To offend a strong man, tell him a lie. To offend a weak man, tell him the truth.
- Topic: Lies, Truth
- Photo: Jeffrey Benjamin
More Quotes from Marcus Aurelius
Do not think that what is hard for you to master is humanly impossible; but if a thing is humanly possible, consider it to be within your reach.
A well governed appetite is the greater part of liberty.
Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.
It's the truth I'm after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance.
It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than others their opinions more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.
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Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If all people all over the world would do this, it would change the earth.
No matter how big the lie; repeat it often enough and the masses will regard it as the truth.
There is no disguise which can for long conceal love where it exists or simulate it where it does not.
Lie to a liar, for lies are his coin; steal from a thief, for that is easy; lay a trap for a trickster and catch him at first attempt, but beware of an honest man.
Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.
The quick pain of truth can pass away, but the slow eating agony of a lie is never lost.
Everything you said should be true but not everything true should be said.
Let us affirm what seems to be the truth, that, whether one is or is not, one and the others in relation to themselves and one another, all of them, in every way, are and are not, and appear to be and appear not to be.
