Hilaire Belloc Quotes

Lies can destroy, but not create.

Aristotle was once asked what those who tell lies gain by it. Said he - That when they speak truth they are not believed.

A liar is always lavish of oaths.

When a man lies, he murders some part of the world.

Like many people, I have a fascination with lies and the people who tell them. I wouldn't say I've never told a lie, but I don't think I've ever told one without both assuming I would be found out and feeling absolutely rotten about it.

White lies always introduce others of a darker complexion.

I don't tolerate liars. When somebody lies to me, that's really, like, just unbearable.

Good lies need a leavening of truth to make them palatable.

Anybody can make something up and have it sound believable. The hard part is remembering all the lies you've told, and all the people you've told them to, and then living the lies that have become your life.

… a man well known for his congenital inability to tell the truth

As someone who specializes in deception, I'll tell you this much: When someone insistently implores, 'Believe me,' don't. Pleading 'believe me' or 'trust me' - insisting to people that you are telling the truth - is a tell-tale sign that you probably aren't.

It's amazing how lies grow. You start with a small one that seems easy to cover, then you get boxed in and tell another one. Then another. People believe you at first, then they act upon your lies, and you catch yourself wishing you'd simply told the truth.

I think in terms of who can be trusted, I think the evidence is clear that there has been no candidate that I have ever seen who lies more often than does Donald Trump. I mean and that's just not me saying it, that's what any independent media analysis has shown. So in terms of trust, you really can't trust a word, I think, that Mr. Trump has to say.

I realize how quickly lies compound. They cover like a coat of paint, one on top of the other, until you cannot remember what color you started with.

A lie always needs a truth for a handle to it. The worst lies are those whose blade is false, but whose handle is true.

As anyone who's ever contracted it knows, lies are an infectious disease. They slip under the almond slivers of your fingernails and into your bloodstream.

I never knew a man could tell so many lies, he had a different story for every set of eyes. How can he remember who he's talking to?

Truth may be stranger than fiction, goes the old saw, but it is never as strange as lies.

Plain lies are dangerous.

The only form of lying that is absolutely beyond reproach is lying for its own sake.

A lie keeps growing and growing until it's as plain as the nose on your face.

The liar suffers twice: he neither believes nor is believed.

Lying about things large and small has become so accepted by so many that they even lie about lying.

If I poured all the lies I had told into the Mississippi, the river would rise and flood the city.

A lie is troublesome, and sets a man's invention upon the rack, and one trick needs a great many more to make it good.