Elizabeth Bowen Quotes

Dealing with a government with whom mendacity is a science is an extremely difficult and delicate matter.

A lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies.

People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.

Gradually I came to realize that people will more readily swallow lies than truth, as if the taste of lies was homey, appetizing: a habit.

When a majority could benefit only its enemies by telling the truth, history shows that honorable men often preferred to tell what is untrue.

Man has always sacrificed truth to his vanity, comfort and advantage.

The cloven-foot of self-interest was now and then to be seen aneath the robe of public principle.

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.

… he knew the lie of silence to be as evil as the lie of speech.

The practice of politics in the East may be defined by one word: dissimulation

We're all liars when it serves our purpose.

The chance that any given sentence is a lie, rather than a truth, I think, is fairly great. An intentional lie, a self-deception, a misconception - there are lots of categories of untruth, not one grab bag. And hotographs can reveal something to us, and they can also conceal things.

A lie that is half-truth is the darkest of all lies.

There is no lie that a man will not believe; and there is no man who does not believe many lies; and there is no man who believes only lies.

Man's mind is so formed that it is far more susceptible to falsehood than to truth.

Experience has taught me to believe that, these human beans are the most insidious enemies man, with a tendency to corpulence in advanced life, can possess, though eminently friendly to youth.

The truth just happens - lies take time to make.

There are only two forces that unite men - fear and interest.

Power is domination, control, and therefore a very selective form of truth which is a lie.

I think we're lied to about a number of things.

I keep reading between the lies.

Well, the truth is that a lot of people lie about their health, they lie about the finances, they lie about things at work, they lie about things.

People need good lies. There are too many bad ones.

Ambition drove many men to become false; to have one thought locked in the breast, another ready on the tongue.

Once you get involved with bloodsport litigation, you can not only get drunk on your own greed but start to believe your own lies.