Falsehood

It is the chronic fallacy of inferiority to regard itself as superiority.
~ William Rounseville (W.R.) Alger, in The Galaxy, Volume VI (1868). The History of Tears

What fairer cloak than courtesy for fraud?
~ Sir William Alexander, Earl of Stirling

A man who hides behind the hypocrite is smaller than the hypocrite.
~ William Edward Biederwolf

The Man who pretends to be a modest enquirer into the truth of a self evident thing is a Knave.
~ William Blake, Annotations to Watson (1798).

Falsehood is an amorphous monster, conceived in the brain of knaves and brought forth by the breath of fools. It's a moral pestilence, a miasmic vapor that passes, like a blast from hell, over the face of the world and is gone forever.
~ William Cowper Brann, in Brann the Iconoclast: A Collection of the Writings of W.C. Brann, Vol. I (1898). Humbugs and Humbuggery

So cheat your landlord if you can and must, but do not try to shortchange the Muse. It cannot be done. You can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.
~ William S. Burroughs, The Western Lands (1987).

The worst of what people did to each other were the deceptions, because when you love some one you control their version of reality, and if you lie to them, that's like making them autistic so that what they think is the truth is not their true situation at all.
~ William Carpenter, A Keeper of Sheep (1994).

Better be cold, than affect to feel.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), from Discourses, Reviews, and Miscellanies (1830). Discourse at the Dedication of Divinity Hall (Cambridge, 1826)

No department of literature is so false as biography.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Discourse at the Dedication of the Unitarian Congressional Church, Newport RI (27 July 1836). Christian Worship

[A]ll well-bred persons lie.
~ William Congreve, Love for Love (1695). Act II, scene xi

Thou liar of the first magnitude.
~ William Congreve, Love for Love (1695). Act II, scene iv

When you stretch the truth, watch out for the snapback.
~ William John ("Bill") Copeland

What is his gain but the mask of an idiot? What his knowledge, but Tailor-like, and light?
~ William Cornwallis, from Essays by Sir William Cronwallyes, Part II (1601).

[C]eremony leads her bigots forth,
Prepared to fight for shadows of no worth;
While truths, on which eternal things depend,
Find not, or hardly find, a single friend.
~ William Cowper, from Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq. (1782). Expostulation

He that hates truth shall be the dupe of lies.
~ William Cowper, from Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq. (1782). The Progress of Error

Hypocrisy, detest her as we may,
(And no man's hatred ever wronged her yet)
May claim this merit still -- that she admits
The worth of what she mimics with such care
And thus gives virtue indirect applause.
~ William Cowper, The Task (1785). Book III. The Garden

[I] lie like the truth.
~ Willem Dafoe

Nothing is so easy to fake as the inner vision.
~ (William) Robertson Davies, What's Bred in the Bone (1985).

As the snow before the sun, even so is a polished lie before the naked truth.
~ William Scott Downey, Proverbs, by Rev. William Scott Downey (1855 edition).

I'm a little like Holden Caulfield -- the things I hate more than anything else are hypocrisy and pretension. They make my skin crawl. And I would put arrogance in the same category. To perceive myself as arrogant would hurt.
~ David William Duchovny, Playboy Interview: David Duchovny (December 1998).

Our presence here is all vain glory,
This false world is but transitory.
~ William Dunbar, Lament for the Makars (1507).

Titles are trash. A league is good if its good. An untruth is an untruth whether spoken by a pauper or a prince.
~ William B. Ebbert, in the Montezuma Journal (21 November 1910).

When lying, be emphatic and indignant, thus behaving like your children.
~ William Feather

Clapping, or hissing, is the onely meane
That tries and searches out a well writ Sceane
~ William Fennor, from Descriptions; or, A True Relation of Certaine and Diuers Speeches (1616). The Description of a Poet

None of this I'm-too-good-for-it sort of thing. That's not my dish.
~ (William) Clark Gable, in Photoplay Magazine (Interview; April 1941). Gable on the Spot: Things I don't like myself

Beware! for the tones the most fervid and sweet,
Are oft the mask of the deepest deceit --
~ William Davis Gallagher, from Miami Woods, A Golden Wedding, and Other Poems (1881). IV. Life Pictures: The Maniac

No one ever lies. People often do what they have to do to make to make their story sound right.
~ William H. Ginsburg, in New York Times (3 June 1998). Lewinski Dismisses Her Lawyer and Hires Washington Veterans

Be thorough in all you do; and remember that although ignorance often may be innocent, pretension is always despicable.
~ William Ewart Gladstone, Lord Rector Address, Glasgow University, Scotland (5 December 1879).

