Falsehood Quotes - Page 6

• 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”

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is a true saying that 'one falsehood easily leads to another.'

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Truth

  4 Copy quote

• He hath a share of man's intelligence, but no share of man's falsehood.

  Walter Scott

  Dog, Men, Share

  Sir Walter Scott (1869). “The Talisman, The Two Drovers, My Aunt Margaret's Mirror, The Tapestried Chamber, The Laird's Jock”, p.112

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Now what I love in women is, they won't Or can't do otherwise than lie, but do it. So well, the very truth seems falsehood to it.

  Lord Byron

  Women, Lying, Wells

  Lord Byron (2009). “Don Juan”, p.486, The Floating Press

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• One of the reasons, surely, why women have been credited with less perfect veracity than men is that the burden of conventional falsehood falls chiefly on them.

  Katharine Fullerton Gerould

  Fall, Men, Perfect

  Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1920). “Modes and Morals”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide,
  In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;
  Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight, And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and that light.

  James Russell Lowell

  Truth, Men, Light

  'The Present Crisis' (1845)

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Falsehood often lurks upon the tongue of him, who, by self-praise, seeks to enhance his value in the eyes of others.

  Arnold Bennett

  Eye, Self, Tongue

  21 Copy quote

• The way to combat noxious ideas is with other ideas. The way to combat falsehoods is with truth.

  William O. Douglas

  Ideas, Way, Combat

  Interview with Mike Wallace, November 4, 1958.

  38 Copy quote

  Show source

• As fear is a close companion to falsehood, so truth follows fearlessness.

  Jawaharlal Nehru

  Past, Companion, Fearlessness

  Jawaharlal Nehru (1948). “Nehru on Gandhi”, New York : J. Day Company

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• Lose with truth and right rather than gain with falsehood and wrong.

  Maimonides

  Gains, Loses

  41 Copy quote

• We aim above the mark, to hit the mark. Every act hath some falsehood of exaggeration in it.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Mark, Aim, Exaggeration

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Nature and Other Essays”, p.42, Courier Corporation

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Mankind are an incorrigible race. Give them but bugbears and idols -- it is all that they ask; the distinctions of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood, of good and evil, are worse than indifferent to them.

  William Hazlitt

  Race, Idols, Evil

  William Hazlitt (1871). “The Round Table. A collection of Essays ... By W. H. and Leigh Hunt”, p.553

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• Man is ice to truth and fire to falsehood.

  Jean de La Fontaine

  Lying, Men, Fire

  17 Copy quote

• Falsehood is the jockey of misfortune.

  Jean Giraudoux

  Lying, Jockeys, Misfortunes

  Jean Giraudoux (1964). “Three plays”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Everyone, when there's war in the air, learns to live in a new element: falsehood.

  Jean Giraudoux

  War, Air, Elements

  13 Copy quote

• Falsehood is often rocked by truth, but she soon outgrows her cradle and discards her nurse.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Lying, Nurse, Cradle

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.10

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Children are natural mythologists: they beg to be told tales, and love not only to invent but to enact falsehoods.

  George Santayana

  Children, And Love, Natural

  George Santayana (1937). “The Works of George Santayana”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Though truth and falsehood be Near twins, yet truth a little elder is.

  John Donne

  Littles, Twins, Truth And Falsehood

  John Donne, Izaak Walton (1855). “The Poetical Works of Dr. John Donne: With a Memoir”, p.411

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• When misguided public opinion honors what is despicable and despises what is honorable, punishes virtue and rewards vice, encourages what is harmful and discourages what is useful, applauds falsehood and smothers truth under indifference or insult, a nation turns its back on progress and can be restored only by the terrible lessons of catastrophe.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Political, Honor, Progress

  190 Copy quote

• To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Learning, Libertarian, Young

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.322, Penguin

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• What is the difference between unethical and ethical advertising? Unethical advertising uses falsehoods to deceive the public; ethical advertising uses truth to deceive the public.

  Vilhjalmur Stefansson

  Truth, Differences, Marketing

  Discovery (published 1964).

  95 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is no merit where there is no trial; and till experience stamps the mark of strength, cowards may pass for heroes, and faith for falsehood.

  Aaron Hill

  Strength, Hero, Coward

  Aaron Hill (1760). “The Dramatic Works of Aaron Hill, Esq”, p.15

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Duration is not a test of truth or falsehood.

  Anne Morrow Lindbergh

  Truth, Tests, Duration

  6 Copy quote

• Hypostatized into a ritual pattern, Marxian theory becomes ideology. But its content and function distinguish it from classical forms of ideology; it is not false consciousness, but a rather consciousness of falsehood, a falsehood which is corrected in the context of the higher truth represented by the objective historical interest.

  Herbert Marcuse

  Historical, Patterns, Consciousness

  8 Copy quote

• In all general questions which become the subjects of discussion, there are always some truths mixed with falsehoods. I confess, there is danger where men are capable of holding two offices. Take mankind in general, they are vicious, their passions may be operated upon. We have been taught to reprobate the danger of influence in the British government, without duly reflecting how far it was necessary to support a good government. We have taken up many ideas upon trust, and at last, pleased with our own opinions, establish them as undoubted truths.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Taken, Passion, Men

  "The works of Alexander Hamilton".

  6 Copy quote

  Show source