One should feel especially flattered by an insincere compliment.
Lying
To a quite unwreckable Lie,
To a most impeccable Lie!
To a water-tight, fire-proof, angle-iron, sunk-hinge, time-lock, steel-faced Lie!
Not a private hansom Lie,
But a pair-and-brougham Lie,
Not a little-place-at-Tooting, but a country-house-with-shooting
And a ring-fence-deer-park Lie.
—-Kipling
One often sees accuracy without truth, and sometimes truth without accuracy.
Every great lie depends on narrative, the great meta-lie.
In the end, lies may be no match for truth, but no one knows, and the end is far, far away.
The more you hope a story is true, the likelier it is to be false.
All the glamor goes to purveying the false accusation, the bogus claim, the non-existent effect; all the labor, to refuting it.
As you grow old, you forget, and as you forget, you have to stop lying, or at least cut way down.
The first rule of lying is never deviate from the facts.
We are apt to forget, though history at intervals reminds us, how far hypocrisy is to be preferred to sincere, unaffected villainy.
The hygienic metaphor — “cleansing”, “extermination”, “vermin” — always marks murderous intent.