294 Deception Quotes

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion.

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

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.

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

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

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.

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

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

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.

The smylere with the knyf under the cloke.

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

A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Innocence is always unsuspicious.

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

Who seems most hideous when adorned the most.

I went back through some of the tapes. I can't help it. I like the kid. I think we're going to screw him up. Of course we are. It's our job. We're the wicked witch. We promise gingerbread, but we eat the little bastards alive.

And it came into hooch's mind that when both parties are lying and they both know the other party's lying, it comes powerfully close to being the same thing as telling the truth.

You can fool some of the people all of the time; you can fool all of the people some of the time, but you can never fool all of the people all of the time.

Men suffer all their life long, under the foolish superstition that they can be cheated. But it is as impossible for a man to be cheated by any one but himself, as for a thing to be and not to be at the same time.

Mother always told me, if you tell a lie, always rehearse it. If it don't sound good to you, it won't sound good to no one else.

You can fool some people sometimes, but you can't fool all the people all the time. ** Usually attributed to Abraham Lincoln or P. T. Barnum

And it came into Hooch's mind that when both parties are lying and they both know the other party's lying, it comes powerful close to being the same thing as telling the truth. -Red Prophet

Truth is a naked and open daylight, that doth not shew the masks and mummeries and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candlelights.

Un menteur est toujours prodigue de serments.

Equo ne credite, Teucri. quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentis.

'That's what Jagulars always do', said Pooh, much interested. 'They call 'Help! Help!' and then when you look up, they drop on you.'

Th' adorning thee with so much art Is but a barb'rous skill; 'T is like the pois'ning of a dart, Too apt before to kill.

The Jew can take the credit for having corrupted the Graeco-Roman world. Previously words were used to express thoughts; he used words to invent the art of disguising thoughts. Lies are his strength, his weapon in the struggle. The Jew is said to be gifted. His only gift is that of juggling with other people's property and swindling each and everyone. Suppose I find by chance a picture that I believe to be a Titian. I tell the owner what I think of it, and I offer him a price. In a similar case, the Jew begins by declaring that the picture is valueless, he buys it for a song and sells it at a profit of 5000 per cent. To persuade people that a thing which has value, has none, and vice versa-that's not a sign of intelligence. They can't even overcome the smallest economic crisis!

The bigger/more blatant a lie, the more people will believe it.

'Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.'

And the parson made it his text that week, and he said likewise, That a lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies, That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright, But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight.

Doesn't matter now, devils who paint angels.

Summoning the Duke of Richmond, who was to have command of the reserve when formed, he asked for a map. The two withdrew to an adjoining room. Wellington closed the door, and said, with an oath, 'Napoleon has humbugged me.' He then explained that he had ordered his army to concentrate at Quatre Bras, adding, 'But we shall not stop him there; and if so, I must fight him here,' marking Waterloo with his thumb-nail on the map as he spoke. It was not until the next morning that he left for the front.

Don't be afraid - I'm right behind you (using you as a shield).

Looking at this immensely swollen face in front of him the doctor gently consoled the patient, 'Comrade, don't worry and you will recover.' As a matter of fact, he was thinking quite the opposite, 'You will die. I can be of no more help.'

El encarecer es ramo de mentir.

Adelantase mas la imaginacion que la vista, y el engano, que entra de ordinario por el oido, viene a salir por los ojos.

Man is only a disguise, a liar, a hypocrite, both to himself and to others. (377)

Deception: 'Truth is often the favorite tool of those who deceive.'

Pour tromper un rival l'artifice est permis; on peut tout employer contres ses ennemis.

We'have took place in something very... devious, hahahaha!!!!

I felt the body I was occupying so weakened that all its organs were shutting down. I asked the way to the hospital, and as soon as I walked in I discovered the body of a young man who had just given up the ghost. I approached the body and pretended I had seen it move. I protested to all the attendants that he wasn't dead and that his illness wasn't even dangerous. Nobody noticed when I adroitly breathed myself into him. My old body immediately dropped dead, and I stood up in this fresh body. Everyone exclaimed that it was a miracle, and I didn't stop to disabuse them.

Ni thybiais, ddewwrdrais ddirdra, Na bai deg f'wyneb a da, Oni theimlais, waith amlwg, Y drych.

Impenetrable in their dissimulation, cruel in their vengeance, tenacious in their purposes, unscrupulous as to their methods, animated by profound and hidden hatred for the tyranny of man - it is as though there exists among them an ever-present conspiracy toward domination, a sort of alliance like that subsisting among the priests of every country.

We denounce this as impostors playing with fire.

With skill she vibrates her eternal tongue, Forever most divinely in the wrong.

The Athenia sinking - when I broadcast that this was done not by our U-boats but by the British, I had Raeder's word for it. It was Raeder's fault. He knew and Hitler knew it was a German submarine.

At this display the elder and less attractive of the maidens fled, uttering loud and continuous cries of apprehension in order to conceal the direction of her flight.

Who would Hitler say deceived him about conditions in concentration camps if not Kaltenbrunner, even as he would deceive us?

'There's been an awful lot of lying going on, and I'm not sure who's lying and who's telling the truth.'

Like strawberry wives, that laid two or three great strawberries at the mouth of their pot, and all the rest were little ones.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The most dangerous untruths are truths moderately distorted.

I know what you're thinking. You're all thinking, 'Jesus, he's not going to attack children, is he?' Yes, he is! He's going to attack children! And remember, this is Mr. Conductor talking. I know what I'm talking about.

How come none of these boxers seem to have a losing record?

We have a hunger for something like authenticity, but are easily satisfied by an ersatz facsimile.

Ainsi ne vous laissez jamais seduire par la fausse bonhomie des lits jumeaux. C'est l'invention la plus sotte, la plus perfide et la plus dangereuse qui soit au monde. Honte et anatheme a qui l'imagina!

Qui parle trop veut tromper.

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.

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.

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

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.'

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.

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.

There was a laughing devil in his sneer.

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

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

A satyagrahi is born to be deceived.

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

'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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.