Katharine Elizabeth Fullerton Gerould Quotes

There are times when lying is the most sacred of duties.

Truly, to tell lies is not honorable; But when the truth entails tremendous ruin, To speak dishonorably is pardonable.

I really tried, or so I thought, to avoid lying, but it seemed to me that they forced it on me by the difference in their vision of things, so that I was always transposing reality for them into something they could understand.

For this is the most civil sort of lie That can be given to a man's face. I now Say what I think.

Sometimes it’s more noble to tell a small lie than to deliver a painful truth.

I don’t like to lie – so there’d better be a good reason why I’m doing it.

Sometimes, a lie is told in kindness. I don't believe it ever works kindly. The quick pain of truth can pass away, but the slow, eating agony of a lie is never lost.

Honesty is always good, except when it's better to lie.

A white lie is always pardonable. But he who tells the truth without compulsion merits no leniency.

If you tell a lie to make a person better, then that is not a sin.

Truth is a pain which will not stop. And the truth of this world is to die. You must choose: either dying or lying. Personally, I have never been able to kill myself.

It's okay to lie as long as you reach a higher truth doing it.

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

Lying can never save us from another lie.

I wish to Christ I could make up a really great lie. Sometimes, after an interview, I say to myself, 'Man, you were so honest - can't you have some fun? Can't you do some really down and dirty lying?' But the puritan in me thinks that if I tell a lie, I'll be punished.

My dad once told me, he was like, 'The only time you should lie is when someone's holding a gun to your head and says 'Okay, lie or I'm going to shoot you.' And that really stuck with me.

Be honest with yourself and lie to everyone else.

Occasionally, chewing over some random letter writer's dilemma, I'll find myself imagining scenarios where the problem could be sidestepped by an innocent fib or series of evasive manoeuvres. Then, I slap myself on the wrist.

When you're on the side of the angels, it's easier to stretch the truth.

It is perhaps being economical with the truth.

An untruth must be spoken, where need requires. For whether men lie, or say true, it is with one and the same object. Men lie, because they think to gain by deceiving others; and speak the truth, because they expect to get something by their true speaking, and to be trusted afterwards in more important matters. Thus, though their conduct is so opposite, the end of both is alike. If there were no gain to be got, your true-speaking man would tell untruths as much as your liar, and your liar would tell the truth as much as your true-speaking man.

It is sometimes necessary to lie damnably in the interest of the country.

When I was in high school, I had a notebook that I filled up with rules about lying. It must have been a hundred pages long - one hundred pages of rules about lying!

Everyone has lied for some reason or the other.

I can't lie - I have one of those faces where you can tell. It's expressive and lends itself to being cheeky. I always tell the truth even when I should probably tell a white lie.