Famous Quotes & Sayings

Floyd Abrams

That doesn't necessarily mean that the story isn't true, ... But what it does mean, then, is that at this moment we simply do not have enough evidence, in my view, for any conclusion to be reached - that the presidents have been lying to us for all these years and that what we've been told was just a pack of lies.

Floyd Mayweather, Jr.

I would lie in bed, and I was nine years old, and say to myself: 'I want to be the richest man in the world.' I've come a long way from there.

Fran Lebowitz

I believe in talent. I know you're not supposed to believe in that anymore because you're supposed to believe if you just work hard you can do anything. That's how you succeed, maybe. But talent is something you're born with. You cannot acquire it by working hard, and you cannot lose it by lying around either.

Fran Lebowitz

If you feel the urge to write, just lie down and read a book: it will pass.

George Washington

Father I cannot tell a lie. I did it with my little hatchet.

George Washington

In the composition of the human frame there is a good deal of inflammable matter, however dormant it may lie for a time.

George Washington

I cannot tell a lie. I cut down the cherry tree.

George Santayana

Better not be a hero than work oneself up into heroism by shouting lies.

George Santayana

In this world we must either institute conventional forms of expression or else pretend that we have nothing to express; the choice lies between a mask and a figleaf.

George Santayana

The little word is has its tragedies: it marries and identifies different things with the greatest innocence; and yet no two are ever identical, and if therein lies the charm of wedding them and calling them one, therein too lies the danger.

George Santayana

Wisdom lies in taking everything with good humor and a grain of salt.

George Santayana

Advertising is the modern substitute for argument, its function is to make the worse appear the better article. A confused competition of all propagandas -- those insults to human nature -- is carried on by the most expert psychological methods -- for instance, by always repeating a lie.

George Packer

Since I was a kid. I had this series by Ballantine Books about the history of World Wars I and II. In my 20s, it was the Vietnam War literature of novelists like Tim O'Brien, Philip Caputo, and Tobias Wolff, and then nonfiction such as "A Bright Shining Lie" by Neil Sheehan and "The Best and Brightest" by David Halberstam . Those are the two best histories of Vietnam.

George Orwell

A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.

George Orwell

All propaganda is lies, even when one is telling the truth.

George Orwell

The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.

George Orwell

And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.

George Orwell

For the ordinary man is passive. Within a narrow circle (home life, and perhaps the trade unions or local politics) he feels himself master of his fate, but against major events he is as helpless as against the elements. So far from endeavoring to influence the future, he simply lies down and lets things happen to him.

George Orwell

The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth.

G. Gordon Liddy

One of the biggest lies in the world is that crime doesn't pay. Of course, crime pays.

G. H. Hardy

The "seriousness" of a mathematical theorem lies, not in its practical consequences, which are usually negligible, but in the significance of the mathematical ideas which it connects.

G. H. Hardy

There is always more in one of Ramanujan's formulae than meets the eye, as anyone who sets to work to verify those which look the easiest will soon discover. In some the interest lies very deep, in others comparatively near the surface; but there is not one which is not curious and entertaining.

G. H. Hardy

I remember once going to see him [Ramanujan] when he was lying ill at Putney. I had ridden in taxi-cab No. 1729, and remarked that the number seemed to me rather a dull one, and that I hoped it was not an unfavourable omen. "No," he replied, "it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as a sum of two cubes in two different ways."

G. H. Hardy

I believe that mathematical reality lies outside us, that our function is to discover or observe it, and that the theorems which we prove, and which we describe grandiloquently as our "creations," are simply the notes of our observations.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Happiness lies not in happiness but only in the attempt to achieve it.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

they may all be drunk at my place, but they're all honest, and though we do lie-because I lie, too-in the end we'll lie our way to the truth

Fyodor Dostoevsky

I must have justice, or I will destroy myself. And not justice in some remote and infinite time and space, but here on Earth...I want to see with my own eyes the lamb lie down with the lion and the victim rise up and embrace his murderer. I want to be there when everyone suddenly understands what it has all been about. All the religions of the world are built on this longing, and I am a believer.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

If he's honest, he'll steal; if he's human, he'll murder; if he's faithful, he'll deceive.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

For a woman, all resurrection, all salvation, from whatever perdition, lies in love; in fact, it is her only way to it.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Above all, avoid lies, all lies, especially the lie to yourself. Keep watch on your own lie and examine it every hour, every minute. And avoid contempt, both of others and of yourself: what seems bad to you in yourself is purified by the very fact that you have noticed it in yourself. And avoid fear, though fear is simply the consequence of every lie. Never be frightened at your own faintheartedness in attaining love, and meanwhile do not even be very frightened by your own bad acts.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Humanity can live without science, it can live without bread, but it cannot live without beauty. Without beauty, there would be nothing left to do in this life. Here the secret lies. Here lies the entire story.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

the most offensive is not their lying—one can always forgive lying—lying is a delightful thing, for it leads to truth—what is offensive is that they lie and worship their own lying…

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Man is bound to lie about himself