“...when the public nerve is aroused, the most impressive capacity of man is his skill for lying.”
More from Barbara Kingsolver on Truth
“The truth needs so little rehearsal.”
“Illusions mistaken for truth are the pavement under our feet. They are what we call civilization.”
“The urge to lie is produced by the contradictions in our lives. We are made to declare love for our country, while it tramples our rights and dignity.”
“People ask without wanting to know.”
“Pain reaches the heart with electrical speed, but truth moves to the heart as slowly as a glacier.”
Others on Truth
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
11 quotes“Any truth is better than indefinite doubt.”
Cervantes
8 quotes“Facts are the enemy of truth.”
Mark Twain
8 quotes“I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won't.”
Malcolm X
7 quotes“You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.”
Aesop
7 quotes“No one believes a liar even when he tells the truth”
Agatha Christie
7 quotes“The innocent must not suffer.”
Patrick Rothfuss
7 quotes“...nothing in the world is harder than convincing someone of an unfamiliar truth.”
Terry Pratchett
7 quotes“Little crimes breed big crimes. You smile at little crimes and then big crimes blow your head off.”
H. L. Mencken
6 quotes“Truth would quickly cease to be stranger than fiction, once we got as used to it.”
Lord Byron
6 quotes“And after all what is a lie? Tis but The truth in masquerade.”
Martin Luther King
6 quotes“In the end, what will hurt us the most is not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.”
Frederick Douglass
6 quotes“America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.”