c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Having confronted the world with little except a battered typewriter and a certain resilience, he can now take posthumous credit for having got the three great questions of the 20th century essentially 'right.' Orwell was an early and consistent foe of European imperialism, and foresaw the end of colonial rule. He was one of the first to volunteer to bear arms against fascism and Nazism in Spain. And, while he was soldiering in Catalonia, he saw through the biggest and most seductive lie of them all—the false promise of a radiant future offered by the intellectual underlings of Stalinism.
— Christopher Hitchens
The best lie was always just short of the truth.
— Roderick Vincent, The Cause
Can't you see? Before you knew the truth, we were happy. What's the god in ferreting out the truth all that time? It's always unpleasant.""Is it only lies that are Pleasant?""Usually. That's why people tell them. To make life bearable.
— Penelope Mortimer
Never compel yourself to say words to which the heart yields no response.
— Fanny Fern, Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time
For nearly thirty years the powerful propaganda machines of Stalinism worked furiously to expunge Trotsky's name from the annals of the revolution, or to leave it there only as the synonym for arch-traitor. To the present Soviet generation, and not only to it, Trotsky's life-story is already like an ancient Egyptian sepulchre which is known to have contained the body of a great man and the record, engraved in gold, of his deeds; but tomb-robbers and ghouls have plundered and left it so empty and desolate that no trace is found of the record it once contained. The work of the tomb-robbers has, in this present instance, been so persistent that it has strongly affected the views even of independent Western historians and scholars.
— Isaac Deutscher
Unveiling the lies that we live by can ultimately help reveal the truth.
— Miranda J. Barrett
It’s a lie, but it’s the lie he needs. I’m going to hell.
— Kiersten White, Annie and Fia
Lips and tongues lie. But actions never do. No matter what words are spoken, actions betray the truth of everyone's heart.
— Sherrilyn Kenyon, Born of Fury
A man can do what he ought to do; and when he says he cannot, it is because he will not.
— Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Lies don't fit snugly into disguises. Eventually the cloak falls off and you're left staring at the naked truth which is always an uncomfortable situation.
— Richelle E. Goodrich, Making Wishes
It feels nice to emerge from the lies.
— Markus Zusak, I Am the Messenger
But I cannot love her as I did, because she is not open, because she withholds what matters, because she makes me, with her pride or her madness, live a lie.
— A.S. Byatt, Possession
Everybody hates lies even the liars themselves
— Irfan Ullah Hosain
Did you play by the rules and work hard but feel empty and unfulfilled? It's because you were lied to.
— Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
Don't ever accuse anyone of being full of pride, undignified and unprofessional when simply they are wise to move away from dishonest schemers.Dishonesty comprise too of layers of lies simply casted for impressive appearances. There are times too that corrupt hearts have their own confused, modified, self-affirming, pro-self interest business inclined definitions of "professionalism, integrity, dignity and pride.
— Angelica Hopes
Too old for dolls. Too ill for tablets.
— Carla H. Krueger, Sleeping with the Sun
Lies, so often misleading and which form the substance of all conversations, are less effective in covering up a feeling of dislike or of self-interest, or a visit one would rather people did not know about, or a one-day fling one wants to conceal from one's wife - than a good reputation is in utterly overshadowing disreputable habits.
— Marcel Proust, The Captive & The Fugitive
Sometimes lies are more dependable than the truth.
— Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game
The acceptable is unacceptable. The truth is a lie. The good is pure evil. Even freedom has become a prison.
— Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
You know why Love Doesn't get Honest To you ?
— Because you're choosing Them Enemy
Seeking the truth you will find lies from the past.
— Pēteris Bitāns
The truth may hurt but lies kill.
— Anonomyus
Almost everything you think is sacred, good and decent, is a lie and an all-out assault against truth and decency.
— Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
The truth is often a big, scary wall, no less massive and haunting even after you find a way around it.
— Sean Patrick Brennan, Heaven, Hell, and the Planet in Between: Book 1: The Uniter
Lie to yourself if you want, but you’re not fooling me. Your excuses tell me that you didn’t really want it.
— Steve Maraboli
The truth will set us free. But freedom is cold and empty and frightening, and lies can often be warm and beautiful.
— George R.R. Martin, Dreamsongs, Volume I
So much was so easy. Glamour was second nature. It was just making folk see what they wanted to see. Fooling folk was as simple as singing. Tricking folk and telling lies, it was like breathing.But this? Convincing someone of the truth that they were too twisted to see? How could you even begin?
— Patrick Rothfuss, Rogues
The first rule in life is 'everybody lies.' Remember that and you'll get a lot further.
— Jennifer Crusie, What the Lady Wants
The biggest liar you will ever meet is yourself. It is amazing the lies we tell ourselves because of fear.
— Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
Freedom is the most sophisticated form of control. The best lies use the truth.
— Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
Mitch's take on humanity had deteriorated to the point where he assumed someone was lying if her lips were moving.
— Jennifer Crusie, What the Lady Wants
If you can't be who you really are then what is life but an unbearable lie?
— Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
I lie constantly. All the time. I’m nothing but one big mass of lies.
