Selected deception quotes

1. Hope lies to mortals And most believe her, But man's deceiver Was never mine.

2. No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.

3. The only person who is a worse liar than a faith healer is his patient.

4. The quiet conscience is an invention of the devil.

5. Falsehood is invariably the child of fear in one form or another.

6. I don't believe Fermat had a proof. I think he fooled himself into thinking he had a proof.

7. When any body of statesmen make public asservations by one or various voices, that there is no discord among them, not a dissentient voice on any subject, people are apt to suppose that they cannot hang together much longer.

8. A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.

9. Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.

10. Journalists say a thing that they know isn't true, in the hope that if they keep on saying it long enough it will be true.

11. It is an art to have so much judgment as to apparel a lie well, to give it a good dressing.

12. For the task assigned them Men aren't smart enough or sly Any rogue can blind them With a clever lie.

13. Science is a way to not fool ourselves.

14. A good liar must have a good memory. Kissinger is a stupendous liar with a remarkable memory.

15. Fishing is a delusion entirely surrounded by liars in old clothes.

16. Man is an animal that diddles, and there is no animal that diddles but man.

17. A picture is a thing which requires as much knavery, as much malice, and as much vice as the perpetration of a crime. Make it untrue and add an accent of truth.

18. The public will believe anything, so long as it is not founded on truth.

19. The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

20. Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion.

21. Where Nature's end of language is declin'd, And men talk only to conceal the mind.

22. Crows pick out the eyes of the dead, when the dead have no longer need of them; but flatterers mar the soul of the living, and her eyes they blind.

23. We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

24. Add a few drops of venom to a half truth and you have an absolute truth.

25. There are also many instances where people hostile to the Soviet state are attempting by means of deceit and provocation to poison the minds of our citizens and compel them to believe in monstrous lies.

26. It is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth the hurt.

27. Base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark.

28. Sensual love deceives one as to the nature of heavenly love; it could not do so alone, but since it unconsciously has the element of heavenly love within it, it can do so.

29. The smylere with the knyf under the cloke.

30. Celebrities are invariably celebrity-mad, just as liars always believe liars.

31. A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.

32. Self-portraiture is something one should never get involved in, since it is wrong to lie even though one endeavours to tell the truth.

33. Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.

34. All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies.

35. There is to some men a great Lechery in Lying, and imposing on the understandings of beleeving people.

36. Men have been swindled by other men on many occasions. The autumn of 1929 was, perhaps, the first occasion when men succeeded on a large scale in swindling themselves.

37. There is no credulity so eager and blind as the credulity of covetousness, which, in its universal extent, measures the moral misery and the intellectual destitution of mankind.

38. Innocence is always unsuspicious.

39. Charm was a scheme for making strangers like and trust a person immediately, no matter what the charmer had in mind.

40. Who seems most hideous when adorned the most.

41. Qui parle trop veut tromper.

42. The roles that we construct are constructed because we feel that they will help us to survive and also, of course, because they fulfill something in our personalities; and one does not, therefore, cease playing a role simply because one has begun to understand it. All roles are dangerous. The world tends to trap you in the role you play and it is always extremely hard to maintain a watchful, mocking distance between oneself as one appears to be and oneself as one actually is.

43. When apprehensions abroad threatened the success of the Nazi regime for conquest, it was the duplicitous Ribbentrop, the salesman of deception, who was detailed to pour wine on the troubled waters of suspicion by preaching the gospel of limited and peaceful intentions.

44. If you can't sleep with your own wife wearing a false beard, what can you do?

45. O Mother of Good Counsel, lend Intelligence to me! Encompass me with wisdom, Thou Tower of Ivory! 'This is the Man of Lies,' she says, 'Disguised with fearful art: He has the wounded hands and feet, But not the wounded heart.'

46. An honest man, like the true religion, appeals to the understanding, or modestly confides in the internal evidence of his conscience. The imposter employes force instead of argument, imposes silence where he cannot convince, and propagates his character by the sword.

47. She wanted to test her husband. She knew exactly what to do: A pseudonym to fool him. She couldn't have made a worse move.

