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# Weekend Words: Lies
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/weekend-words-lies/
- Published: 2017-01-22T14:30:34.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:28:02.000Z
- Description: "Truth exists; only lies are invented."
- Author: Weekend Editors
- Tags: Art, Weekend, Weekend Words, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:23 (2016, 2017, part 2)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2017/01/lies-1.jpg)

Last week, Hyperallergic Weekend began its new series, [**Drawing in a Time of Fear & Lies**](https://hyperallergic.com/drawing-in-a-time-of-fear-lies/), with “[Various Dismal Futures](https://hyperallergic.com/william-powhida-various-dismal-futures/)” (2016) by William Powhida, and continues this week with “[Schlongface](https://hyperallergic.com/schlongface-judith-bernstein/)” (2016) by Judith Bernstein.

> How shall I speak thee, or thy power address, 460  
> Thou god of our idolatry, the Press?  
> By thee, religion, liberty, and laws,  
> Exert their influence, and advance their cause  
> By thee, worse plagues than Pharaoh’s land befell,  
> Diffused, make earth the vestibule of hell  
> Thou fountain, at which drink the good and wise;  
> Thou ever-bubbling spring of endless lies;  
> Like Eden’s dread probationary tree,  
> Knowledge of good and evil is from thee!  
>  
> **—William Cowper, “The Progress of Error”**

> Americans detest all lies except lies spoken in public or printed lies.  
>  
> **—Edgar Watson Howe**

> A Truth that’s told with bad intent  
> Beats all the Lies you can invent  
>  
> **—William Blake, “Auguries of Innocence”**

> Their delight is in lies; they give good words with their mouth, but curse with their heart.  
>  
> **—Psalms 62:4**

> There are a terrible lot of lies going around the world, and the worst of it is half of them are true.  
>  
> **—Winston Churchill**

> Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.  
>  
> **—George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language”**

> I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends… that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.  
>  
> **—Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.**

> When war enters a country  
> It produces lies like sand.  
>  
> **—Anonymous, German origin**

> No mask like open truth to cover lies,  
> As to go naked is the best disguise.  
>  
> **—William Congreve, *The Double Dealer***

> Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.  
>  
> **—Samuel Butler**

> Truth exists; only lies are invented.  
>  
> **—George Braque**

> There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.  
>  
> **—Benjamin Disraeli**

> She tells enough white lies to ice a wedding cake.  
>  
> **—Margot Asquith, about Lady Desborough**

> The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age.  
>  
> **—Lucille Ball**

> The Social Contract is nothing more or less than a vast conspiracy of human beings to lie to and humbug themselves for the general Good. Lies are the mortar that bind the savage individual man into the social masonry.  
>  
> **—H. G. Wells, *Love and Mr Lewisham***

> The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others.  
>  
> **—Friedrich Nietzsche**

> Swindon: What will history say?  
> Burgoyne: History, sir, will tell lies as usual.  
>  
> **—George Bernard Shaw, *The Devil’s Disciple***