Quotes about truth and lies
458 quotes from 240 people
Noam Chomskyborn 1928Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent, 1992I did not deceive you, mon ami. At most, I permitted you to deceive yourself.
Agatha Christie1890–1976The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), Hercule Poirot- Agatha Christie1890–1976The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), Hercule Poirot
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
‘In war-time,’ I said, ‘truth is so precious she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.’
Winston Churchill1874–1965Discussion of Operation Overlord with Stalin at the Teheran Conference (November 30, 1943); in The Second World War, Volume V: Closing the Ring (1952), Chapter 21 (Teheran: The Crux), p. 338There are a lot of lies going around…and half of them are true.
- Winston Churchill1874–1965On Stanley Baldwin, as cited in Churchill by Himself (2008), Ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs, p. 322
Cicero107–43 BCDe Officiis – On Duties (44 BC), Book II, section 43The search for the truth is the most important work in the whole world — and the most dangerous.
JCJames Clavell1921–1994The Fly (1958), François Delambre (Vincent Price) to André’s son, Philippe.The road to tyranny, we must never forget, begins with the destruction of the truth.
Bill Clintonborn 1946Remarks at the Dedication of the Thomas J. Dodd Archives and Research Center in Storrs, Connecticut, October 15, 1995There are truths which one can only say after having won the right to say them.
Jean Cocteau1889–1963Le Coq et l’Arlequin (1918)- Jean Cocteau1889–1963“Le Paquet Rouge” in Opéra (1925)
But truth is not spoken in anger. Truth is spoken, if it ever comes to be spoken, in love.
J. M. Coetzeeborn 1940Slow Man (2005)