Falsehoods Quotes

“If believing absurd falsehoods increase the odds of getting laid or avoiding predators, your brain will believe those falsehoods with all its metaphorical little heart.”
― Peter Watts

“So obscure are the greatest events, as some take for granted any hearsay, whatever its source, others turn truth into falsehood, and both errors find encouragement with posterity.”
― Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome

“… the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.”
― Thomas Jefferson, Memoirs, Correspondence And Private Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Ed. By T.J. Randolph

“When the dead departed, they took away any falsehoods that they might have allowed us to believe while alive; we who are left behind have to embark on a different life, since the dead are no longer here to help us deceive ourselves.”
― Yiyun Li

“That public men publish falsehoods
Is nothing new. That America must accept
Like the historical republics corruption and empire
Has been known for years.

Be angry at the sun for setting
If these things anger you. Watch the wheel slope and tum.
They are all bound on the wheel, these people, those warriors,
This republic, Europe, Asia.

Observe them gesticulating,
Observe them going down. The gang serves lies, the passionate
Man plays his part; the cold passion for truth
Hunts in no pack.

You are not CatulIus, you know,
To lampoon these crude sketches of Caesar. You are far
From Dante’s feet, but even farther from his dirty
Political hatredS.

Let boys want pleasure, and men
Struggle for power, and women perhaps for fame,
And the servile to serve a Leader and the dupes to be duped.
Yours is not theirs.”
― Robinson Jeffers, Selected Poems

“Once you drop a mask, you can never wear it again.”
― Ljupka Cvetanova, The New Land

“It's so important to identify beliefs.
Because once you identify [a negative belief], once you bring it into the light, you will see it doesn't belong to you:
- That it came from your parents;
- It came from your family;
- It came from your society;
- It came from your friends.
And you bought into it. But it isn't yours.

Holding on to something that isn't yours is called theft.
Don't be a belief thief!

Let go of what isn't yours.”
― Bashar

“I just wish this social institution [religion] wasn't based on what appears to me to be a monumental hoax built on an accumulation of customs and myths directed toward proving something that isn't true.”
― Andy Rooney, Sincerely, Andy Rooney

“If he could have it his way, nobody would ever say anything again. The entire world would go silent. Even the clocks wouldn’t tick. All that mattered would be the beating of hearts, the widening and narrowing of pupils, the whirling of ties and loose strands of hair in the wind---nothing voluntary, nothing false.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, Homesick for Another World

“[O]nce demagogy and falsehoods become routine, there isn’t much for the political journalist to do except handicap the race and report on the candidate’s mood.”
― George Packer

“Under normal circumstances the liar is defeated by reality, for which there is no substitute; no matter how large the tissue of falsehood that an experienced liar has to offer, it will never be large enough, even if he enlists the help of computers, to cover the immensity of factuality.”
― Hannah Arendt , Crises of the Republic: Lying in Politics, Civil Disobedience, On Violence, and Thoughts on Politics and Revolution

“It is a fact increasingly manifest that presentation of real news has sharpened the minds and the judgment of men and women everywhere in these days of real public discussion. We Americans begin to know the difference between the truth on the one side and the falsehood on the other, no matter how often the falsehood is iterated and reiterated. Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.”
― Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Weaklings are those who know the truth, but maintain it only as far as it is in their interest to do so, and apart from that forsake it.”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“Today, democracy is being weakened by lies that come in waves and pound our senses the way a beach is assaulted by the surf. Leaders who play by the rules are having trouble staying ahead of a relentless news cycle and must devote too much effort trying to disprove stories that seem to come out of nowhere and have been invented solely to do them in.