— Kiersten White, Perfect Lies
Never let your mouth write a check that your ass can't cash.
— Chip Kidd, The Cheese Monkeys
The world is naturally averse to all truth it sees or hears but swallows nonsense and a lie with greediness and gluttony.
— Samuel Butler
The best lies are always flavoured with the truth but if the substance is rotten, it will stink no matter how much you try to disguise it.
— M.R.C. Kasasian, The Mangle Street Murders
The people who support and defend those accused of child sexual abuse indiscriminately, those who join organizations dedicated to defending people who are accused of child sexual abuse with no screening whatsoever to keep out those who are guilty as charged are likewise not necessarily people engaged in an objective search for the truth. Some of them can and do use deceit, trickery, misstated research, harassment, intimidation, and charges of laundering federal money to silence their opponents.Those of us who are the recipients of bogus lawsuits and frivolous ethics charges and phony phone calls and pickets outside our offices must know more than the research to survive such tactics. We must know something about endurance and about the importance of refusing to be intimidated.Confessions of a Whistle-Blower: Lessons Learned Author: Anna C. Salter. Ethics & Behavior, Volume 8, Issue 2 June 1998
— Anna C. Salter
REJECT THE LIES AND VIOLENCE. STAND FOR LOVE, TRUTH, DECENCY AND THE COMMON GOOD.
— Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
...lies is lies. Howsever they come, they didn't ought to come, and they come from the father of lies, work round to the same.
— Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
Not all the relationships deserve loving and all the lies worth to regret.
— M.F. Moonzajer, LOVE, HATRED AND MADNESS
Those who speak the truth in this world; they fall out of favor, in the current era of inflated lies.
— Kristian Goldmund Aumann, The Seven Deadly Sins
A man protects his fish from rats by keeping it under a cat's watch. How wise!Another buys a gun for security reasons, but decides to kill a ghost with it. How smart!One prays to God for safety, as he climbs a palm tree with sewing thread. How intelligent!Man does not want the truth, and God does not want lies, yet there is no third option.One pretends to be rich, yet has nothing. That's pride. Another pretends to be poor, yet has great wealth. Humility!Not all that glitters is gold, and not all gold glitters. Watch, with the eyes, and also with the heart.Just because all things are lawful, don't make them expedient. And because a thing is right doesn't mean it edifies.With Faith, Wisdom comes highly recommended!
— Olaotan Fawehinmi, If I Were A Girl, I Would Not...
But sometimes the lies we let ourselves believe are for our own good.
— Rob Thomas
Don’t be sorry for the truth. A harsh truth is less damaging than a tender lie, and the worst lies are the ones we tell ourselves.
— Dianna Hardy, The Spell of Summer
I was trying to spare her any further stress(...)I wasn’ttrying to be deceitful.
— Quinn Loftis, Prince of Wolves
I didn't mean to hurt her.
— Quinn Loftis, Prince of Wolves
It was Freud's ambition to discover the cause of hysteria, the archetypal female neurosis of his time. In his early investigations, he gained the trust and confidence of many women, who revealed their troubles to him.Time after time, Freud's patients, women from prosperous, conventional families, unburdened painful memories of childhood sexual encounters with men they had trusted: family friends, relatives, and fathers. Freud initially believed his patients and recognized the significance of their confessions. In 1896, with the publication of two works, The Aetiology of Hysteria and Studies on Hysteria, he announced that he had solved the mystery of the female neurosis. At the origin of every case of hysteria, Freud asserted, was a childhood sexual trauma.But Freud was never comfortable with this discovery, because of what it implied about the behavior of respectable family men. If his patients' reports were true, incest was not a rare abuse, confined to the poor and the mentally defective, but was endemic to the patriarchal family. Recognizing the implicit challenge to patriarchal values, Freud refused to identify fathers publicly as sexual aggressors. Though in his private correspondence he cited "seduction by the father" as the "essential point" in hysteria, he was never able to bring himself to make this statement in public. Scrupulously honest and courageous in other respects, Freud falsified his incest cases. In The Aetiology of Hysteria, Freud implausibly identified governessss, nurses, maids, and children of both sexes as the offenders. In Studies in Hysteria, he managed to name an uncle as the seducer in two cases. Many years later, Freud acknowledged that the "uncles" who had molested Rosaslia and Katharina were in fact their fathers. Though he had shown little reluctance to shock prudish sensibilities in other matters, Freud claimed that "discretion" had led him to suppress this essential information. Even though Freud had gone to such lengths to avoid publicly inculpating fathers, he remained so distressed by his seduction theory that within a year he repudiated it entirely. He concluded that his patients' numerous reports of sexual abuse were untrue. This conclusion was based not on any new evidence from patients, but rather on Freud's own growing unwillingness to believe that licentious behavior on the part of fathers could be so widespread. His correspondence of the period revealed that he was particularly troubled by awareness of his own incestuous wishes toward his daughter, and by suspicions of his father, who had died recently.p9-10
— Judith Lewis Herman, Father-Daughter Incest: With a New Afterword
It was hard to tell if he was lying, or really believed his own bullshit. “We’re good for each other. You give me what I need. I give you what you need. No one needs to know what that is because it’s a secret between us. So we put on our suit. That’s the investment: us.
