Falsehood Quotes - Page 11

• Our opinions are not our own, but in the power of sympathy. If a person tells us a palpable falsehood, we not only dare not contradict him, but we dare hardly disbelieve him to his face. A lie boldly uttered has the effect of truth for the instant.

  William Hazlitt

  Lying, Faces, Opinion

  William Hazlitt (1871). “The Round Table. A collection of Essays ... By W. H. and Leigh Hunt”, p.487

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Every one turns his dreams into realities as far as he can; man is cold as ice to the truth, hot as fire to falsehood.

  Jean de La Fontaine

  Dream, Reality, Men

  5 Copy quote

• Who can describe
  Women's hypocrisies! their subtle wiles,
  Betraying smiles, feign'd tears, inconstancies!
  Their painted outsides, and corrupted minds,
  The sum of all their follies, and their falsehoods.

  Thomas Otway

  Women, Anger, Hypocrisy

  Thomas Otway (1812). “The Works of Thomas Otway: Consisting of His Plays, Poems, and Letters”, p.156

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is only when one is thoroughly true that there can be purity and freedom. Falsehood always punishes itself.

  Berthold Auerbach

  Truth, Purity

  5 Copy quote

• Falsehood and delusion are allowed in no case whatever; but, as in the exercise of all the virtues, there is an economy of truth. It is a sort of temperance, by which a man speaks truth with measure, that he may speak it the longer.

  Edmund Burke

  Truth, Exercise, Men

  Edmund Burke (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)”, p.3863, Delphi Classics

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There are people who balk at small civilities on account of their manifest insincerity. ... It is better and more logical to accept all the polite phraseology which facilitates intercourse, and contributes to the sweetness of life. If we discarded the formal falsehoods which are the currency of conversation, we should not be one step nearer the vital things of truth.

  Agnes Repplier

  Sweetness Of Life, People, Steps

  7 Copy quote

• Where even a falsehood must be told, let it be told.

  Herodotus

  Lying

  4 Copy quote

• True and false are attributes of speech not of things. And where speech is not, there is neither truth nor falsehood. Error theremay be, as when we expect that which shall not be; or suspect what has not been: but in neither case can a man be charged with untruth.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Truth, Lying, Men

  Leviathan pt. 1, ch. 4 (1651)

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Reason, in a strict sense, as meaning the judgment of truth and falsehood, can never, of itself, be any motive to the will, and can have no influence but so far as it touches some passion or affection. Abstract relations of ideas are the object of curiosity, not of volition. And matters of fact, where they are neither good nor evil, where they neither excite desire nor aversion, are totally indifferent, and whether known or unknown, whether mistaken or rightly apprehended, cannot be regarded as any motive to action.

  David Hume

  Truth, Passion, Ideas

  David Hume, Tom L. Beauchamp (2007). “A Dissertation on the Passions: The Natural History of Religion : a Critical Edition”, p.24, Oxford University Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• To invent without scruple a new principle to every new phenomenon, instead of adapting it to the old; to overload our hypothesis with a variety of this kind, are certain proofs that none of these principles is the just one, and that we only desire, by a number of falsehoods, to cover our ignorance of the truth.

  David Hume

  Truth, Ignorance, Numbers

  David Hume (2003). “A Treatise of Human Nature”, p.201, Courier Corporation

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• A churlish courtesy rarely comes but either for gain or falsehood.

  Philip Sidney

  Kindness, Gains, Courtesy

  Sir Philip Sidney, Jane Porter (1807). “Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney: With Remarks”, p.106

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Fanaticism which discards the Scripture, under the pretense of resorting to immediate revelations is subversive of every principle of Christianity. For when they boast extravagantly of the Spirit, the tendency is always to bury the Word of God so they may make room for their own falsehoods.

  John Calvin

  Lying, Religion, May

  4 Copy quote

• I know how ingratitude burns, how falsehood tortures, for I have been deceived in friendship and in love; I have learned to lose and to resign myself.

  Franz Grillparzer

  Deception, Lost, Torture

  4 Copy quote

• If the twentieth century is to be better than the nineteenth, it will be because there are among us men who walk in Priestley's footsteps....To all eternity, the sum of truth and right will have been increased by their means; to all eternity, falsehoods and injustice will be the weaker because they have lived.

  Thomas Huxley

  Mean, Men, Injustice

  4 Copy quote

• Partial truths or half-truths are often more insidious than total falsehoods.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Half, Insidious, Partial Truth

  Samuel P. Huntington (2004). “Who are We?: The Challenges to America's National Identity”, p.37, Simon and Schuster

  35 Copy quote

  Show source

• Men are not philosophers, but are rather very foolish children, who, by reason of their partiality, see everything in the most absurd manner, and are the victims at all times of the nearest object. There is even no philosopher who is a philosopher at all times. Our experience, our perception is conditioned by the need to acquire in parts and in succession, that is, with every truth a certain falsehood.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Children, Philosophy, Knowledge

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.164, Рипол Классик

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth,
  And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,
  With windlasses and with assays of bias,
  By indirections find directions out.

  William Shakespeare

  Truth, Bait, Carp

  William Shakespeare, Ann Thompson, Neil Taylor (2006). “Hamlet: Third Series”, p.232, Cengage Learning EMEA

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is a lot of difference between tempting and leading into error. God tempts but does not lead into error. To tempt is to provide opportunities for us to do certain things if we do not love God, but putting us under no necessity to do so. To lead into error is to compel a man necessarily to conclude and follow a falsehood.

  Blaise Pascal

  Opportunity, Men, Errors

  4 Copy quote

• The history of his present majesty, is a history of unremitting injuries and usurpationsall of which have in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world, for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.

  Thomas Jefferson

  World, Majesty, Facts

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1771 - 1779, the Summary View, and the Declaration of Independence”, p.203, Cosimo, Inc.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There always comes a point beyond which lying becomes counterproductive. This point is reached when the audience to which the lies are addressed is forced to disregard altogether the distinguishing line between truth and falsehood in order to be able to survive.

  Hannah Arendt

  Lying, Order, Lines

  Hannah Arendt (1972). “Crises of the Republic: Lying in Politics; Civil Disobedience; On Violence; Thoughts on Politics and Revolution”, p.17, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth, and truth be defamed as lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world - and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end - is being destroyed.

  Hannah Arendt

  Truth, Real, Lying

  "Hannah Arendt Explains How Propaganda Uses Lies to Erode All Truth & Morality: Insights from The Origins of Totalitarianism", www.openculture.com. January 24, 2017.

  136 Copy quote

  Show source

• Inculcating the various competing - competing, note - falsehoods of the major faiths into small children is a form of child abuse, and a scandal.

  A.C. Grayling

  Children, Abuse, Religion

  A.C. Grayling (2012). “Against All Gods: Six Polemics on Religion and an Essay on Kindness”, p.12, Oberon Books

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• gossip, after it reaches a certain point of insult and falsehood, becomes a source of amusement to its victims.

  Margaret Deland

  Gossip, Amusement, Insult

  4 Copy quote

• No human being can control love, and no one is to blame either for feeling it or for losing it. What alone degrades a woman is falsehood.

  George Sand

  Feelings, Losing, Blame

  9 Copy quote

• There are no friends more inseparable than pride and hardness of heart, humility and love, falsehood and impudence.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Heart, Humility, Pride

  21 Copy quote