48. There was a laughing devil in his sneer.

49. Infidi maris insidis virisque dolumque ut vitare velint, neve ullo tempore credant subdola cum ridet placidi pellacia ponti.

50. But that he wrought so high the specious tale, As manifested plainly 'twas a lie.

51. A satyagrahi is born to be deceived.

52. Till their own dreams at length decive 'em, And oft repeating, they believe 'em.

53. 'To move the shade' is used when you cannot see the enemy's spirit. In large-scale strategy, when you cannot see the enemy's position, indicate that you are about to attack strongly, to discover his resources. It is easy then to defeat hin with a different method once you see his resources.

54. In single combat, we can confuse the enemy by attacking with varied techniques when the chance arises. Feint a thrust or cut, or make the enemy think you are going close to him, and when he is confused you can easily win. This is the essence of fighting, and you must research it deeply.

55. Comrades, I've voyaged long and far on sea and soul, my eyes have seen disease, gods, ghosts, and men, and yet in no land have I seen a more false, murderous siren than that wind-headed, babbling, blind bitch-hound called Hope!

56. A perfect master of all the arts of dissimulation: who, turning up the whites of his eyes, and seeking the Lord with pious gestures, will weep and pray, and cant most devoutly, till an opportunity offers of dealing his dupe a knock-down blow under the short ribs.

57. He thought secrecy a virtue, and dissimulation no vice, and simulation, that is in plain English, a lie, or perfideousness to be a tolerable fault in case of necessity.

58. I think you were always pretending. Maybe you even fooled yourself. But one thing is certain. You were never an ordinary girl, and you could never had lead an ordinary life.

59. Here's my throat. I carry no weapon. You could have killed me at any time, even when I knew you were my enemy. Why did you need to deceive me into trusting you first? Were you afraid that death wouldn't bother me enough, unless I felt betrayed?

60. Real power does not demonstrate itself in anything that can be purchased in mere money. Money only buys the illusion of power. Real power is in the force of will - will strong enough that others bend to it for it's own sake, and follow it willingly. Power that is won through deception will evaporate under the hot light of truth, as more closely you look at it, even when it resides only in a single person, without armies, without servants, without friends, but with indomitable will.

61. What kind of animal are you? Can't you make up a lie and believe it?

62. I am filled with all the truth that was discarded by men when they chose their lies and died for them. I am in constant pain, and now that I have met a man who does not add to my treasury of falsehood, you are the cruelest of them all.

63. 'I don't think there is any doubt, if there ever was . . . that Saddam Hussein does have weapons of mass destruction. Biological weapons that they discovered were very clear evidence of not only the fact that he had them, but that he had lied and that he is continuing to lie.'

64. I'm wide awake, I'll drop you off for saying that, For days and two weeks, It was you who was defending such a lie, Oh what a lie, Was it a lie? ~ 'Sense'

65. Non semper ea sunt quae videntur.

66. L'exemple souvent n'est qu'un miroir trompeur; Et l'ordre du destin qui gene nos pensees N'est pas toujours ecrit dans les choses passees.

67. Then the case is the same in all the other arts for the orator and his rhetoric; there is no need to know the truth of the actual matters, but one merely needs to have discovered some device of persuasion which will make one appear to those who do not know to know better than those who know.

68. The gods are not magicians who transform themselves; neither do they deceive mankind in any way.

69. Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies. (see also: Truth & Lies)

70. I know you are laughing in your sleeve.

71. Those not able to work were marched to the farmhouses. These were a good kilometer from the side track. There they were made to undress. At first they had to undress in the open, where we had erected walls made of straw and branches of trees that kept them from onlookers. After a while we built barracks. We had big signs, all of which read 'To Disinfection' or 'Baths.' That was in order to give the people the impression that they would merely receive a bath or be disinfected, in order not to have any technical difficulty in the extermination processes.

72. I never yet touched a fig leaf that didn't turn into a price tag.

73. But it is hard to know them [flatterers] from friends, they are so obsequious, and full of protestations; for as a wolf resembles a dog, so doth a flatterer a friend.

74. Starozytni mawiali: 'mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur'. Swiat laknie oszustw, wiec jest oszukiwany.

