Children and fools cannot lie.
—John Heywood, 1546Quotes
If you steal, do not steal too much at a time. You may be arrested. Steal cleverly, little by little.
—Mobutu Sese Seko, 1991He that will cheat you at play, will cheat you any way.
—Thomas Fuller, 1732If you find excrement somewhere in the village, the chief was the one who put it there.
—Congolese proverbThere was no treachery too base for the world to commit.
—Virginia Woolf, 1927The poor man is ruined as soon as he begins to ape the rich.
—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BCMen were born to lie, and women to believe them.
—John Gay, 1728Honesty, for me, is usually the worst policy imaginable.
—Patricia Highsmith, 1960Someone who knows too much finds it hard not to lie.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1947Alongside all swindlers the state now stands there as swindler-in-chief.
—Jacob Burckhardt, c. 1875We have to distrust each other. It is our only defense against betrayal.
—Tennessee Williams, 1953Credulity forges more miracles than trickery could invent.
—Joseph Joubert, 1811Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth.
—Czeslaw Milosz, 1946