— Dan Skinner, The Price of Dick
Extremism stifles true progression in all fields of human advancement; it is a detriment to everything but war, tribalism and the personal power of Nietzschean entities, striving only for the narcissistic vindication of their ego and will. The enlightened mind knows that all is challengeable, ergo questions all and thus, learns and grows; progression. The weak and narrow mind makes its beliefs sacrosanct; fearful of challenge, their creed becomes unalterable, defended with violence. Political extremists, much like religious zealots, are the latter. They destroy what they cannot convert. They annihilate those they cannot control, or force to conform. They have found no peace in life, no love, and so promote war and division, as emotional cripples – inflicting their own pain and misery and malignant stupidity on the world. Their language binds people together, but only by stirring the darkest excesses of the soul; language of hate, and intolerance, fear and conspiracy, and the need for vengeance. In war-scarred Europe, these cripples direct mass-psychology, and would make the world in their own likeness; mutilated by violence and tribalism and hate.
— Daniel S. Fletcher, Jackboot Britain
Expose the Jesuit order and learn about the global genocide. Speak out, even when what you have to say is not popular.
— John Reynaga
Love hadn’t existed in this world. Only hate, deceit and lies, but by letting him in I’d let all of that crumble.By letting me in he’d done the same, and now we were engaged in an even deadlier game than before.
— Cassandra Giovanni, In Between Seasons
So it was a crossroads summer, when the universe seemed to stand perilously still like an egg wobbling on a precipice, a regular rite of passage summer that saw us traverse the hazardous divide between the illusions of boyhood and the far more pernicious deceptions of maturity, et cetera.
— Sol Luckman, Beginner's Luke
What simple andordinary lives we live,underneath the shadowsof projection screenartists
— Phil Volatile, White Wedding Lies, and Discontent: An American Love Story
The Jews are the scum of the earth, but they are also great masters in lying.
— Arthur Schopenhauer
The truth can be very sharp. But it makes a cleaner wound than lies. It will not fester
— Anne Perry, Dark Assassin
The truth reveals itself in the most innocent of ways. You can lie and deceive, attempt to bury that which you wish to remain unseen. Yet the truth flourishes, rising from it's prison to stand tall for all to see.
— D. Alma
A lie is nothing more than the truth told in reverse
— Arthur C. Buckner
Because though women lie when they have to and men lie all the time, the mirror always tells the truth.
— Jane Yolen, Snow in Summer
You want me to lie to you?" said McKay. I shrugged. Why not? I didn't mind lies.
— Alice Hoffman, Property Of
My pants are on fire!
— John Ziegler
There is not a person in this courtroom who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no man living who has never looked upon a woman without desire.
— Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
What lies behind us & what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ophelia was surprised by how easily she lied. She had two stolen keys in her pocket, and the lies were sliding off her tongue. Soon, she'd probably be shoplifting. She expected that was how it started.
— Karen Foxlee, Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy
Live, but do not love, because love is simply a lie, only heartache waits in its wake.
— Brad Bierdz
A wise man once found peace in the practice of saying nothing, leaving the gossiper with no other choice but to fabricate gossip about a wise man saying nothing
— Herbert Maurice Brunner
All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies.
— John Arbuthnot
Lies are simpler, and most of the time they make better sense.
— Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear
I don't ask why patients lie, I just assume they all do.-Greg House
— House
The problem with being a liar is you can never believe anyone else.
— Chloe Thurlow, The Secret Life of Girls
The first generation of therapists doing this work were told by their clients that the one massive cult was everywhere, knew everything, had access to state-of-the-art technology, and was willing to kill both clients and therapists to stop the information from getting out." []"The reality is that even before stories of ritual abuse and mind control began coming out to therapists, the groups had agreed on what kind of disinformation to spread, so that clients would be afraid to tell their therapists what had happened to them, and therapists would be afraid to work with these clients." [ ]"We know that there is not one massive Satanic cult, but many different interrelated groups, including religious, military/political, and organized crime, using mind control on children and adult survivors. We know that there are effective treatments. We know that many of the paralyzing beliefs our clients lived by are the results of lies and tricks perpetrated by their abusers.
— Alison Miller, Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control
Truth is ugly that is why we don't like it
— rassool jibraeel snyman
That, as my cousin Nord would say, is where my improvised lie falls apart.
— Eoin Colfer, The Last Guardian
It is not so much freedom of speech but the right to truth that great men protect.
— Criss Jami, Killosophy
Lies are the first step to the violent protection of them
— rassool jibraeel snyman
Lies are living beings
—  once they get hold of you they never let go
You never feel good when you lie. It doesn't matter how much you want something, if you lie to somebody you love, and they actually, sincerely believe you, you feel like a cockroach that needs some serious Raid action.
— Randa Abdel-Fattah
Every lie needs, and gives birth to, another lie
— rassool jibraeel snyman
He who is absolutely right is absolutely wrong
— rassool jibraeel snyman
I love looking up at the stars because they make me believe that some things in this world are permanent.
