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.

When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others.

I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose.

El arte es una mentira que nos acerca a la verdad.

Channeling is just bad ventriloquism. You use another voice, but people can see your lips moving.

It was evident to Elias Tate that this was the government. First they shake hands with you, he thought, and then they murder you.

Fortuna cum blanditur, captatum venit.

It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived.

He was a man Who stole the livery of the court of Heaven To serve the Devil in.

Most of the appearance of mirth in the world is not mirth, it is art. The wounded spirit is not seen, but walks under a disguise.

The devil's voice is sweet to hear.

Only enemies speak the truth; friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of duty.

The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool.

Like millions of others, I now bitterly resent that a prime minister could use such a farrago of lies and manipulation to deceive us and to take the nation to war so dishonestly.

A state that denies its citizens their basic rights becomes a danger to its neighbors as well: internal arbitrary rule will be reflected in arbitrary external relations. The suppression of public opinion, the abolition of public competition for power and its public exercise opens the way for the state power to arm itself in any way it sees fit.... A state that does not hesitate to lie to its own people will not hesitate to lie to other states.

Pacifism, the preaching of peace in the abstract, is one of the means of duping the working class.

These are cruel people, beasts in human disguise.

Her mouth is a honey-blossom, No doubt, as the poet sings; But within her lips, the petals, Lurks a cruel bee that stings.

No lie can live forever.