Government Lies Quotes

• If you want to know about governments, all you need to know is two words: Governments lie.

  I. F. Stone

  Lying, Two, Needs

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• The term propaganda rings melodramatic and exaggerated, but a press that—whether from fear, careerism, or conviction—uncritically recites false government claims and reports them as fact, or treats elected officials with a reverence reserved for royalty, cannot be accurately described as engaged in any other function.

  Glenn Greenwald

  Political, Deceit, Politics

  Glenn Greenwald (2007). “A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency”, p.119, Crown

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• Look, all administrations, all governments lie, all officials lie and nothing they say is to be believed. That's a pretty good rule.

  Daniel Ellsberg

  Lying, Hero, Looks

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• For reporting a scientific finding, I was called a 'conspiracy theorist.' Only in America is scientific analysis seen as conspiracy theory and government lies as truth.

  Paul Craig Roberts

  Lying, America, Analysis

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• 

  There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Funny, Witty, Truth

  Attributed to Disraeli by Mark Twain in his 'Autobiography' (1924) vol. 1, p. 246

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• The difference between golf and government is that in golf you can't improve your lie.

  George Deukmejian

  Funny, Lying, Golf

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• I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Lying, Knowing, Secret

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• Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression.

  James Madison

  Real, Lying, Oppression

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

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• In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

  James Madison

  Power, Men, Liberty

  The Federalist no. 51 (1788)

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• O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!

  Walter Scott

  Wisdom, Truth, Lying

  Marmion canto 6, st. 17 (1808)

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• All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out.

  I. F. Stone

  Country, Lying, Giving

  "In a Time of Torment, 1961-1967". Book by I. F. Stone, p. 317, 1967.

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• It is manifest that the only security against the tyranny of the government lies in forcible resistance to the execution of the injustice; because the injustice will certainly be executed, unless it be forcibly resisted.

  Lysander Spooner

  Lying, Resistance, Execution

  Lysander Spooner (2004). “An Essay on the Trial by Jury”, p.11, The Minerva Group, Inc.

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• Governments lie; bankers lie; even auditors sometimes lie: gold tells the truth.

  William Rees-Mogg

  Lying, Gold, Bankers

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• Most governments lie to each other. That's the way business gets done.

  Robert M. Gates

  Lying, Done, Way

  CNN interview, quoting in "Taliban-U.S. Talks ‘Very Preliminary,’ Defense Chief Says" by Catherine Larkin, www.bloomberg.com. June 19, 2011.

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• How do you react when your own government lies to you systematically about life-and-death questions? As I have noted earlier, the answer is political action in the state legislatures, and one weapon in the hands of the public is an understanding of the pseudo-science and pseudo-epidemiology represented by articles like this one.

  Harris L Coulter

  Lying, Hands, Epidemiology

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• I believe that the essence of government lies with unceasing concern for the welfare and dignity and decency and innate integrity of life for every individual. I dont like to say this and wish I didnt have to add these words to make it clear but I willregardless of color, creed, ancestry, sex or age.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Sex, Lying, Integrity

  Civil Rights Symposium Address, delivered 12 December 1972. Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin, TX

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• The administration of government lies in getting proper men. Such men are to be got by means of the ruler's own character. That character is to be cultivated by his treading in the ways of duty. And the treading those ways of duty is to be cultivated by the cherishing of benevolence.

  Confucius

  Lying, Character, Mean

  Confucius (2013). “Confucian Analects, The Great Learning & The Doctrine of the Mean”, p.274, Courier Corporation

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