“Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to tell a lie well.”
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Samuel Butler (1835-1902), The Note-books of Samuel Butler (1912)
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“Affirm, verb transitive. To declare with suspicious gravity when one is not compelled to wholly discredit himself with an oath.”
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Ambrose Bierce, 1911, The Devil’s Dictionary
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“Defame, verb transitive. To lie about another. To Tell the truth about another.”
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Ambrose Bierce, 1911, The Devil’s Dictionary
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“Diplomacy, noun. The patriotic art of lying for one’s country.”
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Ambrose Bierce, 1911, The Devil’s Dictionary
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“Falsehood, noun. A truth to which the facts are loosely adjusted to an imperfect conformity.”
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Ambrose Bierce,1911, The Devil’s Dictionary
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“Fib, noun. A lie that has not cut its teeth. An habitual liar’s nearest approach to truth; the perigree of his eccentric orbit.”
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Ambrose Bierce, 1911, The Devil’s Dictionary
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“Prevaricator, noun. A liar in the caterpillar state.”
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Ambrose Bierce,1911, The Devil’s Dictionary
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“And after all what is a lie? ‘Tis but / The truth in masquerade.”
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Lord Byron, 1819-24, Don Juan
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“An exaggeration is a truth that has lost its temper.”
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Kahlil Gibran, 1926, Sand and Foam
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“To me the truth is something which cannot be told in a few words, and those who simplify the universe only reduce the expansion of its meaning.”
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Anaise Nin, The Diary of Anaise Nin, 1931-32
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“The greater amount of truth is impulsively uttered; thus the greater amount is spoken, not written.”
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Edgar Allan Poe, 1844-99, Marginalia, Ch. 1
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“Lies are essential to humanity. They play perhaps as great a role as the pursuit of pleasure, and are indeed controlled by this pursuit.”
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Marcel Proust, 1925, Albertine disparue
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“The slanderer kills a thousand times; the assassin but once.”
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Proverbial Chinese
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“A lie is an abomination unto the Lord, and a very present help when in trouble.”
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Adlai Stevenson, January 1951, speech in Washington
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