The most apparent perversion of the press is the distortion of news to favor a particular class or clique of politicians.
~ William Brooke (W.B.) Graves, from Readings in Public Opinion: Its Formation and Control (1928). Chapter IX: The Press And Public Opinion

[C]ompare Scripture with Scripture. ... False doctrines, like false witnesses, agree not among themselves.
~ William Gurnall, The Christian In Complete Armour (1665).

[L]et thy aim be sincere in embracing truths. A false naughty heart and an unsound judgment, like ice and water, are produced mutually by one another.
~ William Gurnall, The Christian In Complete Armour (1665).

So practised in the false self-flattering art,
So prompt to cherish all that fosters pride.
~ William Hall, from Via Crucis (1906). A Memorable Experience

The most mischievous liars are those who keep sliding on the verge of truth.
~ Augustus William Hare

Let falsehood be a stranger to thy lips.
~ William Havard, Regulus, a Tragedy (1744). Act IV, scene iv

Cant is the voluntary overcharging or prolongation of a real sentiment; hypocrisy is the setting up a pretension to a feeling you never had and have no wish for.
~ William Hazlitt, in Sketches and Essays (1839). On Cant and Hypocrisy (written in 1828)

Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses.
~ William Hazlitt, Characteristics: in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims (1823).

Habitual liars invent falsehoods not to gain any end or even to deceive their hearers, but to amuse themselves. It is partly practice and partly habit. It requires an effort in them to speak truth.
~ William Hazlitt, Characteristics: in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims (1823).

[T]he art of lying is the strongest acknowledgment of the force of truth.
~ William Hazlitt, Table-Talk, or Original Essays on Men and Manners, 2nd series (1824). On Patronage and Puffing

They are the only honest hypocrites.
~ William Hazlitt, from The Round Table, Vol. II (1817). On Actors and Acting

We all wear some disguise -- make some professions -- use some artifice, to set ourselves off as being better than we are; and yet it is not denied that we have some good intentions and praiseworthy qualities at bottom.
~ William Hazlitt, in Sketches and Essays (1839). On Cant and Hypocrisy (written in 1828)

Other than to amuse himself, why should a man pretend to know where he's going or understand what he sees?
~ William Least Heat-Moon, Blue Highways: A Journey into America (1982).

Arise! no more a living lie,
And with me quicken and control
A memory that shall magnify
The universal Soul.
~ William Ernest (W.E.) Henley, from The Song of the Sword, and Other Verses (1892). Rhymes and Rhythms. XII

Any departure from fact is the first step on a slippery slope toward unbelievability. Facts are what people can agree on. Truth can be determined by each reader.
~ William A. Henry III, in Time magazine (2 July 1984). Embroidering the Facts

Counterfeits imply an original.
~ William Jay, A Review Of The Causes And Consequences Of The Mexican War (1849). Chapter XXXV. Patriotism

Style is a fraud. I always felt the Greeks were hiding behind their columns.
~ Willem de Kooning, Lecture at the 'Subjects of the Artist' School, New York (18 February 1949). A Desperate View

It's better to be an authentic loser than a false success, and to die alive than to live dead.
~ William Markiewicz, Extracts of Existence (1990).

From the earliest times the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser than they, and before the young had discovered what nonsense this was they were old too, and it profited them to carry on the imposture.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale (1930).

He lied and never knew that he lied, and when it was pointed out to him said that lies were beautiful. He was an idealist.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage (1915). Chapter 29

Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue; it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be practised at spare moments; it is a whole-time job.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale (1930).

Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence (1919). Chapter XLII

There's no one so transparent as the person who thinks he's devilish deep.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, in W. Somerset Maugham (1937).

Good lies need a leavening of truth to make them palatable.
~ William McIlvanney, The Papers of Tony Veitch (1983). Chapter 17

It is possible, without knowing it, to live at the margin of your own life.
~ Candia McWilliam, A Little Stranger (1989).

How strangely simplified and falsified does man live! One does not cease to wonder, once one has eyes to see this wonder!
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1885-86).

No one is such a liar as the indignant man.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1885-86).

