Quotes About Falsehood

Great is the power of steady misrepresentation

The false prophets belonged to the socially and religiously acceptable institution of "professional" prophets who responded to the needs of their time. They operated from within the limited perspectives of their contemporaries: Realpolitik and vox populi.

Although all things in excess bring harm, the greatest danger comes from excessive good fortune: it stirs the brain, invites the mind to entertain idle fancies, and shrouds in thick fog the distinction between falsehood and truth.

Thou liar of the first magnitude.

Satan comes as a serpent in the persons of false teachers, and by them labours to put a cheat on us, and cozen us with error for truth.

You can put wings on a pig, but you don't make it an eagle.

Some critics may say Noonday was mad. He was not. Toweringly weird, yes--mad, no. He saw that in five years he would attain the Presidency of the University. Form there he could embark on a career leading straight to the White House, that High Seat of the Lie, open only to holders of the Third Degree of Falsehood.

Two statements are logically equivalent if it is impossible for one to be true and the other false. They are either both true or both false. One of the most important logical equivalences is called contraposition. It tells us that any statement of the form "If P, then Q" is logically equivalent to "If not-Q, then not-P." The example in the text of statements A and B is an example of contraposition.

There is no method of reasoning more common, and yet none more blameable, than, in philosophical disputes, to endeavour the refutation of any hypothesis, by a pretence of its dangerous consequences to religion and morality. When any opinion leads to absurdities, it is certainly false; but it is not certain that an opinion is false, because it is of dangerous consequence.

The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), 'That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish; and even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force, which remains, after deducting the inferior.

Mohamadans are certainly famous as liars, and the falsehood of Mohamad has been transmitted to his followers in a measure unknown in other religions.

Two wretched Moslems asserted "that the firing was done by the people of the English;" I asked one of them why he lied so, and he could utter no excuse: no other falsehood came to his aid as he stood abashed, before me, and so telling him not to tell palpable falsehoods, I left him gaping.

1871.—Falsehood seems ingrained in their constitutions: no wonder that in all this region they have never tried to propagate Islamism; the natives soon learn to hate them, and slaving, as carried on by the Kilwans and Ujijians, is so bloody, as to prove an effectual barrier against proselytism.

15th March, 1871.—Falsehood seems ingrained in their constitutions: no wonder that in all this region they have never tried to propagate Islamism; the natives soon learn to hate them, and slaving, as carried on by the Kilwans and Ujijians, is so bloody, as to prove an effectual barrier against proselytism.

My own people persuaded the Bagenya not to sell a canoe: Hassani knows it all, but swears that he did not join in the slander, and even points up to Heaven in attestation of innocence of all, even of Manilla's foray. Mohamadans are certainly famous as liars, and the falsehood of Mohamad has been transmitted to his followers in a measure unknown in other religions.

Sincerity is the prime requisite in every approach to the God who ... hates all hypocrisy, falsehood, and deceit.

The present system of taking oaths is horrible. It is awfully absurd to make a man invoke God's wrath upon himself, if he speaks false; it is, in my judgment, a sin to do so.

SINNERS are those who pretend to teach meditation

Liars need to have good memories.

A good liar must have a good memory.

It takes good memory to keep up a lie

A liar must have a good memory. -Mendacem oportet esse memorem

In Europe democracy is a falsehood. I do not know where it will end, but it cannot end in a quiet old age.

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves.