Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth.
—Czeslaw Milosz, 1946
Archive
Quotes
You can put wings on a pig, but you don’t make it an eagle.
—Bill Clinton, 1996Cheating is more honorable than stealing.
—German proverbIn most cases men willingly believe what they wish.
—Julius Caesar, 52 BCAlongside all swindlers the state now stands there as swindler-in-chief.
—Jacob Burckhardt, c. 1875The poor man is ruined as soon as he begins to ape the rich.
—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BCAnd, after all, what is a lie? ’Tis but the truth in masquerade.
—Lord Byron, 1822There was no treachery too base for the world to commit.
—Virginia Woolf, 1927Credulity forges more miracles than trickery could invent.
—Joseph Joubert, 1811An honest man is all right even if he’s an idiot…but a crook must have brains.
—Maxim Gorky, 1902It was the men I deceived the most that I loved the most.
—Marguerite Duras, 1987He that will cheat you at play, will cheat you any way.
—Thomas Fuller, 1732Men were born to lie, and women to believe them.
—John Gay, 1728