A Quote by Henry Ward Beecher

Even a liar tells a hundred truths to one lie; he has to, to make the lie good for anything.

Henry Ward Beecher

Quote Topics

Anything Even Good Hundred Liar Lie Make Tells Truths

Quote Author

Henry Ward Beecher
American - Priest
June 24, 1813 - March 8, 1887

I'm the worst liar - I can't lie for my life. And I don't lie at all, because I'm the worst liar - but as a kid, I thought I was a great liar, so I would lie all the time, but everybody knew I was lying.

Julia Garner

Governments lie; bankers lie; even auditors sometimes lie: gold tells the truth.

William Rees-Mogg

For me, the facts in anything are always secondary. You don't lie convincingly with the truth. You lie convincingly with being a good liar.

Stephen Graham Jones

There's always a price you pay when you lie. Once you introduce a lie into a relationship, even for the best of intentions, it is always there. Whenever you’re with that person again, that lie is in the room too. It sits on your shoulder. Good lie or bad lie, it's in the room with you forever now. It's your constant companion.

Harlan Coben

It sounds very pretentious, but I don't lie. It's too uncomfortable. A lot of people think because you're an actor that makes you a good liar, but one of the things I can't articulate is a bad lie.

Martin Shaw

Glorify a lie, legalize a lie, arm and equip a lie, consecrate a lie with solemn forms and awful penalties, and after all it is nothing but a lie. It rots a land and corrupts a people like any other lie, and by and by the white light of God's truth shines clear through it, and shows it to be a lie.

Edwin Hubbel Chapin

So telling a lie becomes a sin if you tell it to take advantage of a person, but if you tell a lie to do a good thing for him that is not a sin. Even God tells lies very often; you can see this throughout history.

Sun Myung Moon

But here's the thing about being honest: All the liars HATE you for it, and most of the people in the world are liars. They lie to their bosses, they lie to their families, they lie to themselves, they lie so much they don't even know they're lying anymore. If you have the courage to be honest even a little bit all those people will hate you for it, because their lie is reflected in your honesty. Oscar Wilde wasn't kidding when he said, "If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you."

Tucker Max

He's not a liar at all. Not about important things. He'll tell you horrible truths, but he won't lie." She paused before she added quietly: "That's why it's generally better not ask him anything unless you know you can stand to hear the answer.

Cassandra Clare

No doubt, corporate CEOs who lie to their shareholders and politicians who lie to their public know and believe intellectually that lying is immoral. Why then do they lie? They lie to others because they first lie to themselves.

Lewis B. Smedes

What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church ... a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them.

Martin Luther

If you lie to your husband - even about something so banal as how much you drink - each lie is a brick in a wall going up between you, and when he tells you he loves you, it's deflected away.

Mary Karr

The wise thing is for us diligently to train ourselves to lie thoughtfully, judiciously; to lie with a good object, and not an evil one; to lie for others' advantage, and not our own; to lie healingly, charitably, humanely, not cruelly, hurtfully, maliciously; to lie gracefully and graciously, not awkwardly and clumsily; to lie firmly, frankly, squarely, with head erect, not haltingly, tortuously, with pusillanimous mien, as being ashamed of our high calling.

Mark Twain

I'm plotting revolution against this lie that the majority has a monopoly of the truth. What are these truths that always bring the majority rallying round? Truths so elderly they are practically senile. And when a truth is as old as that, gentlemen, you can hardly tell it from a lie.

Henrik Ibsen

Of course I lie to people. But I lie altruistically - for our mutual good. The lie is the basic building block of good manners. That may seem mildly shocking to a moralist - but then what isn't?