Quotes on Lying

The dignity of the artist lies in his duty of keeping awake the sense of wonder in the world.

If he's honest, he'll steal; if he's human, he'll murder; if he's faithful, he'll deceive.

There is something else which has the power to awaken us to the truth. It is the works of writers of genius. They give us, in the guise of fiction, something equivalent to the actual density of the real, that density which life offers us every day but which we are unable to grasp because we are amusing ourselves with lies.

If it is necessary sometimes to lie to others, it is always despicable to lie to oneself.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, a box where sweets compacted lie.

Dare to be true. Nothing can need a lie: a fault which needs it most, grows two thereby.

Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right use of strength.

I know it is the fashion to say that most of recorded history is lies anyway. I am willing to believe that history is for the most part inaccurate and biased, but what is peculiar to our own age is the abandonment of the idea that history could be truthfully written.

I lie on the floor, washed by nothing and hanging on. I cry at night. I am afraid of hearing voices, or a voice. I have come to the edge, of the land. I could get pushed over.

He would lie in the bed and finally, with daylight, he would go to sleep. After all, he said to himself, it is probably only insomnia. Many must have it.

When truth is replaced by silence,the silence is a lie.

There's no need to talk about it, because the truth of what one says lies in what one does.

We must remember that the test of our religious principles lies not just in what we say, not only in our prayers, not even in living blameless lives - but in what we do for others

It is not your business to succeed, but to do right. When you have done so the rest lies with god.

He explained to me with great insistence that every question posessed a power that did not lie in the answer.

And there were other rocks that were like animals, creeping, horrible animals, putting out their tongues, and others were like words I could not say, and others like dead people lying on the grass. I went on among them, though they frightened me, and my heart was full of wicked song they put into it; and I wanted to make faces and twist myself about the way they did, and I went on and on a long way till at last I liked the rocks and they didn’t frighten me any more

Lying is a delightful thing, for it leads to truth.

It doesn't really matter whether you grip the arms of the dentist's chair or let your hands lie in your lap. The drill drills on.

If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me?

Fiction is art and art is the triumph over chaos… to celebrate a world that lies spread out around us like a bewildering and stupendous dream.

Truth is treason in the empire of lies.