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“ What proof can you bring forward; what foundation have you for so scandalous a supposition?"
'"I see you turn everything against me," said I, "and that whatever I say I only come in for more blame; therefore I'll say no more, though as to the proofs for our opinion they were palpable enough. People, all as one man, can't mistake joyous looks, and lively manner, and sparkling eyes for displeasure or for anything but signs of satisfaction; but I see you don't believe me, and that I am offending you still more."
'"You are, sir, both displeasing and offending me. ”

“ I have done my best to make you hate and scorn to tell a lie, and the consequence is, that I would sooner take your word than I would the oath of any man I know. And now I charge you to fight against every bad thought which comes into your mind, and to scorn to do a mean or ungenerous action. ”

“ The gradual debasement of a word into a term of reproach is sometimes a species of scandal. It is wilfully perverted in the course of years, and made to tell a different tale,—a false tale, probably,—which generations receive as true. ”

“ The reason is, I replied, that you attribute some profound meaning to my words; but I am only saying that deception, or being deceived or uninformed about the highest realities in the highest part of themselves, which is the soul, and in that part of them to have and to hold the lie, is what mankind least like;—that, I say, is what they utterly detest. ”

“ When you tell your first lie, bring it to me."
"I don't dare to tell lies, sir; mother says God hates liars; but 'those that speak the truth are his delight.'"
[39]
"That's true doctrine; and here we are." ”

“ And let it not satisfy you that, for a time, the hearers take it for truth; for after it will be known as it is, to your shame; for there cannot be a greater reproach to a gentleman than to be counted a liar. ”

“ Those who are attempting, sir, to deceive others, and whose character is exalted, in their own opinion, in proportion to the success of their endeavours, have surely a sense of shame, though they have none of virtue, and cannot, without pain, find their artifices detected, and themselves made the objects of ridicule, by those stratagems which they employ for the deception of others. ”

“ Whether unmasked by others, or by myself, is it not equally true that I have been playing false, and am now punished for it? What do the world care for your having returned to truth? You have offended by deceiving them, and that is an offence which your repentance will not extenuate. ”

“ And, as I was just now remarking, this ignorance in the soul of him who is deceived may be called the true lie; for the lie in words is only a kind of imitation and shadowy image of a previous affection of the soul, not pure unadulterated falsehood. ”

“ If there be error, it lies with the deceiver, not the deceived. And you, my sons and disciples, banish from your faces and your breasts every expression and every thought unworthy of your honest companion, and your upright sect. For remember, if to abhor falsehood and vice be noble, to distrust truth and innocence is mean. ”

“ Will he come to the consideration of the question impartially, indifferently, and without any wrong bias, or give the painful and revolting truth the same cordial welcome as the long-cherished and favourite prejudice? To say that the truth or falsehood of a proposition is the only circumstance that gains it admittance into the mind, independently of the pleasure or pain it affords us, is itself an assertion made in pure caprice or desperation. ”

“ Finding that they could neither answer nor controvert my principles, nor put me down, they have been base enough to resort to slander, and to the most wanton and barefaced falsehoods, which they have trumped up to blacken me. ”

“ But I have been taught that gossip, whether inspired by malice or not, which is according to each one's natural tendency, begins in a lie and generally ends in truth. Does gossip, as it grows, disclose the hidden sin? ”

“ The opportunities, which have so often escaped us have not been lost; through ignorance, or want of judgment; but through negligence or treachery.—If I assume, at this time, more than ordinary liberty of speech, I conjure you to suffer, patiently, those truths, which have no other end, but your own good. ”

“ I do not mean to say that you are to conduct yourselves precisely in the same manner under similar circumstances; a pipe, or a pot, or a pinch of snuff—in short, any means of diversion—will answer your purpose equally well.
Adhere strictly to truth—whenever there is no occasion for lying. Be particularly careful to conceal no one circumstance likely to redound to your credit. But when two principles clash, the weaker, my good people, must, as the saying is, go to the wall. If, therefore, it be to your interest to lie, do so, and do it boldly. ”

“ It is not in written words, but by the hundred modifications that looks make and tone, and denial of the full sense of the very words used, that one can reconcile the struggle between sincerity and diffidence, between the persuasion that I am in the right, and that as deep though not so vivid conviction, that it may be the positiveness of ignorance rather than the certainty of insight. ”

“ As ingenious in detraction as in silence and dissimulation, have they not too often answered imputations which they could not disprove with accusations which they could not prove, till the slanders they had invented rivalled in number and intensity the slanders which had been invented against them? ”

“ Deception is hypocrisy, and you shall not assume to be what you are not.
19. You may not clothe yourselves in special garb to advertise your piety, nor yet assume the tone of voice that men conceive to be a holy voice. ”

“ Although what, indeed, can be secure enough from the sting of a false accuser, who, like the adder at the voice of the charmer, stops his ear from hearing any one clearing himself, though it be ever so justly? ”

“ To say nice things merely to avoid giving offense; to keep silent rather than speak the truth; to equivocate, to evade, to dodge, to say what is expedient rather than what is truthful; to shirk the truth; to face both ways; to exaggerate; to seem to concur with another's opinions when you do not; to deceive by a glance of the eye, a nod of the head, a smile, a gesture; to lack sincerity; to assume to know or think or feel what you do not—all these are but various manifestations of hollowness and falsehood resulting from want of accuracy. ”

“ There is a marked line of distinction to be drawn between falsifying one's word and all other forms of deception, for there is such a sacredness in the spoken word, that the violation of it is in general far more reprehensible than the attempt to accomplish the same end by mere action. ”

“ I have often considered whence this custom that we so religiously observe should spring, of being more highly offended with the reproach of a vice so familiar to us than with any other, and that it should be the highest insult that can in words be done us to reproach us with a lie. ”