— Mia Sheridan
The first trick to lying is to tell the truth as often as possible. If out start lying about everything, big and small, it becomes impossible to keep things straight and you'll get caught. Once suspicion is planted it becomes exponentially harder to sell the next lie.
— Victoria Schwab, The Archived
The lies we tell about ourselves may be more revealing than the truths we incautiously reveal.
— James Edwin Gunn, Transcendental
The lies you tell yourself. The necessary lies.
— Glen Duncan, By Blood We Live
Righteous indignation are the very clothes that liars wear
— rassool jibraeel snyman
Is it okay to do something wrong if you're doing it to protect someone who deserves to be helped?""That's an odd question Is there anything you need to tell me?"but I think sometimes you have to tell a white lie,. It's like when Grandma and Grandpa were here for the funeral. They didn't say a word about Grandpa being sick. They tried to protect us because they knew we had enough to deal with. I wondered if you thought they did the right thing by not telling us."Her mother let out a soft sigh. "You're right. We call it a white lie. We do that to protect the ones we love. I used to think it was totally wrong no matter what the reasoning was. Now I think I've changed my mind a bit." "No," Ele said, 
— Peggy M. McAloon, Elle Burton and the Reflective Portals
Go to the Source of Purity; there you will find the truth. Go to the river of Acheron; there you will find the human truth, it is, however, fed by lies.
— Kristian Goldmund Aumann, The Seven Deadly Sins
In a world of stupidity a thinking man is insane
— rassool jibraeel snyman
There are no guarantees with finally being honest and coming clean with people. Sometimes you don’t win love back. Sometimes you lose the love you had. Sometimes you crush people that cared. Sometimes you break apart families. Sometimes you lose your career. Sometimes you lose your way of life. Sometimes you end up worse off than you were before. However, you walk away with a heart free from lies, regret and you have closure. Within time, you find yourself in a life that is far from the prison you once lived in. This type of freedom is the scariest road you will ever travel. However, it is the road God will never let you travel alone.
— Shannon L. Alder
The truth really does set you free — but what they don’t tell you is the process hurts like hell.
— Rachel Van Dyken, Toxic
light makes shadow. Truth makes lies.
— Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance
Shit spews from your lips as from the ass of a pig.
— Brom, Krampus: The Yule Lord
When you become complacent with someone lying, whether it is a close friend, the media, or your government, then you have essentially given them permission to continue to do so and most often at your expense.
— Gary   Hopkins
I've learned that sometimes a smile represents the greatest form of deceit.
— Michael    Gilbert, Perfected Sinfulness
I would rather live a life alone, than live a life built on lies, deceit and manipulation".
— Linda Simpson
A house built on lies has a weak foundation.
— Brom, Krampus: The Yule Lord
I don't mined being lied to, but what ever you do never betray me
— pikmin100xx
I am not superior than anybody, don't say i am, else i won't defend you when you get caught.
— Michael Bassey Johnson
Greed:Your own lies make you sick.
— Kristian Goldmund Aumann, The Seven Deadly Sins
I would rather live a life alone, than live a life based on lies, deceit and manipulation
— Linda Simpson
Lack of courtesy is an extreme form of disrespect
— Khaleel Datay, The Winter Deception
…it argues that true love will triumph in the end (which may or may not be true) but if it’s a lie, it’s the most beautiful lie we have!
— John Green
That is how it is with lies. If you can have enough people believe your lies, before you know it, even the one you have lied against will be confused. The lie will make itself at home and the truth will be knocking outside its own door.
— Yvette Christiansë
Francie always remembered what that kind teacher told her. “You know, Francie, a lot of people would think that these stories that you’re making up all the time were terrible lies because they are not the truth as people see the truth. In the future, when something comes up, you tell exactly how it happened but write down for yourself the way you think it should have happened. Tell the truth and write the story. Then you won’t get mixed up.
— Betty  Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
A lie is no less a lie because it is a thousand years old. Your undivided church has liked nothing better than persecuting its own members, burning them and hacking them apart when they stood by their own conscience, slashing their bellies open and feeding their guts to dogs.
— Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall
Jimmi manages a laugh that makes my skin crawl. “Do you really think what you read in those books is true? Sure, some of it may be but have you ever actually paid attention to it? It's all false set upon us as truth. You can't coat something with lies and intend it to go away. It's asinine and lackluster at best.
— Celia McMahon, Skye
Why would they lie to us?”“Because deep down, we're all afraid of having peace. Because deep down we know we're all poisoned. We're more afraid of ourselves than we are of others. In that thinking, we deny ourselves the very power that we could have. In that thinking, we put liars on pedestals. Then, when the time is right they proclaim their lies as truth and revel in it as if they did something truly righteous and people will fall to their knees because we never learn if our mistakes are never admitted and cataloged. What better way to destroy a person than to make them realize that everything they ever believed was wrong?
— Celia McMahon, Skye
Telling the truth may cause a few seconds of pain, but there's no medicine that can manage the pain of keeping lies.
— R.M. Ford
Not all truths hurt. And not all that is hurtful is truthful.
