L Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with L. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him.”
Source: The Note-books of Samuel Butler: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition
“Lying has become so much the accepted norm that people lie even when it would be simpler to tell the truth.”
“Lying has consequences. no matter how sweet the lie is or how believable it is.”
“Lying," he said out loud, hoping no one would hear. "I need to lie. Teach me, quickly."
I wouldn't if I were you, came the response. For a start, it's a variable concept here. You are in a culture where ambiguity has been raised to a high level. Let me give an example: depending on phrasing, circumstance, expression, body movement, intonation and context, the statement "I love you" can mean I love you; I don't love you; I hate you; I want to have sex with you; I do, in fact, love your sister; I don't love you any more; leave me alone, I'm tired, or I'm sorry I forgot your birthday. The person being talked to would instantly understand the meaning but might choose to attribute an entirely different meaning to the statement. Lying is a social act and the nature and import of the lie depends in effect on an unspoken agreement between the parties concerned. Please note that this description does not even begin to explore the concept of deep lies, in which the speaker simultaneously says something he knows to be untrue and genuinely believes it nonetheless: politicians are particularly adept at this.”
Source: Arcadia
“Lying hurts a relationship, disloyalty breaks it.”
Source: Life Simplified: Quote - Unquote
“Lying in a featherbed will bring you no fame, nor staying beneath the quilt, and he who uses up his life without achieving fame leaves no more vestige of himself on Earth than smoke in the air or foam upon the water.”
“Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota”
Source: The Branch Will Not Break: Poems
“Lying in bed for a few days wouldn't help enact the kind of personality overhaul it would take to pull me away from my well-established pattern of mapping out escape routes, clinging to them like vines, and then watching as these lifeless forces suddenly pushed me away, though I continued to hold on for dear life.”
Source: Prozac Nation
“Lying in bed just before going to sleep is the worst time for organized thinking; it is the best time for free thinking. Ideas drift like clouds in an undecided breeze, taking first this direction and then that.”
Source: From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
“Lying in bed, the day begins to unfold, and a quiet unease lingers... Will there be enough hours to bring everything waiting in the mind to life?”
“Lying in bed with his eyes open, he searched the shadows around him, trying to find some steadying, reassuring objects. But the reality was at least as threatening as the nightmares. Having swallowed up all of the familiar shapes of the furniture, the darkness took on the aspect of some unearthly challenge: within this nothingness something monstrous and unknown was surely being spawned. The room had become a kind of breeding ground for monsters.”
Source: The Tenant
“lying in bed with Johnny Depp sussing out which males are what kind of pet from their clothes.”
Source: How to Keep a Boy as a Pet
“Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling.”
“Lying in bed, half-covered by the blankets, I would drowsily ask why he had come to my door that night long ago. It had become a ritual for us, as it does for all lovers: where, when, why? remember...I understand even old people rehearse their private religion of how they first loved, most guarded of secrets. And he would answer, sleep blurring his words, "Because I had to." The question and the answer were always the same. Why? Because I had to.”
Source: The Memoirs of Cleopatra: A Novel
“Lying in bed, he would think of Heaven and London.”
Source: The Collected Works of Aldous Huxley: Brave new world
“Lying in bed, I abandoned the facts again and was back in Ambrosia.”
“Lying in bed, you know, you don't seem so tall.”
“Lying in his parents' house, in the middle of the night, she told him the whole story, about meeting Dimitri on a bus, finding his resume in the bin. She confessed that Dimitri had gone with her to Palm Beach. One by one he stored the pieces of information in his mind, unwelcome, unforgivable. And for the first time in his life, another man's name upset Gogol more than his own.”
Source: The Namesake
“Lying in me, as though it were a white
Stone in the depths of a well, is one
Memory that I cannot, will not, fight:
It is happiness, and it is pain.
Anyone looking straight into my eyes
Could not help seeing it, and could not fail
To become thoughtful, more sad and quiet
Than if he were listening to some tragic tale.
I know the gods changed people into things,
Leaving their consciousness alive and free.
To keep alive the wonder of suffering,
You have been metamorphosed into me.”
“Lying in my bed, I pray for a dreamless sleep... but if I am to dream, I want to dream of her.”
“Lying in small doses makes a good storyteller great.”
“Lying in the bed that had once held two, Lisey thought alone never felt more lonely than when you woke up and discovered you still had the house to yourself. That you and the mice in the walls were the only ones still breathing.”
Source: Lisey's Story: A Novel
“Lying in the grass, hearing all these birds singing, sunset in front of me... such a lovely thing, to be alive, I thought.”
