Dishonesty Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old dishonesty quotes, dishonesty sayings, and dishonesty proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.

Dishonesty of any kind will create a blemish. Gordon B. Hinckley
Dishonesty is so grasping it would deceive God himself, were it possible. George Bancroft
People want to work with somebody who feels shame, who worries about the perceptions of others. Dishonesty is something we don't like in others. Frans De Waal
The trouble with lying and deceiving is that their efficiency depends entirely upon a clear notion of the truth that the liar and deceiver wishes to hide. Hannah Arendt
Lying can never save us from another lie. Vaclav Havel
Lying is done with words and also with silence. Adrienne Rich
Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeply. F. Scott Fitzgerald
Dishonesty is the raw material not of quacks only, but also in great part of dupes. Thomas Carlyle
Hatred of dishonesty generally arises from fear of being deceived. Luc De Clapiers
Lying is the greatest of all sins. Alfred Nobel
Lying is not only saying what isn't true. It is also, in fact especially, saying more than is true and, in the case of the human heart, saying more than one feels. We all do it, every day, to make life simpler. Albert Camus
The thing about lying is, it is quite exhausting - you have to remember a lot. Rupert Everett
Lying is an elementary means of self-defense. Susan Sontag
Lying about anything is the cruelest thing in the world you could ever do. Be who you are. Don't try to be someone you're not. It never works. Summer Glau
Falsehood is a perennial spring. Edmund Burke
When being dishonest, people can still tell the truth. Be mindful of the treacherous that do not lie. Eric Parslow
Lying is the only art form that the public sanctions and instinctively prefers to reality. Jean Cocteau
It is not only by dint of lying to others, but also of lying to ourselves, that we cease to notice that we are lying. Marcel Proust
Falsehood is invariably the child of fear in one form or another. Aleister Crowley
Lying is a terrible vice, it testifies that one despises God, but fears men. Michel de Montaigne
Whoever is detected in a shameful fraud is ever after not believed even if they speak the truth. Phaedrus
Lying is like alcoholism. You are always recovering. Steven Soderbergh
The art of using deceit and cunning grow continually weaker and less effective to the user. John Tillotson
Lying is not only a defense mechanism; it's also a coping mechanism and a survival technique. Monica Raymund
There's something different about looking someone in the eyes and doing something dishonest to doing it over the phone or screen. Justin Welby
Lying is a sin destructive to society; for there is no trade where there is no trust, and there is no trust where there is no truth. Wellins Calcott
The worst kind of lying I've ever done is keeping things from people. Elijah Wood
The deception of others is almost always rooted in the deception of ourselves. Bill W
Being dishonest to himself is the biggest crime any human can make Loknath
Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, and lessens the frictions of social contacts. Clare Boothe Luce
Saying what you believe others want to hear is, of course, a form of lying. Karl Ove Knausgard
Lying does exist in crazy forms. Chris Pine
There are people who exaggerate so much that they can't tell the truth without lying. Mark Twain
''They say'' is often a great liar. Proverb
Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art. Oscar Wilde
Lying is an indispensable part of making life tolerable. Evans
Exaggeration is a blood relation to falsehood and nearly as blamable. Hosea Ballou
It is an affront to treat falsehood with complaisance. Thomas Paine
Deceit is the game of petty spirits, and that is by nature a woman's quality. Pierre Corneille
There's a degree of deception in silence. Don Lemon
All deception in the course of life is indeed nothing else but a lie reduced to practice, and falsehood passing from words into things. Robert Southey
Deception may give us what we want for the present, but it will always take it away in the end. Rachel Hawthorne
For the most part fraud in the end secures for its companions repentance and shame. Charles Simmons
To pretend to know when you do not know is a disease. Lao-Tzu
False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. Socrates
He who indulges in falsehood will find the paths of paradise shut to him. Abu Bakr
A divine falsehood is more powerful than any human truth. Mikhail Bakunin
Falsehood is the jockey of misfortune. Jean Giraudoux
Falsehood always endeavors to copy the mien and attitude of truth. Samuel Johnson
It is a true saying that One falsehood leads easily to another. Cicero
Dishonesty is a forsaking of permanent for temporary advantages. Bovee.
He who purposely cheats his friend would cheat his God. Lavater
I could never draw the line between meanness and dishonesty. What is mean, so far I can see, slides by indistinguishable gradations into what is dishonest. C. Macdonald
Every man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat him. But a day comes when he begins to care that he does not cheat his neighbor. Then all goes well. he has changed his market-cart into a chariot of the sun. Emerson
Prefer loss to the wealth of dishonest gain; the former vexes you for a time; the latter will bring long-lasting remorse. Chilo
If you want to keep a man honest, never call him a liar. Clark Gable
All women are dishonest. If they weren't, the world would be divided into two classes of people: old maids and bachelors. Helen Broderick
I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don't trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance, any day in the week if there is anything to be got by it. Charles Dickens
Dishonesty, cowardice, and duplicity are never impulsive. George Knight
Even a secret agent can't lie to a Jewish mother. Peter Malkin
Men are so simple and yield so readily to the wants of the moment that he who will trick will always find another who will suffer himself to be tricked. Niccolo Machiavelli
If a man deceives me once, shame on him; if he deceives me twice, shame on me. Japanese Proverb
May the man be damned and never grow fat, who wears two faces under one hat. Spanish Proverb
Bread gained by deceit is sweet but afterward, the mouth will be full of gravel. Proverbs 20:17
The thoughts of the righteous are right; the counsels of the wicked are deceit. Proverbs 12:5
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. Abraham Lincoln
indeed, it is not in human nature to deceive others for any long time, without in a measure deceiving ourselves, too. John Henry Newman
A poor man is better than a liar. Proverbs 19:22
No man was ever so much deceived by another as by himself. Greville
Deceit is the false road to happiness; and all the joys we travel through to vice, like fairy banquets, vanish when we touch them. A. Hill
The first and worst of all frauds is to cheat one's self— All sin is easy after that. Bailey
O, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive. Walter Scott
Were we to take as much pains to be what we ought, as we do to disguise what we are, we might appear like ourselves without being at the trouble of any disguise at all. Francois de la Rochefoucauld
One deceit needs many others, and so the whole house is built in the air and must soon come to the ground. Baltasar Gracian
Everything that deceives may be said to enchant. Plato
When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat; / Yet, fooled with hope, men favor the deceit; / Trust on and think tomorrow will repay, / Tomorrow's falser than the former day. John Dryden
A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood. Shenstone
Falsehood, like the dry rot, flourishes the more in proportion as air and light are excluded. Whately
The telling of falsehood is like the cut of a saber; for though the wound may heal, the scar of it will remain. Saadi
Falsehoods not only disagree with truths but usually quarrel among themselves. Daniel Webster