A Quote by Lillian Hellman

But maybe half a lie is worse than a real lie.

Lillian Hellman

Quote Topics

Half Lie Maybe Real Than Worse

Quote Author

Lillian Hellman
American - Dramatist
June 20, 1905 - June 30, 1984

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

I look at the human sciences as poetic sciences in which there is no objectivity, and I see film as not being objective, and cinema verite as a cinema of lies that depends on the art of telling yourself lies. If you’re a good storyteller then the lie is more true than reality, and if you’re a bad one, the truth is worse than a half lie.

Jean Rouch

Worse than telling a lie is spending the rest of your life staying true to a lie.

Robert Breault

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

We lie more to strangers than we lie to co-workers. Extroverts lie more than introverts. Men lie eight times more about themselves than they do other people. Women lie more to protect other people.

Pamela Meyer

Why does anyone lie? 'Cause we're scared or crazy, maybe just because we're mean. I guess there's a million reason to lie, and I might've told that many...but none like that. I guess there's always that one lie we never get over. What? Oh, maybe you don't know about it yet. Maybe you never tell a lie so big it can eat away a part of you. But if you ever do...and if you get lucky...you might a chance to set it right. Just one chance to change it. Then it's gone. And it never comes back again.

Billie Letts

An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie, for an excuse is a lie guarded.

Pope John Paul II

An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie; for an excuse is a lie guarded.

Alexander Pope

Don't tell me of deception; a lie is a lie, whether it be a lie to the eye or a lie to the ear.

Samuel Johnson

A definite factor in getting a lie believed is the size of the lie. The broad mass of the people, in the simplicity of their hearts, more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.

Adolf Hitler

[The establishment and the mass media] will attack you, they will slander you, they will seek to destroy your career and your family, they will seek to destroy everything about you, including your reputation. They will lie, lie, lie, and then again they will do worse than that, they will do whatever is necessary.

Donald Trump

You told a lie, an odious damned lie; Upon my soul, a lie, a wicked lie.

William Shakespeare

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 - honestly, I don't know of a worse lie one could tell other than a lie to take a country to war. To make up things to take people to war. That's just got to be the most obscene, immoral thing to do.