Ayn Rand Quotes

Truth is no man's slave - but lies - what magnificent servants they make.

Enough white lies can scorch the earth black.

The fact about himself that the liar hides is that he is attempting to lead us away from a correct apprehension of reality; we are not to know that he wants us to believe something he supposes to be false. The fact about himself that the bullshitter hides, on the other hand, is that the truth-values of his statements are of no central interest to him . . . He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.

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

He spent his whole life in plastering together the true and the false and therefrom extracting the plausible.

Liars sometimes tell the truth; they don’t tell lies all the time.

If you have the ability to convince somebody of something that you don't necessarily think is the case, it's a valuable asset. Not that I'm, like, a pathological liar, but we spend most of the day not fully being honest, you know?

The only way to stop gaslighting is to shine the light of reality onto a situation. That makes it imperative for the perpetrator to keep victims in the dark.

No lie can live forever.

Someone who lies and someone who tells the truth are playing on opposite sides, so to speak, in the same game. Each responds to the facts as he understands them, although the response of the one is guided by the authority of the truth, while the response of the other defies that authority and refuses to meet its demands. The bullshitter ignores these demands altogether. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.

A good liar must have a good memory. Kissinger is a stupendous liar with a remarkable memory.

It is the human wish to be told lies that keep us as primitive morally and socially as we are. I am persuaded that a lie grounded in human desire is too powerful for mere reason to kill.

Lies can destroy, but not create.

We're all liars when it serves our purpose.

Be careful what you do, because the lie becomes the truth.

When treating with liars, even an honest man must lie.

In this age, lies were the universal lubricant of the culture. A love of Truth and commitment to it were seldom rewarded and were often punished.

It is the nature of ambition to make men liars and cheats, to hide the truth in their breasts, and show, like jugglers, another thing in their mouths, to cut all friendships and enmities to the measure of their own interest, and to make a good countenance without the help of good will.

The aim of the liar is simply to charm, to delight, to give pleasure. He is the very basis of civilized society.

There are three kinds of liars: liars, damned liars, and statisticians

The perjurer's mother told white lies.

Lying is the only art form that the public sanctions and instinctively prefers to reality.

The world is a lie...not you and me.

When a liar became too skilled at deception, he could lose the ability to discern truth, and could himself be more easily deceived.

Leaders must not be naive. I used to say, "Liars shouldn't lie." What a sad waste of words that is! I found out liars are supposed to lie. That's why we call them liars - they lie! What else would you expect them to do?