Metaphorically True/Quotes

Max: You killed him!
Vincent: No, I shot him. The bullets and the fall killed him.

—Collateral

A halbe emes iz a gantse lign.
(Half a truth is a whole lie.)

—Yiddish proverb

And I will not lie to you
But I definitely only gave you half the truth...

—The Kaiser Chiefs, Half the Truth

Jedi Exile: Well, lying is lying, even from a "certain point of view."

—Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2

Obi Wan: What I told you was true...from a certain point of view.
Luke: That's Jedi code for 'I just lied my butt off', isn't it?

—Irregular Webcomic

Harry: I've never lied to you, I've always told you some version of the truth.
Erica: The truth doesn't have versions, okay?

—Something's Gotta Give

Laura: But... I thought you said you worked in a hotel? How can you afford this?!
Sixx: I said I worked in the hotel business. Which I do. By which I meant I own a few hundred...

—Collar 6

In a manner of speaking, yes. In another manner of speaking, which is a rather more precise and accurate manner of speaking, no.

—Carrot's father, Guards! Guards!

The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look behind words that have changed their meaning.

—Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies

Aberrations of the human mind are to a large extent due to the obsessional pursuit of some part-truth, treated as if it were a whole truth.

—The Ghost in the Machine by Arthur Koestler

Not the violent conflict between parts of the truth, but the quiet suppression of half of it, is the formidable evil; there is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides; it is when they attend to only one that errors harden into prejudices, and truth itself ceases to have the effect of truth, by being exaggerated into falsehood.

—John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

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