Lucy Maud Montgomery Quotes

Speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts.

God gave humans language so they could conceal their thoughts from one another.

Ah, lips that say one thing, while the heart thinks another.

Nobody ever completely means what they say. Even when they think they're telling the truth, there's always something hidden behind their words.

The speech we hear is an indication of that which we don't hear. It is a necessary avoidance, a violent, sly, and anguished or mocking smoke screen which keeps the other in its true place. When true silence falls we are left with echo but are nearer nakedness. One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness.

I don't really believe anything I say. Because the nature of my work concerns the spaces between the words, rather than the words themselves.

The language that reveals also obscures.

It is easy for men to talk one thing and think another.

False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

Speech was given to the ordinary sort or men, whereby to communicate their mind; but to wise men, whereby to conceal it.

Lots of English people say exactly the opposite of what they mean.

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

There's a degree of deception in silence.

One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.

Away, and mock the time with fairest show. False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

It's weird when people start sentences with 'frankly' - as if their other sentences don't count.

Language can be used to so many diverse ends. It can be used to clarify and, of course, it can be used to obfuscate, confuse, evade.

If you want to say something and have people listen then you have to wear a mask. If you want to be honest then you have to live a lie.

Language is a tool for concealing the truth. If we could read each other's minds, this would be a horror show.

For language to have meaning, there must be intervals of silence somewhere, to divide word from word and utterance from utterance. He who retires into silence does not necessarily hate language. Perhaps it is love and respect for language which imposes silence upon him. For the mercy of God is not heard in words unless it is heard, both before and after the words are spoken, in silence.

Why so much innuendo, draped like ivy to hide a cesspool, when everyone knew the cesspool was there?

Most people who deal in words don't have much faith in them and I am no exception.

Silence hides nothing. Words conceal.

Things are often spoke and seldom meant.