Donna Leon Quotes

There are indeed, in the present corruption of mankind, many incitements to forsake truth: the need of palliating our own faults and the convenience of imposing on the ignorance or credulity of others so frequently occur; so many immediate evils are

Why, lies are like a sticky juice overspreading the world, a living, growing flypaper to catch and gum the wings of every human soul. . . And the little helpless buzzings of honest, liberal, kindly people, aren't they like the thin little noise flies make when they're caught?

When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control.

The need always to lie and always to avoid the truth stripped everyone of what Custine called 'the two greatest gifts of God-the soul and the speech which communicates it.' People became hypocritical, cunning, mistrustful, cynical, silent, cruel, and indifferent to the fate of others as a result of the destruction of their own souls.

The man who cannot laugh is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils, but his whole life is already a treason and a stratagem.

The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie.

When winning is everything and everyone does whatever they need to win and to not lose, including lying, you have a world in which 'basic trust' is lost.

When you're surrounded by a world of constant lies, manipulation, and deceit, that dark energy is bound to seep into you eventually.

[F]alsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions.

I have a certain experience of the way people tell lies.

The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle - a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game. If the right pressure could be applied to him, he would be cheerfully in favor of polygamy, astrology or cannibalism.

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?

You know there's no crooked politicians. There's never a lie because there is never any truth.

I would say that today, dishonesty is the rule, and honesty the exception. It could be, statistically, that more people are honest than dishonest, but the few that really control things are not honest, and that tips the balance.

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.

The reason why most people are frustrated is because a lie cannot be turned into a truth.

But lies were what people wanted; that was politics.

A lie is the abandonment and, as it were, the annihilation of the dignity by man.

I don't think most people take honest well. They prefer the games. They want to believe the pretty lies.

Wherever we direct our view, we discover the melancholy proofs of our depravity; whether we look to ancient or modern times, to barbarous or civilized nations, to the conduct of the world around us, or to the monitor within the breast; whether we read, or hear, or act, or think, or feel, the same humiliating lesson is forced upon us.

You can read everybody. It's not even interesting to tell the truth because to some extent it's false.

Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.

Life is a racket. Writing is a racket. Sincerity is a racket. Everything's a racket.

Cunning leads to knavery. It is but a step from one to the other, and that very slippery. Only lying makes the difference; add that to cunning, and it is knavery.