Honore de Balzac Quotes

The great advantage about telling the truth is that nobody ever believes it.

Whatever convenience may be thought to be in falsehood and dissimulation, it is soon over; but the inconvenience of it is perpetual, because it brings a man under everlasting jealousy and suspicion, so that he is not believed when he speaks the truth, nor trusted when perhaps he means honestly.

I can smell bullshit from a mile away but it's so much harder to detect when it's around you all day.

We don't believe a liar even when he tells the truth.

Never trust a man who lays his hand on his heart when he assures you of anything.

He that once deceives is ever suspected.

The most mistrustful are often the greatest dupes.

Even a little untruth destroys a man, as a drop of poison ruins milk.

The lie has long since lost its honest function of misrepresenting reality. Nobody believes anybody, everyone is in the know. Lies are told only to convey to someone that one has no need either of him or his good opinion.

We assume that all statements must be mild inversions of the truth, because it's too weird to imagine people who aren't casually lying, pretty much all the time.

A liar is not believed even though he tell the truth.

You have to learn to read between the lies.

A prudent person, having to do with a designing one, will always distrust most when appearances are fairest.

When regard for truth has been broken down or even slightly weakened, all things will remain doubtful.

I wouldn't believe him if he said the sun came up in the east.

I hate politics. What they say and what they do is completely different.

Nowadays those are rewarded who make right appear wrong.

One of the common failings among honorable people is a failure to appreciate how thoroughly dishonorable some other people can be, and how dangerous it is to trust them.

To me, politics is a pile of tricks.

I keep reading between the lies.

I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don't trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.

The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.

Oh, I can spot a phoney a mile away.

All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse.

Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.