Deception Quotes

I like not fair terms and a villain's mind.

Observance of customs and laws can very easily be a cloak for a lie so subtle that our fellow human beings are unable to detect it. It may help us to escape all criticism, we may even be able to deceive ourselves in the belief of our obvious righteousness. But deep down, below the surface of the average man's conscience, he hears a voice whispering, 'There is something not right,' no matter how much his rightness is supported by public opinion or by the moral code.

Hypocrisy is nothing, in fact, but a horrible hopefulness.

The television, that insidious beast, that Medusa which freezes a billion people to stone every night, staring fixedly, that Siren which called and sang and promised so much and gave, after all, so little.

When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental - men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost... All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre.

Our citizens may be deceived for awhile, and have been deceived; but as long as the presses can be protected, we may trust to them for light.

Always stick to the story. It was when you started backtracking that people got in trouble. Interrogation 101.

As a rule, we go about with masks, we go about looking honest, and we are able to conceal ourselves all through the day.

It rarely happens otherwise than that a thorough-faced coquette dies in celibacy, as a punishment for her attempts to mislead others, by encouraging looks, words, or actions, given for no other purpose than to draw men on to make overtures that they may be rejected.

The truth is, I've never fooled anyone. I've let men sometimes fool themselves.

I am not merry, but I do beguile the thing I am by seeming otherwise.

I know them, yea,And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple;Scambling, out-facing, fashion-mong'ring boys,That lie, and cog, and flout, deprave, and slander,Go antickly, and show outward hideousness,And speak off half a dozen dangerous words,How they might hurt their enemies, if they durst;And this is all.

To think truly is noble and to be deceived is base.

I hate deception, even where the imagination only is concerned.

It is as easy to unknowingly deceive yourself as it is to deceive others.

To dye oneself with paints in order to have a rosier or a paler complexion is a lying counterfeit.

Men are so stupid and concerned with their present needs, they will always let themselves be deceived.

DON PEDRO Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. BEATRICE Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave him use for it, a double heart for his single one: marry, once before he won it of me with false dice, therefore your grace may well say I have lost it. DON PEDRO You have put him down, lady, you have put him down. BEATRICE So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools.

Men are so simple and yield so readily to the desires of the moment that he who will trick will always find another who will suffer to be tricked.

By deceiving one another through false assumptions and misrepresentations there has been, in reality, a great lapse and delay in achieving the real goals.

Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.

False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

Trust not your daughter's minds By what you see them act.

Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth.

The essence of all jokes, of all comedy, seems to be an honest or well intended halfness; a non performance of that which is pretended to be performed, at the same time that one is giving loud pledges of performance. The balking of the intellect, is comedy and it announces itself in the pleasant spasms we call laughter.

All day long, they lie in the sun, and when the sun goes down, they lie some more.

The intention of never deceiving often exposes us to deception.

The word bipartisan usually means some larger-than-usual deception is being carried out.

Language is a tool for concealing the truth. If we could read each other's minds, this would be a horror show.

Be wary when a naked person offers you his shirt

If you form the habit of taking what someone else says about a thing without checking it out for yourself, you'll find that other people will have you hating your friends and loving your enemies.

Flattery's fire is hidden. Its sweet taste is apparent, but the smoke is bound to come out at last.

All that glisters is not gold; Often have you heard that told.

Thou speak'st like him's untutored to repeat: Who makes the fairest show means most deceit.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

The two maxims of any great man at court are, always to keep his countenance, and never to keep his word.

If we suffer ourselves to be frightened from our post by mere lying, surely the enemy will use that weapon; for what one so cheap to those of whose system of politics morality makes no part?

The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency.

Some authorities hold that the young ought not to lie at all. That, of course, is putting it rather stronger than necessary; still, while I cannot go quite so far as that, I do maintain, and I believe I am right, that the young ought to be temperate in the use of this great art until practice and experience shall give them that confidence, elegance and precision which alone can make the accomplishment graceful and profitable.

And isn't it a bad thing to be deceived about the truth, and a good thing to know what the truth is? For I assume that by knowing the truth you mean knowing things as they really are.

That’s always the hardest thing when someone completely has you fooled so much, that you think they’re just never going to hurt you, then they do. That’s when you get the worst heartbreak.

A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.

Women, when they have made a sheep of a man, always tell him that he is a lion with a will of iron.

Though leaves are many, the root is one; Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun Now I may wither into the truth.

There is nothing in the world more difficult than candor, and nothing easier than flattery. If there is a hundredth of a fraction of a false note to candor, it immediately produces dissonance, and as a result, exposure. But in flattery, even if everything is false down to the last note, it is still pleasant, and people will listen not without pleasure; with coarse pleasure, perhaps, but pleasure nevertheless.

But that afternoon he asked himself, with his infinite capacity for illusion, if such pitiless indifference might not be a subterfuge for hiding the torments of love.

And some that smile have in their hearts, I fear, millions of mischiefs.

If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.

It often happens that, if a lie be believed only for an hour, it has done its work, and there is no further occasion for it.

The only time the white man is brotherly toward you is when he can use you, when he can exploit you, when he will oppress you, when you will submit to him.

There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face.

Mine eyes Were not in fault, for she was beautiful; Mine ears, that heard her flattery; nor my heart, That thought her like her seeming. It had been vicious To have mistrusted her.

Civilisation is hooped together, broughtUnder a rule, under the semblance of peaceBy manifold illusion.

All the reputedly powerful reactionaries are merely paper tigers. The reason is that they are divorced from the people. Look! Was not Hitler a paper tiger? Was Hitler not overthrown? U.S. imperialism has not yet been overthrown and it has the atomic bomb. I believe it also will be overthrown. It, too, is a paper tiger.

We should only affect compassion, and carefully avoid having any.

The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he's in prison.

The atom bomb is a paper tiger which the United States reactionaries use to scare people. It looks terrible, but in fact it isn't.

When someone sticks a knife six inches into your back, and then pulls it out two inches and claims he's doing you a favor, don't believe him.

Immodest creature, you do not want a woman who will accept your faults, you want the one who pretends you are faultless - one who will caress the hand that strikes her and kiss the lips that lie to her.

Knavery's plain face is never seen till used.