That getting along without false judgments would amount to getting along without life, negating life. To admit untruth as a necessary condition of life: this implies, to be sure, a perilous resistance against customary value-feelings.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1885-86).

The lie is a condition of life.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

The most common lie is that which one lies to himself; lying to others is relatively an exception.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human. First Sequel: Mixed Opinions and Maxims (March 1879).

Some people -- knowingly or unknowingly -- are perpetually playing parts, from their cradle to their deathbed. Very likely they can't help themselves, and ought only to be pitied for having an exaggerated sense of the fitness of things.
~ William Edward (W.E.) Norris, Heaps of Money, Volume I (1877). Chapter XI. Brighton

Commentary and opinion is not spin. What spin is, is taking a set of circumstances, all right, and taking that circumstance and making it not what it is.
~ Bill O'Reilly, FoxNews Channel The O'Reilly Factor (29 November 2001). Personal Story: Bill Press

A lie is a breach of promise: for whoever seriously addresses his discourse to another, tacitly promises to speal the truth, because he knows truth is expected.
~ William Paley, The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785). Book III. Part I. Chapter XV: Lies

[W]hite lies always introduce others of a darker complexion.
~ William Paley, The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785). Book III. Part I. Chapter XV: Lies

[L]et sincerity and ingenuousness be thy refuge, rather than craft and falsehood.
~ William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude (1693). Part I. Shifts

It was beautiful and simple as all truly great swindles are.
~ William Sydney Porter (O. Henry), The Gentle Grafter (1908). The Octopus Marooned

My point is simply that I think you should be honest and admit that we all spin. And you spin as much as I do ...
~ Bill Press, FoxNews Channel The O'Reilly Factor (29 November 2001). Personal Story: Bill Press

[A] knavish speech sleeps in a fool's ear.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act IV, scene ii

An evil soul, producing holy witness,
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart.
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!
~ William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice. Act I, scene iii

Conceal me what I am, and be my aid
For such disguise as haply shall become
The form of my intent.
~ William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night. Act I, scene ii

False as dicers' oaths.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act III, scene iv

False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth. Act I, scene vii

[F]alsehood is worse in kings than beggars.
~ William Shakespeare, Cymbeline. Act III, scene vi

Falstaff sweats to death
And lards the lean earth as he walks along.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part I. Act II, scene ii

[F]ramed to make women false.
~ William Shakespeare, Othello. Act I, scene iii

Here's ado to lock up honesty
And honor from th' access of gentle visitors.
~ William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale. Act II, scene ii

How subject we old men are to this vice of lying.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part II. Act III, scene ii

I am falser than vows made in wine.
~ William Shakespeare, As You Like It. Act III, scene v

I am well acquainted with your manner of wrenching the true cause the false way.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part II. Act II, scene i

In a false quarrel there is no true valour.
~ William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing. Act V, scene i

In thy foul throat thou liest.
~ William Shakespeare, King Richard III. Act I, scene ii

It is as easy as lying.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act III, scene ii. Act V, scene i

O, pardon me, my lord! it oft falls out,
To have what we would have, we speak not what we mean.
I something do excuse the thing I hate.
~ William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure. Act II, scene iv

O world, world! thus is the poor agent despised.
O traitors and bawds, how earnestly are you set a-work, and how ill requited!
Why should our endeavor be so loved, and the performance so loathed?
~ William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, Act V, scene x

So may the outward shows be least themselves:
The world is still deceived with ornament.
~ William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice. Act III, scene ii

Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak;
Lay open to my earthy-gross conceit,
Smother'd in errors, feeble, shallow, weak,
The folded meaning of your words' deceit.
~ William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors. Act III, scene ii

{T]here are Cozeners abroad, therfore it behooues men to be wary.
~ William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale. Act IV, scene iv

They lie deadly that tell you you have good faces.
~ William Shakespeare, Coriolanus. Act II, scene i

Was ever book containing such vile matter
So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell
In such a gorgeous palace!
~ William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet. Act III, scene ii

What! frighted with false fire?
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act III, scene ii

[W]ords are grown so false, I am loath to prove reason with them.
~ William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night. Act III, scene i

You undergo too strict a paradox,
Striving to make an ugly deed look fair:
Your words have took such pains as if they labour'd
To bring manslaughter into form and set quarrelling.
~ William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens. Act III, scene v

A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood.
~ William Shenstone, in Works in Verse and Prose, Vol. II (1764). Essays on Men, Manners, and Things. Of Men and Manners

Statistics is the art of lying by means of figures.
~ Wilhelm Stekhel, Marriage at the Crossroads (1931).

