Hello everyone,
I'm sure we've all heard it before - "Tell a lie
often enough and it will become the truth."

I've seen this attributed to a number of people,
to include Herman Gobbels, Hitler, Lenin, but
regardless of the actual phrasing, where did it
originate and who started it?

I've already struck out at Bartleby.com and
QuoteGeek.com, I thought I'd ask here,,,

IH

but, ImaHooligan, when you typed your reply... did you hit return/enter after every line or did it just come up that way? (Some people have been having problems with something similar and I'm trying to see if it's something basic that we're missing. )

I'm sure one of the smarter Quotelanders will check in with the answer to your question...

Have a fantastical day!

I inserted hard returns, I'm used to doing that from working with Pine - I did not insert them on this reply.

Oh, I forgot to mention; Quoteland.com attributes that to Lenin, but elsewhere others are attributed, I was hoping to find something authoritative and definitive to settle a minor dispute.

IH

Except, it is enough, 5 times, 100 times, or a 1000 times. Nobody seems to agree. There must be a definitve source that has it accurate, if he said it at all. I also saw it as an adage.

"A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth."
~ G. Goebbels (Joseph Goebbels), Propaganda officer for Adolf Hitler
http://aig.smartbusiness.org/home/area/Creation_Clubs/docs/102quotes.asp
http://www.computec-int.com/bsc/war/excuse.htm
http://www.rediff.com/news/1999/feb/22akd.htm
http://www.ppp.org.pk/speeches/speech12.html

"Tell a lie a hundred times and it becomes the truth."
~ Goebbels, 1939
http://www.ius.bg.ac.yu/apel/materijali/info-warfare.html

~I know what I have to do now. I have to keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?~

>Except, it is enough, 5 times, 100 times, or a 1000 times. Nobody seems to agree.

I know. Goebbels and Hitler are both named, Hitler apparently wrote something (similar) in Mein Kampf, but Quoteland.com attributes it to Lenin, who died in 1924 (see http://161.58.184.85/qldb/author/263) - they don't say where or when Lenin said it though (and he probably picked it up from someone else).

I sure would like to get to the true origin of this one, I'm curious as hell now.

IH

"In politics, a lie unanswered becomes truth within 24 hours."
~Willie Brown, California political leader (current mayor of San Francisco)

"A lie told often enough becomes truth."
~ Lenin, Marxist revolutionary (1870-1924)
http://www.geocities.com/allaxul9/quotes.html
http://www.flexpress.net/quotes.htm
http://www.nwmissouri.edu/~s214560/quotes.html
http://www.mitcharf.com/~mitcharf/quotes/

"When a myth is shared by large numbers of people, it becomes a reality."
~Lawrence Blair

"Convince enough people of a lie, and it becomes truth."
~Ron Amundson

A lie that can be passed off as truth becomes truth

"Love is the basis for all the values. Action with love is right conduct. Speak with love, and it becomes truth. Thinking with love results in peace. Understanding with love leads to non-violence. For everything, love is primary. Where there is love there is no place for hatred." ~Sathya Sai Baba, discourse of 20-5-1995

the word, spoken loudly enough becomes truth

...a wise old owl....and a crafty old cat...

The following website might be useful in determining the origin of the Big Lie quotation.

http://www.whale.to/vaccine/repetition.html

This has both the Lenin quote and Goebbels expansion that is presumably based on it. Ironic isn't it that the extreme right and left of the political spectrum have such close thoughts. Perhaps its more of an indication of the similarity of totalitarian regimes, regardless of the ideology.

Here are 3 quotes attributed to Hitler in Mein Kampf:

The broad mass of a nation .. .will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.

Only constant repitition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea on the memory of the crowd.

The gretaer the lie, the greater the chance that it will be believed.

http://www.quoteland.com/author.asp?AUTHOR_ID=594
* * *
Since we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our minds, our one duty is to furnish it well~Peter Ustinov

[This message was edited by thenostromo on 12-12-05 at 05:26 PM.]

In der Größe der Lüge [liegt] immer ein gewisser Faktor des Geglaubtwerdens (...), da die breite Masse eines Volkes (...) bei der primitiven Einfalt ihres Gemütes einer großen Lüge leichter zum Opfer fällt als einer kleinen. — Adolf Hitler, «Mein Kampf», I, 10. — München, 1939, S. 230.