February 20, 2025

You don’t tell deliberate lies, but sometime you have to be evasive.

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013), British politician and prime minister, The Cynic’s Lexicon, Jonathon Green, ed. (London: 1986), p.201

How evasive are you? Do you do it with good humour, or like a teenager caught with his hand in the liquor cabinet?

Thatcher climbed “the greasy pole” to success in a male-dominated profession (hence the pole), and was prime minister for 11 years (the first of her sex), so she bears listening to. Besides, it’s true. Deliberate lies get you in trouble.