— Mokokoma Mokhonoana
You can tell yourself that you would be willing to lose everything you have in order to get something you want. But it’s a catch-22: all of those things that you’re willing to lose are what make you recognizable. Lose them, and you've lost yourself.
— Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care
Lies make for pathetic allies.
— T.F. Hodge, From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph Over Death and Conscious Encounters with "The Divine Presence"
Don't let out your true behaviour in the public, even if you were born nasty, make others feel you were well bred.
— Michael Bassey Johnson
Don’t be afraid of caterpillars –They are reborn as butterflies.Transformed by love are saints and killers.The truth is sometimes worse than lies.
— Tatyana K. Varenko, Elfineness
[Refers to 121 children taken into care in Cleveland due to suspected abuse (1987) and later returned to their parents]Sue Richardson, the child abuse consultant at the heart of the crisis, watched as cases began to unravel: “All the focus started to fall on the medical findings; other supportive evidence, mainly which we held in the social services department, started to be screened out. A situation developed where the cases either were proven or fell on the basis of medical evidence alone. Other evidence that was available to the court, very often then, never got put. We would have had statement from the child, the social workers and the child psychologist’s evidence from interviewing. We would have evidence of prior concerns, either from social workers or teachers, about the child’s behaviour or other symptoms that they might have been showing, which were completely aside from the medical findings. (Channel 4 1997) Ten years after the Cleveland crisis, Sue Richardson was adamant that evidence relating to children’s safety was not presented to the courts which subsequently returned those children to their parents: “I am saying that very clearly. In some cases, evidence was not put in the court. In other cases, agreements were made between lawyers not to put the case to the court at all, particularly as the crisis developed. Latterly, that children were sent home subject to informal agreements or agreements between lawyers. The cases never even got as far as the court. (Channel 4, 1997)”Nor is Richardson alone. Jayne Wynne, one of the Leeds paediatricians who had pioneered the use of RAD as an indicator of sexual abuse and who subsequently had detailed knowledge of many of the Cleveland children, remains concerned by the haphazard approach of the courts to their protection. I think the implication is that the children were left unprotected. The children who were being abused unfortunately returned to homes and the abuse may well have been ongoing. (Channel 4 1997)
— Heather Bacon, Creative Responses to Child Sexual Abuse: Challenges and Dilemmas
The Legend of Robert HalseyThis article examines the criminal conviction of Robert Halsey for sexually abusing two young boys on his school-van route near Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Mr. Halsey's name has been invoked by academics, journalists, and activists as the victim of the “witch hunt” in this country over child sexual abuse. Based on a comprehensive examination of the trial transcript, this article details the overwhelming evidence of guilt against Mr. Halsey. The credulous acceptance of the “false conviction” legend about Robert Halsey provides a case study in the techniques and tactics used to minimize and deny sexual abuse, while promoting a narrative about “ritual abuse” and “witch hunts” that apparently requires little or no factual basis. The second part of this article analyzes how the erroneous “false conviction” narrative about Robert Halsey was constructed and how it gained widespread acceptance. The Legend of Robert Halsey provides a cautionary tale about how easy it is to wrap even the guiltiest person in a cloak of righteous “witch hunt” claims. Cases identified as “false convictions” by defense lawyers and political activists deserve far greater scrutiny from the media and the public.journal: Cheit, Ross E. "The Legend of Robert Halsey." Journal of child sexual abuse 9.3-4 (2002): 37-52.
— Ross Cheit
I think we shall have trouble learning how to lie, having for so long practiced the art of going round and round the truth without ever lying about it, or reaching it either.
— Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
But the lie had to be a good one, because if your lie is badly done it makes everyone feel wretched, liar and lied-to alike plunged into the deepest lackadaisy, and everyone just feels like going into the other room and drinking a glass of water, or whatever is available there, whereas if you can lie really well then get dynamite results, 35 percent report increased intellectual understanding, awareness, insight, 40 percent report more tolerance, acceptance of others, liking for self, 29 percent report they receive more personal and more confidential information from people and that others become more warm and supportive toward them--all in consequence of a finely orchestrated, carefully developed untruth.