Source: Crazy game called Life
“Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, lessens the friction of social contacts. It is only in lies, wholeheartedly and bravely told, that human nature attains through words and speech the forbearance, the nobility, the romance, the idealism, that -- being what it is -- it falls so short of in fact and in deed.”
“Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, and lessens the frictions of social contacts.”
“Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, lessens the friction of social contacts. . . . It is only in lies, wholeheartedly and bravely told, that human nature attains through words and speech the forebearance, the nobility, the romance, the idealism, that-being what it is-it falls so short of in fact and in deed.”
“Lying is a crime the least liable to variation in its definitions. A child will upon the slightest temptation tell an untruth as readily as the truth. That is, as soon as he can suspect that it will be to his advantage; and the dread that he afterward has of telling a lie is acquired principally by his being threatened, punished, and terrified by those who detect him in it, till at length, a number of painful impressions are annexed to the telling of an untruth, and he comes even to shudder at the thought of it.”
Source: The Theological and Miscellaneous Works. Ed. with Notes by John Towill Rutt
“Lying is a deliberate choice to mislead a target without giving any notification of the intent to do so. There are two major forms of lying: concealment, leaving out true information; and falsification, or presenting false information as if it were true.”
Source: Telling Lies: Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Politics, and Marriage (Revised Edition)
“Lying is a delightful thing, for it leads to truth.”
“Lying is a disgraceful vice, and one that Plutarch paints in most disgraceful colors, when he says that it is "affording testimony that one first despises God, and then fears men." It is not possible more happily to describe its horrible, disgusting, and abandoned nature; for can we imagine anything more vile than to be cowards with regard to men, and brave with regard to God.”
“Lying is a false significance of speech, with a will to deceive, which cannot be cured but by shame and reason; it is a monstrous and wicked evil, that filthily depraved and defileth the tongue of man.”
“Lying is a full time occupation, even if you tell just one, because once you tell it, you're stuck with it. If you want to do it right, you have to visualize it, conjure the graphics, tone, and sequence of action, then relate it purposefully in the midst of seemingly spontaneous dialogue. The more actual the lie becomes to the listener, the more actual it becomes to the teller, which is scariest of all. Some people really get to believing their own lies.”
Source: Anthropology of an American Girl
“Lying is a man's privilege over all organisms. if you lie--you get the truth! Lying is what makes me a man. Not one truth has been reached without first lying fourteen times or so, lying maybe a hundred and fourteen, and that's honorable in its way; well, but we can't even lie with our own minds!”
Source: Crime and Punishment
“Lying is a most disgraceful vice; it first despises God, and then fears men.”
“Lying is a sin, apparently. Unless you do it outrageously and persistently enough, in which case it qualifies as scripture.”
“Lying is a terrible vice, it testifies that one despises God, but fears men.”
“Lying is a thriving Vocation.”
Source: The Works of the Celebrated Mrs. Centlivre ...: The life of the author. Perjur'd husband. Beaux's duel. Gamester. Basset table. Love at a venture. Stolen heiress
“Lying is actually an underated social skill. Some clever person should write a polite guide to lying. And all the charitable principles which justifiy lying so well.”
Source: The Mummy
“Lying is an art.”
“Lying is an elementary means of self-defense.”
“Lying is an indispensable part of making life tolerable.”
“Lying is an old art, no one lies now; it's just we hide things because if we never disclose it, probably we never have to admit it and lie about it. That's how this world works these days!”
“Lying is before you and the grave is in front of you.”
“Lying is common in social life, often done for benign purposes, seldom draws severe sanctions, and many of the most notable leaders, including the late Steve Jobs, were consummate prevaricators. Told with enough persistence and conviction, what was once untrue can become true, in a self-fulfilling prophecy sort of way.”
“Lying is done with words and also with silence.”
Source: Arts of the Possible: Essays and Conversations
“Lying is easy. But it's lonely."
"What do you mean?"
"When you lie to everyone about everything, what's left? What's true?"
"Nothing," I say.
"Exactly.”
Source: The Archived
“Lying is essential to humanity. It plays as large a part perhaps as the quest for pleasure, and is moreover governed by that quest. One lies in order to protect one's pleasure, or one's honour if the disclosure of one's pleasure runs counter to one's honour. One lies all one's life long, even, especially, perhaps only, to those who love one. For they alone make us fear for our pleasure and desire their esteem.”
Source: The Captive / The Fugitive
“Lying is forbidden in Iraq. President Saddam Hussein will tolerate nothing but truthfulness as he is a man of great honour and integrity. Everyone is encouraged to speak freely of the truths evidenced in their eyes and hearts.”
“Lying is just letting people believe what they want to be true.”
Source: Return of the Thief
“Lying is like alcoholism. You are always recovering.”