Daily Inspiration Quote by Clare Boothe Luce

Luce’s line lands like a cocktail-party provocation: not “lying is wrong,” but “lying is useful.” It’s the kind of sentence that flatters the listener’s self-image even as it indicts it. By phrasing deception as self-improvement - “creative faculties,” “expands the ego” - she borrows the language of art and psychology to dress a vice in the respectable clothes of productivity. A dramatist would: for someone who built worlds out of dialogue, lying isn’t just moral failure, it’s technique.

The intent is double-edged. On the surface, it’s a worldly observation about how people actually get through the day: smoothing rough truths, editing feelings, offering social white lies that keep dinner parties from combusting. Underneath, it’s a satire of modern self-construction. “Expands the ego” isn’t praise so much as diagnosis; lying becomes the quick, addictive way to feel larger than life without doing the hard work of becoming it.

Context matters: Luce moved through elite political and media circles where narratives are currency and reputation is a managed product. In those ecosystems, friction is costly, and truth can be a kind of rude inefficiency. The sentence also smuggles in a darker idea about art itself: creativity and fabrication are cousins, and society often rewards the performance of sincerity more than sincerity.

What makes it work is the clinical cadence. Three escalating clauses, no moral disclaimer, just a cool tally of benefits. The reader is left in the uncomfortable position of recognizing the accuracy before deciding whether to be offended.