Deception Quotes

The salesman knows nothing of what he is selling save that he is charging a great deal too much for it.

The most fatal seductive lie that has yet existed

There are some politicians who, if their constituents were cannibals, would promise them missionaries in every pot.

Orators are most vehement when they have the weakest cause, as men get on horseback when they cannot walk.

There certainly was some great mismanagement in the education of those two young men. One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it.

When my love swears that she is made of truth,I do believe her, though I know she lies.

The fact which the politician faces is merely that there is less honor among thieves than was supposed, and not the fact that theyare thieves.

Let men say we be men of good government, being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal.

Sometimes it has been of great moment while the fight is going on, to disseminate words that pronounce the enemies' captain to be dead, or to have been conquered by another part of the army. Many times this has given victory to him who used it.

So may the outward shows be least themselves; The world is still deceived with ornament.

Covering discretion with a coat of folly.

No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.

Military glory-that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood-that serpent's eye, that charms to destroy.

There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true.

But man is so addicted to systems and to abstract conclusions that he is prepared deliberately to distort the truth, to close his eyes and ears, but justify his logic at all cost.

The enemies of intellectual liberty always try to present their case as a plea for discipline versus individualism. The issue truth-versus-untruth is as far as possible kept in the background.

Wherever there is power, there is age. Don't be deceived by dimples and curls. I tell you that babe is a thousand years old.

The one charm about marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.

But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.

We own up to minor failings, but only so as to convince others that we have no major ones.

The gilded sheath of pity sometimes covers the dagger of envy.

Perfume: any smell that is used to drown a worse one.

The man was a deceiver. He was deceitful and I will never bite my tongue in saying that. I don't think he was anything but a politician, and he used Negroes to get elected and to get votes.

Never was so much false arithmetic employed on any subject, as that which has been employed to persuade nations that it is in their interest to go to war.

A politician... one that would circumvent God.

For outward show is a wonderful perverter of the reason.

Though I can make my extravaganzas appear credible, I cannot make the truth appear so.

Promises and pie-crust are made to be broken.

Love brings to light a lover's noble and hidden qualities-his rare and exceptional traits: it is thus liable to be deceptive of his normal qualities.

All hoods make not monks.

Never waste a lie; you never know when you may need it.

The literary gift is a very dangerous gift to possess if you are not telling the truth, and I would a great deal rather, for my part, have a man stumble in his speech than to feel he was so exceedingly smooth that he had better be watched both day and night.

A lover teaches a wife all her husband has kept from her.

A painter will paint a cobbler, carpenter, or any other artist, though he knows nothing of their arts; and, if he is a good artist, he may deceive children or simple persons, when he shows them his picture of a carpenter from a distance, and they will fancy that they are looking at a real carpenter.

Fancy language, like poplin, too often conceals an eczema.

Bunbury? Oh, he was quite exploded. Exploded! Was he the victim of a revolutionary outrage? I was not aware that Mr. Bunbury was interested in social legislation. If so, he is well punished for his morbidity. My dear Aunt Augusta, I mean he was found out! The doctors found out that Bunbury could not , that is what I mean—so Bunbury died. He seems to have had great confidence in the opinion of his physicians.

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible... Thus, political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging, and sheer cloudy vagueness... Political language [is] designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.

No one is so miserable as the poor person who maintains the appearance of wealth.

Ornament is but the guiled shore to a most dangerous sea.

How frightened hypocrisy hastens to defend itself.

Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.

Flattery is false money, which would not be current were it not for our vanity.

We grow hostile to many an artist or writer, not because we finally come to see he has deceived us, but because he thought no subtler means were required to ensnare us.

JACK That is nonsense. If I marry a charming girl like Gwendolen, and she is the only girl I ever saw in my life that I would marry, I certainly won't want to know Bunbury. ALGERNON Then your wife will. You don't seem to realize, that in married life three is company and two is none. JACK That, my dear young friend, is the theory that the corrupt French Drama has been propounding for the last fifty years. ALGERNON Yes; and that the happy English home has proved in half the time.

In our interactions with people, a benevolent hypocrisy is frequently required--acting as though we do not see through the motivesof their actions.

A bad artist almost always tries to conceal his incompetence by whooping up a new formula.

A big lie is more plausible than truth.

Under the spreading chestnut tree I sold you and you sold me--

The quality of nothing hath not such need to hide itself

When we consider reality itself we quickly become aware of its infinite complexity, and we realize that our habitual perception of it is often inadequate. If this were not so, the concept of deception would be meaningless.

Advertisers constantly invent cures to which there is no disease.

How long do politicians have to keep on promising heaven and delivering hell before people catch on and stop getting swept away by rhetoric?

A resolution never to deceive exposes a man to be often deceived.

Look on beauty, and you shall see 'tis purchased by the weight; which therein works a miracle in Nature, making them lightest that wear most of it: so are those crisped snaky golden locks which make such wanton gambols with the wind upon supposed fairness, often known to be the dowry of a second head, the skull that bred them in the sepulchre.

That roguish and cheerful vice, politeness.

Things are often spoke and seldom meant.

There are some that only employ words for the purpose of disguising their thoughts.

We often do shallow good in order to accomplish evil with impunity.

Those who have the most cunning affect all their lives to condemn cunning; that they may make use of it on some great occasion, and to some great end.

Fire is to represent truth because it destroys all sophistry and lies; and the mask is for lying and falsehood which conceal truth.