believe it or not

[Jonathan Lighter]

Here's a folk saying that seems to have been overlooked despite its
excellence:

1899 _The Speaker_  (London) (Jan. 28) 115: But they hardly seem to have
attained that highest stage of art when a man is "such a liar that you
cannot even believe the opposite of what he says."

1947 _Soviet Russia Today_ XV (No. 8) 6 [GB snippet]: It reminds me
sometimes of the Irishman who said of another Irishman, "The man is such a
liar that you cannot even believe the opposite of what he says."

1963 Richard W. Rowan _Cuba: The Big Red Lie_  (Kingston, N.Y.: Quinn) 41:
A famous Chief of Intelligence once said of a foreign diplomat from whom it
had been hoped to gain certain vital intelligence: "You can't even believe
the opposite of what he says."

1968 D. N. Pritt, in _Labour Monthly_ (March) 142: That government has now
reached the class described by an Irishman who said that his  opponent was
"such a liar that you cannot even believe the opposite of what he says."

1988 _Jewish Frontier_ LV [GB snippet]: The type Abba Eban had in mind when
he quipped: "You can't even believe the opposite of what he says."

2010
http://www.elitetrader.com/vB/showthread.php?s=0d2085a3ccd00d11cdcb64c1371c9dae&postid=2879703:
Anything Soros says is suspect. Every word out of his mouth is
self-serving. You probably cannot even believe the opposite of what he says
.

JL

--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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