Anatole France Quotes

All deception in the course of life is indeed nothing else but a lie reduced to practice, and falsehood passing from words into things.

It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it.

Falsehood and delusion are allowed in no case whatsoever. But, as in the exercise of all the virtues, there is an economy of truth.

The truth is always an insult or a joke, lies are generally tastier. We love them. The nature of lies is to please. Truth has no concern for anyone's comfort

An injurious truth has no merit over an injurious lie. Neither should ever be uttered. The man who speaks an injurious truth, lest his soul be not saved if he do otherwise, should reflect that that sort of a soul is not strictly worth saving.

There was a distinction between lying and telling half-truths, but it was a very narrow one.

To lapse in fulness Is sorer than to lie for need, and falsehood Is worse in kings than beggars.

That lies should be necessary to life is part and parcel of the terrible and questionable character of existence.

If I told you, you might be forced to lie about it. Not that you aren't really good at it, but why put an old man in that position?

A priestess of Avalon does not lie. But I am cast out of Avalon, and for this, and unless it is all to be for nothing, I must lie, and lie well and quickly

We have the right to lie, but not about the heart of the matter.

Is it possible to tell the truth in a society of lies? Or must you always, of necessity, become a liar?

Nobody has the right to put another under such a difficulty that he must either hurt the person by telling the truth or hurt himself by telling what is not true.

One must lie under certain circumstances and at all times when one can't do anything about them.

Omission is a sin only if, in the process of deceiving, you forget the truth. Lying is a sin only if, in the process, the lie becomes the only truth.

not keeping a promise is the same as lying!

Why do you lie" I ask her. "To block the truth." Fair enough. Naomi goes on. "Where did we get it in our heads that we need truth all the time? Sometimes lies are nice, you know? You don't have to know the truth all the time. It's too exhausting.

A man should be jailed for telling lies to the young.

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.

It takes one minute to tell a lie, and an hour to refute it.

We have got nowadays so that we divide lies into white lies and black lies, society lies and business lies, etc. The Word of God knows no such letting-down of the standard.

Expect no trivial truth from me, unless I am on the witness- stand. I will come as near to lying as you can drive a coach and four.

Point is, people lie a lot. Sometimes out of habit. Not many people are good at telling the truth.

The Bible says, 'The truth shall make you free.' But let's not forget it was Spiro Agnew who said that a good lie will keep you out of jail in the first place.

It was a lie but he believed in telling lies to people. Truth telling and medicine just didn't go together except in dire emergencies, if then.