75. Dein pluribus hostiis caesis, cum litare non posset, introiit curiam spreta religione Spurinnamque irridens et ut falsum arguens, quod sine ulla sua noxa Idus Martiae adessent; quanquam is venisse quidem eas diceret, sed non praeterisse.

76. Haec omnibus insidiis temptatus elicientium cogentiumque se ad querelas nullam umquam occasionem dedit, perinde obliterato suorum casu ac si nihil cuiquam accidisset, quae vero ipse pateretur incredibili dissimulatione transmittens tantique in avum et qui iuxta erant obsequii, ut non immerito sit dictum nec servum meliorem ullum nec deteriorem dominum fuisse.

77. When false things are brought low, And swift things have grown slow, Feigning like froth shall go, Faith be for aye.

78. Like Dead Sea fruits, that tempt the eye, But turn to ashes on the lips.

79. They say be careful who you believe, be careful who you trust. Did you smile when you pulled the trigger that dropped me in the dust?

80. Did you ever hear about the great deception? Well the plastic revolutionaries take the money and run. Have you ever been down to love city? Where they rip you off with a smile, And it don't take a gun.

81. If you can't razzle them with dazzle, baffle them with bullshit.

82. She can only believe I am serious in her own fashion of being serious: as an antic sort of seriousness, which is not seriousness at all but despair masquerading as seriousness. [citation needed]

83. His skill in acting a part, his cunning, his imagination, the ease with which he affected naive stupidity and then emerged into the most subtle reasoning disarmed the security agents who interrogated him.

84. Thou liar of the first magnitude.

85. Candid, and generous, and just, Boys care but little whom they trust, An error soon corrected- For who but learns in riper years That man, when smoothest he appears Is most to be suspected?

86. A buffalo in wolf's clothing.

87. The buzzard told the monkey 'You're chokin' me Release your hold and I'll set you free' The monkey looked the buzzard right dead in the eye and said 'Your story's touching but it sounds like a lie.'

88. Satan, who I believe exists as much as I believe Jesus exists, wants us to believe meaningless things for meaningless reasons.

89. He is a shrewd, Napoleonic, short man, who is very affable, but as poisonous as hell with his affability.

90. 'Listen, he carved out a hole in the middle of the floor and he's building you a volcano. That's all I know. And you're supposed to come down with your flowers and make sacrificial offerings. And he's supposed to throw you into the volcano. This is all I understand.' (from 'Flower Lady #2)

91. The sergeant's widow told you a lie when she said I flogged her. I never flogged her. She flogged herself.

92. ... the book about the bird and the bee is natural history. It's an awful lesson to mankind. You think that you are Ann's suitor; that you are the pursuer and she the pursued; that it is your part to woo, to persuade, to prevail, to overcome. Fool: it is you who are the pursued, the marked down quarry, the destined prey. You need not sit looking longingly at the bait through the wires of the trap: the door is open, and will remain so until it shuts behind you for ever.

93. Well, that glove's fulla vaseline. Vaseline? What the hell for? Well, I tell ya what - Curley says he's keepin' that hand soft for his wife.' Ch. 2, p.29

94. Are you infected with the same disease of lust, gluttony and greed? Then watch the ones with the biggest smiles The idle jabbers...Cuz they're the backstabbers ~Money

95. Ignorance and deception can't save anybody. Knowing saves them:

96. He knew that bean's powers of analysis were extraordinary. So, also, were his powers of deception. Some of bean's guesses weren't right - but was that because he didn't know the truth, or because he simply didn't want them to know how much he knew, or how much he guessed

97. [He] smiled at once, his most winning and charming smile, and it worked as it always worked, suggesting as it did a sort of self-effacing humility, a believable protests of innocence, and a promise of friendship - whatever good thing the other person wish to read into it

98. What you call intellectual honesty I call self-deception

99. When people say perhaps its cause they're lying. Either they don't believe the thing they're saying, or they do believe it only they don't want to admit they do

100. I think the secret to [her] skill at lying is that she never tells a lie that she doesn't believe with all her heart, at least for the moment it takes to tell it