reliable only up to a certain intake of the vino. drunkenness; truthTRUTH is the first casualty of warThe originator of this saying is sometimes said to be Hiram Johnson, addressing the US
Senate in 1918, but it does not occur in the record of the relevant speech.
1928 A. PONSONBY Falsehood in Wartime (epigraph) When war is declared, Truth
is the first casualty. 1975 P. KNIGHTLEY (title) The First Casualty: the war
correspondent as hero, propagandist, and myth maker from the Crimea to Vietnam 1992
English Today Jan. 48/1 In war, the first casualty is language. .. It was the ‘pacification’
of Gaul by Julius Caesar, not the brutal and bloody subjugation of Gaul. 1998
Independent 12 June I. 29/1 If truth is the first casualty of war then words are the first to
be crocked in the World Cup. 2002 Consumer Reports Feb. 62 We’ve all heard that truth
is the first casualty of war. Still, it was surprising how fast the victim expired after the
terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. By the 12th, Internet watchdogs were already warning
against online frauds. truth; warfareTRUTH is stranger than fictionSimilar to FACT is stranger than fiction.1823 BYRON Don Juan XIV. ci. Truth is always strange, Stranger than Fiction. 1863
C. READE Hard Cash II. xv. Sampson was greatly struck with the revelation: he.. said
truth was stranger than fiction. 1905 G. K. CHESTERTON Club of Queer Trades 133 ‘Do
you believe that truth is stranger than fiction?’ ‘Truth must of necessity be stranger than
fiction,’ said Basil placidly. ‘For fiction is the creation of the human mind, and therefore
congenial to it.’ 2001 Washington Post 25 June C2 There are times when truth is indeed
stranger than fiction, when the teller of true tales can report things that we would dismiss
as preposterous inventions should a novelist try to put them over on us. reality and
illusionTRUTH lies at the bottom of a wellCf. Gr. we know nothing certainly, for truth lies in
the deep (attributed to Democritus); LACTANTIUS Institutiones Divinae III. xxviii. in puteo..
veritatem iacere demersam, truth lies sunk in a well.