All this has consequences. Small "d" democrats riding to power on the promise of change often begin to lose popularity the day they take office. Globalization, which is not an ideological choice but a fact of life, has become for many an evil to be fought at all costs. Capitalism is considered a four-letter word by an increasing number of people who--if not for its fruits--would be without food, shelter, clothing, and smartphones. In a rising number of countries, citizens profess a lack of faith in every public institution and the official data they produce.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Fascism: A Warning

“Half the truth is a whole lie.”
― William Collins, The Empathy Gap: Male Disadvantages and the Mechanisms of Their Neglect

“While those who mouth high talk
may think themselves high-minded,
justice keeps the book
on hypocrites and liars.”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“Souls rockin' pieces around necks, wrists and ankles they only believe in part time and some time. Loud and proud with no get-down.”
― T.F. Hodge

“The disability system engages in falsehoods to refuse disbursements of eligible benefits.”
― Steven Magee

“In all of our souls, pray the awful parts call out for solace - the false and the faults, the fears and the flaws, the 'F's and the fouls, the fakes and the frauds - now facing facades, these aches will fall off; they'll break while they crawl: ailments from failures, preyed once and for all.”
― Criss Jami

“Thy babbling tongue tells golden tales
Of endless treasure;
Thy bounty offers easy sales
Of lasting pleasure;
Thou ask'st the conscience what she ails,
And swear'st to ease her:
There's none can want where thou supply'st:
There's none can give when thou deny'st.
Alas! fond world, thou boast'st; false world thou ly'st.”
― Francis Quarles

“I am very disappointed, Philip,” she said, still stern.
“I know, Cherry,” he accepted. “But… she did claim she was my wife.”
“She did,” she acknowledged. “Knowing nothing of your history or who you were, she did say such a foolish thing.”
― Fenna Edgewood, The Seafaring Lady's Guide to Love

“Some may view this book and its title as alarmist. Good. We should be awake to the assault on democratic values that has gathered strength in many countries abroad and that is dividing America at home. The temptation is powerful to close our eyes and wait for the worst to pass, but history tells us that for freedom to survive, it must be defended, and that if lies are to stop, they must be exposed.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Fascism: A Warning

“We're in a culture that doesn't value writing as highly as it should. And I think we see that in our public discourse, I think we see that in our susceptibility to the big ol' lie.”
― George Saunders

“Culture of fakeness.”
― Steven Magee

“You can habitually lie to me, but in the long term it is probably not going to go well for you.”
― Steven Magee

“Truth is everywhere but so is falsehood and neither is discriminating.”
― Casey Fisher, The Subtle Cause

“لاکھ د‌ِکھاوا کر لے مجمعِ عام حق پسندی کا

ڈھونڈ نے وہ سہمتی ہی نِکلا ہے سچ نہیں”
― Adeel Ahmed Khan

“If I were to rank my aesthetic concerns, ambiguity would come before veracity.”
― Billy-Ray Belcourt, A History of My Brief Body

“In Putin's Russia, Assad's Syria, or Maduro's Venezuela, politicians and television personalities often play a different game. They lie constantly, blatantly, obviously. But when they are exposed, they don't bother to offer counterarguments. When Russian-controlled forces shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine in 2014, the Russian government reacted not only with a denial but with multiple stories, plausible and implausible: they blamed the Ukrainian army, or the CIA, or a nefarious plot in which 298 dead people were placed on a plane in order to fake a crash and discredit Russia.

This tactic, the so-called "fire hose of falsehoods," produces not outrage but nihilism. Given so many explanations, how can you know what actually happened? What if you can never know? If can't understand what is going on around you, then you are not going to join a great movement for democracy, or follow a truth-telling leader, or listen when anyone speaks about positive political change. Instead, you will avoid politics altogether. Autocrats have an enormous incentive to spread that hopelessness and cynicism, not only in their own countries, but around the world.”
― Anne Applebaum, Autocracy, Inc.

“But no one who studies autocratic propaganda believes that fact-checking or even swift reactions are sufficient. By the time the correction is made, the falsehood has already traveled around the world. Our old models never acknowledged the truth that many people desire disinformation. They are attracted by conspiracy theories and will not necessarily seek out reliable news at all.”
― Anne Applebaum, Autocracy, Inc.