Lie Quotes

It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatsoever for supposing it is true.

Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays (1928), "On the Value of Scepticism".

I sometimes think that the saving grace of America lies in the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans are possessed of two great qualities - A sense of humor and a sense of proportion.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

To believe with certainty we must begin with doubting.

Stanislaus Lescynski

The ability to relate and to connect, sometimes in odd and yet striking fashion, lies at the very heart of any creative use of the mind, no matter in what field or discipline.

George J. Seidel

It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.

Giordano Bruno

I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false is guilty of falsehood, and the accidental truth of the assertion does not justify or excuse him.

Abraham Lincoln

I love you the more that I believe you have liked me for my own sake and for nothing else.

John Keats

I believe in an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out.

Arthur Hays Sulzberge

How is the world ruled and how do wars start? Diplomats tell lies to journalists and then believe what they read.

Karl Kraus

Great wits are sure to madness near allied And thin partitions do their bounds divide.

Dryden

Under a ragged coat lies wisdom.

Romanian Prove

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

Voltaire

One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.

Mark Twain

Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.

I. F. Stone

I am always at a loss to know how much to believe of my own stories.

Washington Irving

Believe your beliefs and doubt your doubts.

F. F. Bosworth

I believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility.

John Ruskin

The true Church is not an organization, nor does one join it through the noisy mechanics of denominational machinery. Rather it is a living organism, a body, and believers are joined to it by the quiet working of the Holy Spirit.

Cornelius Stam

But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way.

Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.

Claud Cockburn

Culture is the arts elevated to a set of beliefs.

Thomas Wolfe

It is a lesson never learned: Matters of state and the heart that start with a lie rarely end well.

Maureen Dowd, New York Times, January 10, 2005

Man is a creature of hope and invention, both of which believe the idea that things cannot be changed.

Tom Clancy

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.

Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays (1950), "Outline of Intellectual Rubbish".

No. Men should die for lies. But the truth is too precious to die for.

Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes.

James Feibleman

You know what I say to people when I hear they? re writing an anti - war book?? I say, why don? t you write an anti - Glacier book instead? What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers. I believe that, too.

Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughter - House 5

An ambassador is a man of virtue sent to lie abroad for his country; a news - writer is a man without virtue who lies at home for himself.

Sir Henry Wotton, "Reliquae Wottonianae".

I believe that all wisdom consists in caring immensely for a few right things, and not caring a straw about the rest.

John Buchan

Honor and shame from no condition rise. Act well your part: there all the honor lies.

Alexander Pope

The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it - As long as you really believe 100 percent.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Who will tell whether one happy moment of love, or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies.

Erich Fromm

I want to believe in intelligent design, and hence I am suspicious of anything that seems to confirm my desire to believe.

James Lileks, The Bleat web log, September 15, 2003

There is no safety for honest men but by believing all possible evil of evil men.

Edmund Burke

Swindon What will history say Burgoyne History, sir, will tell lies as usual.

George Bernard Shaw

I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.

Robert McCloskey, State Department spokesman (attributed)

It will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought to be, so are the rest of the nation.

Jane Austen, Mansfield Park