Hypocrites in the Church? Yes, and in the lodge and at the home. Don't hunt through the Church for a hypocrite. Go home and look in the mirror. Hypocrites? Yes. See that you make the number one less.
~ William A. "Billy" Sunday

A snob is that man or woman who is always pretending to be something better, especially richer or more fashionable, that other people are.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray

[E]very person who manages another is a hypocrite.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, in Punch, Volume XVII (1849). Mr. Brown's Letters To A Young Man About Town: On Love, Marriage, Men and Women

When one fib becomes due, as it were, you must forge another to take up the old acceptances; and so the stock of your lies in circulation inevitably multiplies, and the danger of detection increases every day.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero (1848). Chapter LXVI. Amantium Irae

A lie has no legs and cannot stand; but it has wings and can fly far and wide.
~ William Warburton

Every detection of what is false directs us towards what is true: every trial exhausts some tempting form of error.
~ William Whewell, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy in England (1852). Lecture VII

And if pretension for a time deceive,
And prove me one too ready to believe,
Far less my shame, than if by stubborn act,
I brand as lie, some great colossal Fact.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from New Thought Pastels (1906). Credulity

Proofs! What are proofs -- I defy them!
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from How Salvator Won, and Other Recitations (1895). False

They seem to have a license to lie.
~ George F. Will

The polygraph is not a lie detector. Don't make the mistake of thinking that just because you are telling the truth you will pass the polygraph test! Polygraph tests have branded many truthful people as liars!
~ Douglas Gene Williams, How To Sting The Polygraph

De only way tuh keep a lie from gittin' foun' out is tuh stop tellin' it.
~ Egbert Austin "Bert" Williams

'Why can't we use the regular rain?' you asked,
as rain hammered on the roof.
'That's God's rain', said someone.
'It doesn't show up on film.
We need Billy's rain for this one'.
~ Hugo Williams, Billy's Rain (1999). Billy's Rain

Peace is the first casualty of untruthfulness.
~ Dr. Rowan Williams, (1991 Sermon).

Everyone says he's sincere, but everyone isn't sincere. If everyone was sincere who says he's sincere there wouldn't be half so many insincere ones in the world and there would be lots, lots, lots more really sincere ones!
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, Camino Real (1953).

Hell, you got to live with it, there's nothing else to live with except mendacity, is there?
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955).

The only thing worse than a liar is a liar that's also a hypocrite!
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, The Rose Tattoo (1951).

Thou treacherous, base deserter of my flame,
False to my passion, fatal to my fame,
Through what mistaken magic dost thou prove
So true to lewdness, so untrue to love?
~ John Wilmot, 2nd Earl Of Rochester, The Imperfect Enjoyment (1680)

Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.
~ Joseph C. Wilson 4th, Op-Ed Contributor, in The New York Times (6 July 2003). What I Didn't Find in Africa

With proper attribution, to quote another's thoughts and words is appropriate; plagiarizing, however, is cheating, and it may break copyright law as well.
~ Kenneth G. Wilson, The Columbia Guide to Standard American English (1993).

[A]s the fool is never more provoking than when he aims at wit, the ill-favoured of our sex are never more nauseous than when they would be beauties, adding to their natural deformity the artificial ugliness of affectation.
~ William Wycherley, The Plain Dealer (1674). Act II, scene i

False friends, like the shadow upon a dial, are ever present to the sunshine of our fortunes, and as soon gone when we begin to be under a cloud.
~ William Wycherley, in The Posthumous Works of William Wycherley, Esq. in Prose and Verse (1728). Maxims and Reflections

Lies, artifice, and tricks, are as sure a mark of a low and poor spirit, as the passing of false money is of a poor, low purse.
~ William Wycherley, in The Posthumous Works of William Wycherley, Esq. in Prose and Verse (1728). Maxims and Reflections

Half close your eyelids, loosen your hair,
And dream about the great and their pride;
They have spoken against you everywhere,
But weigh this song with the great and their pride;
I made it out of a mouthful of air,
Their children's children shall say they have lied.
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Wind Among the Reeds (1899). He Thinks of Those Who Have Spoken Evil of His Beloved

Lies are a little fortress; inside them you can feel safe and powerful.
~ William P. Young, The Shack (2007).