#falsehood

It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world. ↗

— Samuel Johnson

#carelessness #falsehood #intentionally #lying #more

[Women] complain about many clerks who attribute all sorts of faults to them and who compose works about them in rhyme, prose, and verse, criticizing their conduct in a variety of different ways. They then give these works as elementary textbooks to their young pupils at the beginning of their schooling, to provide them with exempla and received wisdom, so that they will remember this teaching when they come of age ... They accuse [women] of many ... serious vice[s] and are very critical of them, finding no excuse for them whatsoever. This is the way clerks behave day and night, composing their verse now in French, now in Latin. And they base their opinions on goodness only knows which books, which are more mendacious than a drunk. Ovid, in a book he wrote called Cures for Love, says many evil things about women, and I think he was wrong to do this. He accuses them of gross immorality, of filthy, vile, and wicked behaviour. (I disagree with him that they have such vices and promise to champion them in the fight against anyone who would like to throw down the gauntlet ...) Thus, clerks have studied this book since their early childhood as their grammar primer and then teach it to others so that no man will undertake to love a woman. ↗

— Christine de Pizan

#clichés #double-standards #empowerment #falsehood #gender

The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend! ↗

— Edith Wharton

#family #friends #insincerity #kindness #loneliness

Lies are neither bad nor good. Like a fire they can either keep you warm or burn you to death, depending on how they're used. ↗

— Max Brooks

#falsity #lies #max-brooks #truth #world-war-z

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. ↗

— John F. Kennedy

#alien #american #american people #competitive #entrust

Truth is confirmed by inspection and delay; falsehood by haste and uncertainty. ↗

— Tacitus

#delay #falsehood #haste #inspection #truth

When one with honeyed words but evil mind Persuades the mob, great woes befall the state. ↗

— Euripides

#deceit #deception #elections #evil #false-promises

Tale-bearers are as bad as the tale-makers. ↗

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

#gossip #libel #reputation #rumor #slander

So may the outward shows be least themselves: The world is still deceived with ornament. In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt, But, being seasoned with a gracious voice, Obscures the show of evil? In religion, What damned error, but some sober brow Will bless it and approve it with a text, Hiding the grossness with fair ornament? There is no vice so simple but assumes Some mark of virtue on his outward parts. ↗

— William Shakespeare

#falsehood #law #ornament #pretense #religion

Total falsehoods can be easily exposed for what they are by citing exceptions to their claims. Hence, they are less likely to be accepted as the total truth. ↗

— Samuel P. Huntington

#citing #claims #easily #exceptions #exposed