On Lying

-- The offspring of flint and steel is fire; and the offspring of chatter and joking is lying.

-- A lie is the destruction of love, and a false oath is a denial of God.

-- Hypocrisy is the mother of lying, and often its occasion. For some define hypocrisy as none other than meditation on falsehood, and an inventor of falsehood which has a reprehensible oath intertwined with it.

-- He who has obtained the fear of the Lord has forsaken lying, having within himself an incorruptible judge – his own conscience.

-- We notice various degrees of harm in all the passions, and this is certainly the case with lying. There is one judgment for him who lies through fear of punishment, and another for him who lies when no danger is at hand.

-- Lying is wiped out by the tortures of superiors; but it is finally destroyed by an abundance of tears.

-- He who has become merry with wine involuntarily speaks the truth on all subjects, and he who is drunk with compunction cannot lie.

St. John Climacus
“The Ladder of Divine Ascent”