— Donald Barthelme, Flying to America: 45 More Stories
But nothing in my previous work had prepared me for the experience of reinvestigating Cleveland. It is worth — given the passage of time — recalling the basic architecture of the Crisis: 121 children from many different and largely unrelated families had been taken into the care of Cleveland County Council in the three short months of the summer of 1987. (p18)The key to resolving the puzzle of Cleveland was the children. What had actually happened to them? Had they been abused - or had the paediatricians and social workers (as public opinion held) been over-zealous and plain wrong? Curiously — particularly given its high profile, year-long sittings and £5 million cost — this was the one central issue never addressed by the Butler-Sloss judicial testimony and sifting of internal evidence, the inquiry's remit did not require it to answer the main question. Ten years after the crisis, my colleagues and I set about reconstructing the records of the 121 children at its heart to determine exactly what had happened to them... (p19)Eventually, though, we did assemble the data given to the Butler-Sloss Inquiry. This divided into two categories: the confidential material, presented in camera, and the transcripts of public sessions of the hearings. Putting the two together we assembled our own database on the children each identified only by the code-letters assigned to them by Butler-Sloss. When it was finished, this database told a startlingly different story from the public myth. In every case there was some prima fade evidence to suggest the possibility of abuse. Far from the media fiction of parents taking their children to Middlesbrough General Hospital for a tummy ache or a sore thumb and suddenly being presented with a diagnosis of child sexual abuse, the true story was of families known to social services for months or years, histories of physical and sexual abuse of siblings and of prior discussions with parents about these concerns. In several of the cases the children themselves had made detailed disclosures of abuse; many of the pre-verbal children displayed severe emotional or behavioural symptoms consistent with sexual abuse. There were even some families in which a convicted sex offender had moved in with mother and children. (p20)
— Sue Richardson, Creative Responses to Child Sexual Abuse: Challenges and Dilemmas
from: The Portrayal of Child Sexual Assault in Introductory Psychology Textbooks - Elizabeth J. Letourneau, Tonya C. LewisOne of the central questions surrounding the debate on memories of CSA is how often false or repressed memories actually occur. The APA working group (Alpert et al., 1996) and other experts (e.g., Loftus, 1993a) noted that no reliable method can distinguish between accurate and inaccurate memories. Therefore, no one can determine the prevalence of false or repressed memories. Nevertheless, six texts (30%) implied that false memories occur frequently (see Table 1). Of these, three included the opinionated suggestion that a "witch hunt" may be occurring in which innocent parents are routinely accused of, and then severely punished for, CSA. Two texts suggested that false memories of CSA must occur because an entire support group (the FMSF) has been formed for falsely accused parents. These authors apparently failed to consider that some members of the FMSF may actually have sexually assaulted children but are motivated to appear innocent. (85)
— Michelle R. Hebl, Handbook for Teaching Introductory Psychology: Volume II
Magdalena doesn't ask what Rebecka is doing at the hospital. That's how Rebecka realizes that Magdalena knows. It's the things you don't say. That's what always gives a person away.
— Åsa Larsson, Sun Storm
It is often said that Vietnam was the first television war. By the same token, Cleveland was the first war over the protection of children to be fought not in the courts, but in the media. By the summer of 1987 Cleveland had become above all, a hot media story. The Daily Mail, for example, had seven reporters, plus its northern editor, based in Middlesbrough full time. Most other news papers and television news teams followed suit. What were all the reporters looking for? Not children at risk. Not abusing adults. Aggrieved parents were the mother lode sought by these prospecting journalists. Many of these parents were only too happy to tell — and in some cases, it would appear, sell— their stories. Those stories are truly extraordinary. In many cases they bore almost no relation to the facts. Parents were allowed - encouraged to portray themselves as the innocent victims of a runaway witch-hunt and these accounts were duly fed to the public. Nowhere in any of the reporting is there any sign of counterbalancing information from child protection workers or the organisations that employed them. Throughout the summer of 1987 newspapers ‘reported’ what they termed a national scandal of innocent families torn apart. The claims were repeated in Parliament and then recycled as established ‘facts’ by the media. The result was that the courts themselves began to be paralysed by the power of this juggernaut of press reporting — ‘journalism’ which created and painstakingly fed a public mood which brooked no other version of the story. (p21)
— Sue Richardson, Creative Responses to Child Sexual Abuse: Challenges and Dilemmas
...Cleveland was the first war over the protection of children to be fought not in the courts, but in the media...Given that most of the hearings took place out of sight of the press, the following examples are taken from the recollection of child protection workers present in court. In one case, during a controversy that centred fundamentally around disputes over the meaning of RAD [reflex anal dilatation], a judge refused to allow ‘any evidence about children’s bottoms’ in his courtroom. A second judge — hearing an application to have their children returned by parents about whom social services had grave worries told the assembled lawyers that, as she lived in the area, she could not help but be influenced by what she read in the press. Hardly surprising then that child protection workers soon found courts not hearing their applications, cutting them short, or loosely supervising informal deals which allowed children to be sent back to parents, even in cases where there was explicit evidence of apparent abuse to be explained and dealt with. (p21)[reflex anal dilatation (RAD): a simple clue which is suggestive of anal penetration from outside. It had been recognised as a valuable weapon in the armoury of doctors examining children for many decades and was endorsed by both the British Medical Association and the Association of Police Surgeons. (p18)]
— Sue Richardson, Creative Responses to Child Sexual Abuse: Challenges and Dilemmas
Often, little brother, there is no smoke without fire.
— Alison Weir, The Lady Elizabeth
When there is nothing to say about a book; we end up saying "Beautiful Story".
— Crestless Wave
If someone tells you a lie, they're not telling you the truth, but they are telling you something. It just takes longer to figure out what.
— Margot Livesey, The House on Fortune Street
There were many ways to lie without saying something that wasn't true. I was learning that the hard way.
— H.M. Ward, Cursed
If a palmist grasp my palm, and look into it, without seeing a single line, what would he read?
