A Quote by Malcolm Bradbury

The English are polite by telling lies. The Americans are polite by telling the truth.

Malcolm Bradbury

Quote Topics

English Lies Polite Telling Telling Lies Telling The Truth Truth

Quote Author

Malcolm Bradbury
English - Writer
September 7, 1932 - November 27, 2000

Telling a lie is called wrong. Telling the truth is called right. Except when telling the truth is called bad manners and telling a lie is called polite.

Judith Viorst

Politics is the polite way of telling somone else they’re stupid.

Burnie Burns

Telling lies is the easy bit, but telling the truth and pretending you are lying is hard.

Lee Mack

Telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies.

Pietro Aretino

I've never feared anyone or worried what they said as long as what I'm telling is the truth, and I'm not telling lies about people.

Ben Askren

Lies hold civilization together. If people ever seriously begin telling each other what they really think, there'd be no peace. Good-bye to tact. Good-bye to being polite. Good-bye to showing tolerance for other people's buffooneries. The fact that we claim to admire Truth is probably the biggest lie of all. But that's part of the charade, part of what makes us human, and we do not even think about it. In effect, we lie to ourselves. Lies are only despicable when they betray a trust.

Jack McDevitt

Science is a set of rules to keep us from telling lies to each other. All scientists really have is a reputation for telling the truth.

Isaac Asimov

It was a lie but he believed in telling lies to people. Truth telling and medicine just didn't go together except in dire emergencies, if then.

Mario Puzo

If there was twenty ways of telling the truth and only one way of telling a lie, the Government would find it out. It's in the nature of governments to tell lies.

George Bernard Shaw

That quality is what makes women great collaborators; we understand it's a team effort. Even if it comes from society telling us to be polite.

Rachel Bloom

When Gansey was polite, it made him powerful. When Adam was polite, he was giving power away.

Maggie Stiefvater

I don't want to be polite. I don't think campaigning is polite. That's a disingenuous effort.

Carl Paladino

Man is the only animal that learns by being hypocritical. He pretends to be polite and then, eventually, he becomes polite.

Jean Kerr

A lot of people live by telling lies. I live by telling the truth.

Boosie

Are you telling me that the polite little note I sent my college alumni magazine has, by some unbeknownst series of errors, come to be printed in The Paper of Record, instead? What a fiasco!