“ Persons have frequently ruined their own characters by making false accusations. Some say they dare not tell their feelings, and feel obliged to remain silent. They, no doubt, tell the truth. Why do they feel so? ”

“ Do you use this phrase to deceive those whom you look upon as being so ignorant, so destitute of reason, as to be deceived by idle, unmeaning words? If you do not, you are plainly bound to let us all know what you do mean, by doing "equal and exact justice to all men." ”

“ As to what concerns ourselves, we are to fence against every thing that savours of deceit or hypocrisy; and, in our whole conversation, endeavour to be what we pretend to be; or to speak nothing but what we know, or believe to be true, upon good evidence, the contrary whereunto is lying. ”

“ An easy ear deceives, and is deceived:
For many truths have often pass'd for lies,
And lies as often put on truth's disguise; 180
As flattery too oft like friendship shows,
So them who speak plain truth we think our foes. ”

“ Take heed, lest by nice and subtle sophistry you burthen your knowing soul, or knowingly burthen your soul, with the guilt of advancing a false title, or of maintaining, by specious fallacies, a claim which, if shown in its native and true colours, would appear to be false. ”

“ This species of deceit, or as I may say lie, is so frequent, that we scarce see a cause in which it is not practised, and in which, both parties agree in the state of the facts, on which the matter in issue rests ”

“ We venture, therefore, to lay a statement of our case before you—and you will learn from this discourse that we suffer unjustly, and contrary to all law and reason—and we beseech you to bestow some consideration upon us also, that we may cease at length to be slaughtered at the instigation of false accusers. ”

“ My last and firm determination is, that I refuse to confess as erroneous the articles which have been truly extracted from my works, and that I refuse to abjure those which have been attributed to me by false witnesses; for to abjure implies that one has held erroneous opinions—it is, in fact, to reject them, and adopt others of a contrary tendency. ”

“ The better the man, the more abandoned the woman, the more incredible her lies, so much the more certain is his condemnation. Bah, you know it! I should not hesitate about the lies, and, if I made them sufficiently repulsive, your noble countrymen would not hesitate to believe them. ”

“ You who have done any dishonest act, spoken falsehood, dealt deceitfully, all your dishonest acts, and false words, and deceitful dealings, will pass away, but the traces will remain, and God will look narrowly at them. ”

“ I sometimes lie; but generally in affairs of gallantry, where I voluntarily confirm falsehoods by oaths, without reflection, for swearing with me is a habit. I am told that my mind is brilliant, and that I have a certain manner in turning a thought which is quite my own. ”

“ If you are certain a statement is false, and it is injurious to another person, who may be absent, you may quietly and courteously inform the speaker that he is mistaken, but if the falsehood is of no consequence, let it pass. ”

“ But if, as we shall prove presently, the act of so speaking is by no means indifferent and colourless, but is fraught with an inordinateness all its own, then the intention may be left out of the question, the act is to be characterised on its own merits, and speech against one's mind is the definition of a lie. ”

“ I was deceived; vulgar minds dislike serious reasoning; if some noble truth start up, they applaud for a moment, but the next withdraw their notice, or scruple not to attempt to shine by questioning, or aiming to place it in some ludicrous point of view. ”

“ But blame the false, and value still the true.
Some ne'er advance a judgment of their own,
But catch the spreading notion of the Town;
[145] They reason and conclude by precedent,
And own stale nonsense which they ne'er invent. ”

“ Those that design to do ill support themselves by falsehood and lying: A wicked doer gives ear, with a great deal of pleasure, to false lips, that will justify him in the ill he does, to those that aim to make public disturbances, catch greedily at libels, and false stories, that defame the government and the administration. 2. Those that take the liberty to tell lies take a pleasure in hearing them told: A liar gives heed to a malicious backbiting tongue, that he may have something to graft his lies upon, and with which to give them some colour of truth and so to support them. ”

“ The dark and uncertain notions, not to say the absolute disbelief, which they entertained of a future state, is the only apology that can be offered for this reasoning. But while we censure their tenets, let us not adopt their errors; errors which would be infinitely more inexcusable in us, who, from the clearer views which revelation has given us, shall not have their ignorance or their doubts to plead. ”

“ If any man, as idle as myself, should take the trouble to review and canvass my arguments I am ready to yield so indifferent a point to better reasons. Should declamation alone be used to contradict me, I shall not think I am less in the right. ”

“ Such as speak the truth in uprightness will not vary in their talk, but tell the same tale again, and be like to themselves in that which they shall say; whereas liars be in and out, affirming and denying, and speaking contradictions in the same manner. ”

“ Moreover, if the question may be raised: what constitutes justice? may one not equally well ask: what constitutes veracity or its opposite? Where does the silence of indifference shade into purposed concealment, and the latter into what is unequivocally deception? At what point does deception blossom out into the unmistakable lie? One may take advantage of an accidental misunderstanding of what one has said ”

“ The accusation goes everywhere, is copied into every printed rag; the contradiction dies with the daily death of a single newspaper. You may reply that a man of sense will be indifferent to false accusations. ”

“ What, then, is the only thing that they shun? That in which is bred falsehood and deceit,—that is, opining, and haste in giving consent,—which is a yielding through weakness to that which appears, and has not any true utility. ”

“ If thou speakest truth not from love of truth but from wish to injure another, thou wilt not gain the reward of a truthspeaker but the punishment of a defamer.
“Truth is life and eternal salvation. Therefore you ought to pity any one whom it displeases. ”

“ The speeches before us are to the subject what a veil is to a lady's face, or a blind to a window. Almost all that has been said or written upon it is a palpable delusion—an attempt to speak out and say nothing; to oppose something that might be done, and propose something that cannot be done ”