A Quote by Samuel Johnson

Falsehoods of convenience or vanity, falsehoods from which no evil immediately visible ensues, except the general degradation of human testimony, are very lightly uttered, and once uttered are sullenly supported.

Samuel Johnson

Quote Topics

Convenience Degradation Evil Except General Human Immediately Lightly Once Supported Testimony Vanity Very Visible Which

Quote Author

Samuel Johnson
English - Writer
September 18, 1709 - December 13, 1784

The very hirelings of the press, whose trade it is to buoy up the spirits of the people... have uttered falsehoods so long, they have played off so many tricks, that their budget seems, at last, to be quite empty.

William Cobbett

The very hirelings of the press, whose trade it is to buoy up the spirits of the people, have uttered falsehoods so long, they have played off so many tricks, that their budget seems, at last, to be quite empty.

William Cobbett

Whatever may be the sociological value of the legal fiction that 'all men are born free and equal,' there can be no doubt that...in its biological application, at any rate, this statement is one of the most stupendous falsehoods ever uttered by man through his misbegotten gift of articulate speech.

Earnest Hooton

If believing absurd falsehoods increase the odds of getting laid or avoiding predators, your brain will believe those falsehoods with all its metaphorical little heart.

Peter Watts

A 'No' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.

Mahatma Gandhi

Name a moral statement or action, uttered or performed by a religious person that could not have been uttered or performed by an unbeliever.

Christopher Hitchens

I have been too long acquainted with human nature to have great regard for human testimony; and a very great degree of probability, supported by various concurrent circumstances, conspiring in one point, will have much greater weight with me, than human testimony upon oath, or even upon honour; both of which I have frequently seen considerably warped by private views.

Lord Chesterfield

Donald Trump both disbelieves and believes in falsehoods, so that when he did thrive on his longstanding - the claim that Obama was not born in the United States - he's crazy like a fox in manipulating it because it gave him his political entrée onto the national stage. In order to make your falsehoods powerful, you have to believe in them in some extent. And that's why we simplify things if we say that Trump either believes nothing in his falsehoods and is just manipulating us like a fox or he completely believes them.

Robert Jay Lifton

Small aberrations in doctrinal teaching can lead to large and evil falsehoods.

Gordon B. Hinckley

All families have their secrets, most people would never know them, but they know there are spaces, gaps where the answers should be, where someone should have sat, where someone used to be. A name that is never uttered, or uttered just once and never again. We all have our secrets.

Cecelia Ahern

Get but the truth once uttered, and 'tis like A star new-born that drops into its place And which, once circling in its placid round, Not all the tumult of the earth can shake.

James Russell Lowell

The human mind is an organ for the discovery of truths rather than of falsehoods.

Solomon Asch

Testimony is the beginning of and a prerequisite to continuing conversion. Testimony is a point of departure; it is not an ultimate destination. Strong testimony is the foundation upon which conversion is established. Testimony alone is not and will not be enough to protect us in the latter-day storm of darkness and evil in which we are living.