told, and playwrighting the orchestration of platitudes around a central flaw in logic or a ridiculous idea. Acting — the disguise and impersonation — is an art of deception. — Charles Ludlam
The statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is being attacked, and every man will be glad of these conscience-soothing falsities — Mark Twain
The foundation of morality is to have done, once and for all, with lying. — Thomas Huxley
Maturity is the ability to sort the portions of truth from the accepted lies and self-deceptions that you have grown up with. — Alexei Panshin
What I warn you to remember is that I am a detective. Our relationship with truth is fundamental but cracked, refracting confusingly like fragmented glass. It is the core of our careers, the endgame of every move we make, and we pursue it with strategies painstakingly constructed of lies and concealment and every variation on deception. — Tana French
The press can't write the kind of things they write, which are lies.The stories are fabrications and false. And the only thing I say is hopefully, hopefully, our patriotic movement will overcome this terrible deception. — Donald Trump
Grace is always natural, though that does not prevent its being often used to hide a lie. The rude shocks and uncomfortably constraining influences of life disappear among graceful women and poetical men; they are the most deceptive beings in creation; distrust and doubt cannot stand before them; they create what they imagine; if they do not lie to others, they do to their own hearts; for illusion is their element, fiction their vocation, and pleasures in appearance their happiness. Beware of grace in woman, and poetry in man -- weapons the more dangerous because the least dreaded! — Marquis De Custine
When you start to realise how much of what you've constructed of yourself is based on deception and lies, that is a horrifying realisation. — Jordan Peterson
The chance that any given sentence is a lie, rather than a truth, I think, is fairly great. An intentional lie, a self-deception, a misconception - there are lots of categories of untruth, not one grab bag. And hotographs can reveal something to us, and they can also conceal things. — Errol Morris
Wisdom is looking at life from God's point of view. You look at life's difficulties and tests as God looks at them. You look at family life and child rearing as God looks at them. You interpret current events as God would interpret them. You see the truth even though all around you are deception and lies. — Charles R. Swindoll
While a forgery illegally exploits the elitist taste for rarity, a kitsch object insists on its anti elitist availability. The deceptive character of kitsch does not lie in whatever it may have in common with actual forgery but in its claim to supply its consumers with essentially the same kinds and qualities of beauty as those embodied in unique or rare and inaccessible originals. — Matei Calinescu
I don't think you fully appreciate the importance of Illusion in life, the Essential Nature of Lies and Deception of the body politic. — H. G. Wells
Man seems to be an animal whose capacity for lies is only equalled by his credulity; it does no good to let battalions of cats outof bags, to produce whole harems of naked facts, people eat the same three meals daily deception, and are always ready to turn with fury upon the purveyors of bagless cats and facts undraped. Probably their instinct is wise. Who knows? — John Dos Passos
Ruthven surmised that he had hit upon some of the central deceptions which had wrecked him and reduced him and so many of his colleagues to this condition. To surmise was not to conquer, of course; he was as helpless as ever but there was a dim liberation in seeing how he had been lied to, and he felt that at least he could take one thing from the terrible years through which he had come: he was free of self-delusion. — Barry N. Malzberg
What I've learned from fighting is that the lights in side the cage will tell everything you did or did not do in your camp! Once the doors close there can be no lie or deception and the lights will tell all! — Walel Watson
Once the doors close there can be no lie or deception and the lights will tell all! — Walel Watson
Lesson number one in trying to develop the ability of independent thought: Understand that EVERYTHING the government says has the potential to be lies and deception. You can believe it's the truth only after you question, exhaust every avenue, and find that their story checks out. If you're a patriot, it's your duty to always question your government anyway, at every turn. A patriot is loyal to his country and his countrymen, not his government. — Derek R. Audette
Such letters...from the FDA, are, filled with objectively demonstrable lies, practiced deceptions and deviousness, red herrings, directed misinformation, misdirected information, etc. ...Once FDA-NCI-AMA-ACS...concedes that Laetrile anti-tumor efficacy was indeed even once observed...a permanent crack in bureaucratic armor has taken place. — Dean Burk
LOVE: Deception of the flesh and damage to the spirit. Disease of the soul, atrophy of the brain, weakening of the heart, corruption of the senses, poetic lies from which one gets ferociously inebriated two or three times a day in order to consume this precious but stupid life more quickly. And yet I would prefer to die of love. Its the only swindler, after Judas, that can kill with a kiss. — Renzo Novatore
It should be obvious that this pattern of systematic holes and gaps in Iraq's declaration is not the result of accidents, editing oversights or technical mistakes. These are material omissions that - in our view - constitute another material breach. It is up to Iraq to prove that there is some other explanation besides the obvious one, that this declaration is just one more act of deception in a history of lies from a defiant dictator. — John Negroponte
Men were considered "free" only so that they might be considered guilty - could be judged and punished: consequently, every act had to be considered as willed, and the origin of every act had to be considered as lying within the consciousness (and thus the most fundamental psychological deception was made the principle of psychology itself). — Friedrich Nietzsche
In Conclusion
Which quotation resonated with you best? Did you enjoy our collection of lying and deception quotes? Or may be you have a slogan about lying and deception to suggest. Let us know using our contact form.
Citation
Feel free to cite and use any of the quotes in this collection of lying and deception quotations. For popular citation styles(APA, Chicago, MLA), please use this citation page.
