False Witness Quotes

• To witness two lovers is a spectacle for the gods.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Love, Two, Literature

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• Justice will overtake fabricators of lies and false witnesses.

  Heraclitus

  Lying, Justice, Deceit

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• There are 869 different forms of lying, but only one of them has been squarely forbidden. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

  Mark Twain

  Lying, Different, Bears

  Mark Twain, Caroline Thomas Harnsberger (2009). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.237, Courier Corporation

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• Malice, in its false witness, promotes its tale with so cunning a confusion, so mingles truths with falsehoods, surmises with certainties, causes of no moment with matters capital, that the accused can absolutely neither grant nor deny, plead innocen.

  Philip Sidney

  Confusion, Matter, Causes

  Sir Philip Sidney, Jane Porter (1807). “Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney: With Remarks”

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• "Thou shalt not bear false witness" Exodus 20:16. When we speak of morality, we imply that a man is true to his word-true to his signature on a contract. The violations of God's laws are evidence that lying and misrepresentation are not absent from us.

  Ezra Taft Benson

  Lying, Men, Law

  Ezra Taft Benson (1988). “The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson”, Bookcraft Pubs

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• It should be noted that people in the free market rarely bear false witness; integrity is the rule. The morning mile, phone calls, planes the airlines buy, autos by the millions - no one could list the instances - are as represented. We have daily, eloquent, enormous testimony that the Ten Commandments can be and are observed by fallible human beings. Contemporary politics is the most glaring of all exceptions.

  Leonard Read

  Morning, Integrity, Phones

  "The Complete Works of Leonard E. Read". 1976.

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• The Christians do not commit adultery. They do not bear false witness. They do not covet their neighbor's goods. They honor father and mother. They love their neighbors. They judge justly. They avoid doing to others what they do not wish done to them. They do good to their enemies. They are kind.

  Aristides of Athens

  Christian, Mother, Father

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• The Devil endeavours by every means to keep men in error, in the enticement of the passions, in darkness of mind and heart; in pride, avarice, covetousness, envy, hatred, wicked impatience and irritation; in evil despondence, in the abominations of fornication, adultery, theft, false-witness, blasphemy, negligence, slothfulness, and sluggishness.

  John of Kronstadt

  Passion, Heart, Mean

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• When one sense has been bribed the others readily bear false witness.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Bears, Witness, Has Beens

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• Photography is very subjective. Photography is not a document on which a report can be made. It is a subjective document. Photography is a false witness, a lie.

  Robert Doisneau

  Photography, Lying, Made

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• And these things are pretty much foundational: thou shall not kill, steal, bear false witness. All these things are embedded into the laws we enjoy in our nation.

  Pat Robertson

  Law, Bears, Stealing

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• Man's maker was made man that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother's breast; that the Bread might hunger, the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep, the Way be tired on its journey; that Truth might be accused of false witnesses, the Teacher be beaten with whips, the Foundation be suspended on wood; that Strength might grow weak; that the Healer might be wounded; that Life might die.

  Saint Augustine

  Mother, Teacher, Stars

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• Compare Scripture with Scripture. False doctrines, like false witnesses, agree not among themselves.

  William Gurnall

  Agreement, Doctrine, Scripture

  William Gurnall (1865). “The Christian in Complete Armour: A Treatise of the Saints' War Against the Devil, Wherein a Discovery is Made of that Grand Enemy of God and His People, in His Policies, Power, Seat of His Empire, Wickedness, and Chief Design He Hath Against the Saints : a Magazine Opened, from Whence the Christian is Furnished with Spiritual Arms for the Battle, Helped on with His Armour, and Taught the Use of His Weapon, Together with the Happy Issue of the Whole War”, p.256

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• Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests of society require the observation of those moral precepts only in which all religions agree (for all forbid us to steal, murder, plunder, or bear false witness), and that we should not intermeddle with the particular dogmas in which all religions differ, and which are totally unconnected with morality.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Reading, Reflection, Bears

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.281, Cambridge University Press

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• One must have all the virtues to sleep well. Shall I bear false witness? Shall I commit adultery? Shall I covet my neighbor's maid? All that would go ill with good sleep.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Sleep, Maids, Bears

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1977). “The Portable Nietzsche”, p.92, Penguin

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• Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

  Paul the Apostle

  Men, Law, Bears

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• In no passage of the holy canonical books there can be found either divine precept or permission to take away our own life, whether for the sake of entering on the enjoyment of immortality, or of shunning, or ridding ourselves of anything whatever. Nay, the law, rightly interpreted, even prohibits suicide, where it says, 'Thou shalt not kill.' This is proved especially by the omission of the words "thy neighbor," which are inserted when false witness is forbidden.

  Saint Augustine

  Suicide, Book, Suicidal

  Saint Augustine of Hippo (2016). “Saint Augustine of Hippo Collection [50 Books]”, p.9337, Aeterna Press

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• As witnesses not of our intentions but of our conduct, we can be true or false, and the hypocrite's crime is that he bears false witness against himself. What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.

  Hannah Arendt

  Integrity, Hypocrite, Evil

  'On Revolution' (1963) ch. 2

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