Yevgeny Zamyatin Quotes

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

Every race, every art has its hypocrisy. The world is fed with a little truth and many lies.

A single lie destroys a whole reputation of integrity.

White lies always introduce others of a darker complexion.

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

I prefer drawing to talking. Drawing is faster, and leaves less room for lies.

Too many people looked to me in the eye and did not tell me the truth.

Someone who lies about the little things will lie about the big things too.

We tell lies, yet it is easy to show that lying is immoral.

It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it.

The art of living is the art of knowing how to believe lies.

People for the most part can smell lies.

A harmful truth is better than a useful lie.

The average person tells a few white lies.

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.

Anybody who deliberately propagandizes with lies should be held up to scorn and ridicule.

You mustn't always believe what I say. Questions tempt you to tell lies, particularly when there is no answer.

With lies you may go ahead in the world, but you can never go back.

Only lie about the future.

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

Propaganda must not serve the truth, especially insofar as it might bring out something favorable to the opponent.... The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.

Falsehood and delusion are allowed in no case whatsoever. But, as in the exercise of all the virtues, there is an economy of truth.

Nothing is more perilous than truth in a world that lies.

I should think it hardly possible to state the opposite of the truth with more precision.

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.