— Michael Bassey Johnson
Are our lives just the aggregate of the lies we've told? ('Lives' - the 'v' is silent.)
— William  Boyd, Any Human Heart
When all is done, you must look in your own heart to know the truth. It lies at some middle depth, half-truths above, half-truths below. Even my truth, what I tell you know, is colored to fit my vision. Find your own truths as best you can, only remember that few are courageous enough to tell a tale of which they are not the hero.
— Alida Van Gores, Mermaid's Song
I wonder why people you have to meet have to be such liars. They lie as if their lives depended on it.
— Ryū Murakami, In the Miso Soup
The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie.
— Joseph Schumpeter
Sometimes the truth will hurt and a lie will set you free
—  just as a lie will hurt and the truth will set you free.
What you see will hurt you
—  what you don't see will hurt you.
I shall not lie!" Eilonwy cried, "not for this traitor and deserter." "It is not for him," Taran said quietly, "but for the sake of our quest." "It isn't right," Eilonwy began, tears starting in her eyes. "We do not speak of rightness," Taran answered. "We speak of a task to be finished.
— Lloyd Alexander, The Black Cauldron
Everyday in the heat, rain and cold, I ran, alone in the woods...in the hills near our home. There I felt the gentle touch of God. And I heard His whisper, You're stronger now. It's time to tell the truth of what happened. Tell your story to give someone hope.
— Nikki Rosen, In The Eye Of Deception: A True Story
What is the nature of the border between truth and lies? It is permeable and blurred because it is planted thick with rumour, confabulation, misunderstandings and twisted tales. Truth can break the gates down, truth can howl in the street; unless truth is pleasing, personable and easy to like, she is condemned to stay whimpering at the back door.
— Hilary Mantel, Bring Up the Bodies
Perhaps it is better to be a machine that does its duty than a flesh-and-blood person who will not, for a dead truth is better than a live falsehood.
— L. Frank Baum, The Road to Oz
I knelt by the design. Yes, there was the sun rising. But the white form I had always thought to be a cloud was a bear. I could see it now, upside down. White bear, isbjorn, stood for north. Father had not been able to help himself. The truth was there, too. Truth and lie, side by side.
— Edith Pattou, East
Truth is the lie you once told returning to haunt you
— Dermot Healy, The Bend for Home
Sometime rhetoric was just another way to lie and impress persons, and he knew this
— Haidji, SG - Suicide Game
Dr. Lois Jolyon West was cleared at Top Secret for his work on MKULTRA. West's numerous connections to the mind control network illustrate how the network is maintained, not through any central conspiracy, but by an interlocking network of academic relationships, grants, conferences, and military appointments. Some doctors in the network were not funded directly by the CIA or military, but their work was of direct relevance to mind control, non-lethal weapons development, creation of controlled dissociation and the building of Manchurian Candidates.
— Colin A. Ross, The C.I.A. Doctors: Human Rights Violations by American Psychiatrists
When you ‘lie’ to me, you don’t ‘lie down’ or lay.Even after the game you still want to play.
— Munia Khan
God gives His deepest discernment and sharpest marksmanship to men who aim to expose His truth before an enemy's lies.
— Criss Jami, Killosophy
Did you forget who I am? Finding out the lies of men is my specialty." -Vashti
— jaha Knight, Soulphisticated Ladies: Episode 1
I'm tired of hearing so many lies, please someone would invent a chipset installed on my ear that would block lies!
— Hamid Karima
A man who never lies must have green blood in his veins, or blue or yellow, but definitely not red!
— Mehmet Murat ildan
It's been my experience when you lie things work out in such a way that you are obliged to tell many more lies to cover up your first one. It's so much easier to just tell the truth the first time around.
— Astrid Yrigollen, His Black Wings
I’m tired of the lies and the cheating, and the broken promises that were never meant to be kept.
— Sidney Sheldon, The Doomsday Conspiracy
It’s not enough to be able to lie with a straight face; anybody with enough gall to raise on a busted flush can do that. The first way to lie artistically is to tell the truth — but not all of it. The second way involves telling the truth, too, but is harder: Tell the exact truth and maybe all of it…but tell it so unconvincingly that your listener is sure you are lying.
— Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love
Snakes hide in grass, people behind their lies.
— nopain
You know I love you. You're the only one.""She isn't the first woman he's ever said that to. He shouldn't have used it up so much earlier in his life, he shouldn't have treated it like a tool, a wedge, a key to open women. By the time he got around to meaning it, the words sounded fraudulent to him and he'd been ashamed to pronounce them.
— Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake
Tell me a story. Be my storyteller.
— Arzum Uzun
To love--to fall--is not a question. To touch--to kiss--to speak--those are questions. There is nothing worse than a ruined friendship. There is nothing better than a companion. Somewhere in between lies risk. Somewhere in between, lies.
— David Levithan, How They Met, and Other Stories
Her suspicion brings me a small sense of gratification. She thinks I'm lying about something. Now we're even.Lake
— Colleen Hoover
I know it's a lot. But she can handle it. I'd rather ruin her with the truth than ruin her with lies.
