Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us.
P. J. O'RourkeRead
All lies are told with a straight face. It is truth that's said with a dismissive giggle.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that deception is often presented seriously, while the truth can be undermined by a casual attitude.
P. J. O'Rourke's quote highlights the irony of communication, noting that lies tend to be delivered with a confident demeanor, whereas the truth may be dismissed or trivialized through humor or nonchalance. This reflects how perceptions of honesty and deception can be influenced by the manner in which information is conveyed, pointing out the contrast between the seriousness of a lie and the flippancy that can accompany truth.
Themes
LiesTruthCommunicationPerceptionIrony
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate about honesty in politics, one might say, 'All lies are told with a straight face. It is truth that's said with a dismissive giggle.'
More from P. J. O'Rourke
All quotes βAlways read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
P. J. O'RourkeRead
Predicting innovation is something of a self-canceling exercise: the most probable innovations are probably the least innovative.
P. J. O'RourkeRead
I spend my days kneeling in the muck of language, feeling around for gooey verbs, nouns, and modifiers that I can squash together to make a blob of a sentence that bears some likeness to reason and sense.
P. J. O'RourkeRead
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine.
P. J. O'RourkeRead
The idea of a news broadcast once was to find someone with information and broadcast it. The idea now is to find someone with ignorance and spread it around.
P. J. O'RourkeRead
Similar quotes
Even today we raise our hand against our brother... We have perfected our weapons, our conscience has fallen asleep, and we have sharpened our ideas to justify ourselves as if it were normal we continue to sow destruction, pain, death. Violence and war lead only to death.
Pope FrancisRead
I must also have a dark side if I am to be whole.
Carl JungRead
We are like horses who hurt themselves as soon as they pull on their bits - and we bow our heads. We even lose consciousness of the situation, we just submit. Any re-awakening of thought is then painful.
Simone WeilRead
How can we truly understand who we are unless we know who we were and what we have the power to become?
Neal A. MaxwellRead
What I propose, therefore, is very simple: it is nothing more than to think what we are doing
Hannah ArendtRead
Emotional life is - alongside work - one of the great challenges of existence and is a theme that I keep returning to.
Alain De BottonRead