Here is why the truth matters. It was all very well for jesting Pilate to ask that question and then not to tarry for an answer. But that question that he asked, “what is the truth?” is the question which underlies every question and in the end it is the only question that really matters. When you ask that question what you are really asking is “what is the truth about the matter?” And we are now going to see why it matters morally, socially, and politically, as well as economically and scientifically. That the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth should inform public policy on this question.

Lord Christopher Monckton speaking to the Minnesota Free Market Institute October 14, 2009 regarding the Copenhagen treaty on global warming

No man has a good enough memory to make a successful liar. Abraham Lincoln

Men are liars. We’ll lie about lying if we have to. I’m an algebra liar. I figure two good lies make a positive. Tim Allen

A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is just putting on its shoes. Mark Twain

Very sorry can’t come. Lie follows by post. Lord Charles Beresford

If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. Abraham Lincoln

Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’. Mary McCarthy on Lillian Hellman

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. The bamboozle has captured us. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. Carl Sagan

I lied to everybody. I lie very well, being an actress, naturally. Lynne Fontanne

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. John F. Kennedy