— Maria Semple
The stories get passed on and the truth gets passed over. As the sayin goes. Which I reckon some would take as meanin that the truth cant compete. but I dont believe that. I think that when the lies are all told and forgot the truth will be there yet. It don't move about from place to place and it dont change from time to time. You cant corrupt it any more than you can salt salt. You cant corrupt it because that's what it is.
— Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men
I know. That sounds like a lie. But Presbyterians know that every so often a lie isn't all that bad, and I figured that this was about the best place it could happen.
— Gary D. Schmidt, The Wednesday Wars
Money, Gun and Lie can solve almost all the problems.
— Amit Kalantri
I wrote home to say how lovely everything was, and I used flourishing words and phrases, as if I were living life in a greeting card - the kind that has a satin ribbon on it, and quilted hearts and roses, and is expected to be so precious to the person receiving it that the manufacturer has placed a leaf of plastic on the front to protect it.
— Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy
However, if we don’t confront the seed of lies, it gives place for them to take root in us and we become bound to the “prison cell” that those lies create.
— E'yen A. Gardner, Break Free
Ga thought of how difficult it was to come to see the lies you told yourself, the ones that allowed you to function and move forward.
— Adam Johnson, The Orphan Master's Son
Lie to yourself, not to someone else
— H.F. Stewart
We're going to be okay."Here's the thing about being a spy: sometimes all you have are your lies. They protect your cover and keep your secrets, and right then I needed to believe that it was true even when all the facts said otherwise.
— Ally Carter, United We Spy
A harmful truth is better than a useful lie.
— Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain
Embrace beautiful lies - the chronic insanity of the sane
— Sarah Kane, 4.48 Psychosis
Whatever we had is over. It died the minute I walked downstairs and realized the world I'd always known was a lie.- Blaire Wynn
— Abbi Glines, Fallen Too Far
I preferred a hard truth to a well-meant lie.
— Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Scion
But knowledge does not protect one. Life is contemptuous of knowledge; it forces it to sit in the anterooms, to wait outside. Passion, energy, lies: these are what life admires.
— James Salter, Light Years
I am smiling a big adopted-orphan smile as I write this ... I still love scribbling the word - WRITER - any time on a form, questionnaire, document asks for my occupation. Fine, I write personality quizzes, I don't write about the Great Issues of the Day, but I think it's fair to say I am a writer ... ('Adopted-orphan smile', I mean, that's not bad, come on.)
— Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl
Here’s the truth: I am the female version of a heartbreaker. The one that everyone says is too dedicated to ballet, too self-involved to ever care about anyone else besides herself. I’m the rebel. The bad twin. I am Tally—the loner, the party of one. The love and leave ‘em prototype. Heartless. That is me. I have no time for romance, flowers, or relationships. I like one-night stands with plenty of sex and no promises of a future. I like the lies I tell. I’m comfortable in telling them…most of the time. This is me.
— Katherine Owen, This Much is True
I used to pray you know, pray to God that He would somehow stop it. All the nights of listening to my mother scream and things breaking. Of holding my brother and sister and listening to them cry and begging me to stop it.'My voice is slow and steady like a freight train at night.'I was too young, and we were always told that they'd put us in foster homes where people would rape us if we ever said anything. So we explained away the bruises and my mom wore big sunglasses whenever she left the house. And we invented car accidents if the bruising was too bad to cover with make-up.
— Emily Andrews, The Finer Points of Becoming Machine
Dissembling was so large a part of middle-class life that honesty and frankness seemed the most devious stratagem of all. The most outright lie was the closest one came to truth.
— J.G. Ballard, Kingdom Come
Remembering lies is a full-time job, one best to quit.
— Rich DiSilvio
His body tensed as his gut was struck with a frozen bullet of shock. He couldn’t breathe.
— Sidney Knight, Alex
Lies are served like a fine delicacy. But beware, the truth of it all will sour, lodge in your throat, and choke your very existence if you continue to believe them.
— Jason E. Hodges
If I had seen pictures of people eating each other on the wall, I would've told him I was into cannibalism.
— Chelsea Handler, My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands
A person who lies for you can lie to you too.
— Pratik Akkawar
People should get their information from the source with facts before sharing it. Rumors can be lots of different opinions, based on what other people think. This is where lies begin to build and develop into things that are harmful to others.
— Ellen J. Barrier
Some girls had mothers who never called them beautiful but swore their love up and down. It's all the same, really. All bullshit.
— Leah Raeder, Unteachable
But men love abstract reasoning and neat systematization so much that they think nothing of distorting the truth, closing their eyes and ears to contrary evidence to preserve their logical constructions.
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
But what do you say if you're asked a direct question and you can't tell the truth and you can't tell a lie?' 'You say “how very interesting” and change the subject.
— Dick Francis, 10 lb Penalty
no one is as they seem, and most of life, apart from honest betrayal, is lies and deceit. And the day we discover we are no different is the day we no longer want to live.
— Jo Nesbø, Panserhjerte
To hear how much of a great human being you were — even if you really weren’t — open your ears at your funeral.
— Mokokoma Mokhonoana
I regard teaching religion as purveying lies.
— Peter   Atkins