A Dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford Paperback Reference)

let see also let the COBBLER stick to his last; let the DEAD bury the dead; let them
LAUGH that win; LIVE and let live; let SLEEPING dogs lie; SPARE at the spigot, and let out
at the bung-hole; never let the SUN go down on your anger.

leveller see DEATH is the great leveller.

A LIAR ought to have a good memory

Cf. QUINTILIAN Institutio Oratoria IV. ii. mendacem memorem esse oportet, a liar ought
to have a good memory.

a 1542 T. WYATT in Poetical Works (1858) p. xxxvii. They say, ‘He that will lie

well must have a good remembrance, that he agree in all points with himself, lest he be

spied.’ c 1690 R. SOUTH Twelve Sermons (1722) IV. 167 Indeed, a very rational Saying,

That a lyar ought to have a good Memory. 1721 J. KELLY Scottish Proverbs 50 A Lyar

should have a good Memory. Lest he tell the same Lye different ways. 1945 F.

THOMPSON Lark Rise xiii. ‘A liar ought to have a good memory,’ they would say. 1999

C. HITCHENS No One Left To Lie To (2000) i. 19 Just as the necessary qualification for a

good liar is a good memory, so the essential equipment of a would-be lie detector is a

good timeline, and a decent archive. lying

libel see the GREATER the truth, the greater the libel.

lick see if you can’t BEAT them, join them.

A LIE is halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on

The speed with which falsehood travels was a classical commonplace; e.g. VIRGIL Aeneid
iv. 174 Fama, malum qua non aliud velocius alium, Rumour, than whom no other evil thing is
faster. This whole passage was imitated by Shakespeare in the Induction to Henry IV, Pt. 2
(1597–8).

1859 C. H. SPURGEON Gems from Spurgeon 74 It is well said in the old proverb, ‘a

lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on’. 1996 National Review 6

May 6 ‘A lie is halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on.’ But,

eventually, truth gets booted and spurred, and the lie gets a good licking. 2002 Times 21