Quotes & Sayings About Deceit And Deception

Betrayal and dishonor is usually an inside job. Keep it 'sucka-free', loved one! — T.F. Hodge

In love deceit almost always outstrips distrust. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Confirmation bias is the most effective way to go on living a lie. — Criss Jami

Deceit and violence - these are the two forms of deliberate assault on human beings. — Sissela Bok

This was a new skill she'd acquired, the ability to look, to the outside world, utterly serene and even cheerful, while, in her skull, all was chaos. — Dave Eggers

Orange Juice? Sure. Toast? Sure. One last time on the couch? Sure. Phone number? Sure. See you again? Oooh, absolutely. That was the lie I told. Probably not, that was the truth, that was that which went unspoken. — T. Scott McLeod

Deception is a sort of seduction. In love and war, adultery and espionage, deceit can only succeed if the deceived party is willing, in some way, to be deceived. — Ben Macintyre

Self-deceit is a most damaging trait. The remedy, for an artist, is to paint a self-portrait! — Scott Kahn

As for self-deceit, most people find it as essential for survival as air. You rarely indulge in it. — Dean Koontz

People always have been and they always will be stupid victims of deceit and self-deception in politics. — Vladimir Lenin

As time moves on the line will blur. It will no longer seem to be the simplicity of good versus evil, but good versus fools who think they are good. — Criss Jami

We belittle what we cannot bear. We make figments out of fundamentals, all in the name of preserving our own peculiar fancies. The best way to secure one's own deception is to accuse others of deceit. — R. Scott Bakker

To find out if she really loved me, I hooked her up to a lie detector. And just as I suspected, my machine was broken. — Dark Jar Tin Zoo

People love answers, but only as long as they are the ones who came up with them. — Criss Jami

Moderate' Muslims, and apologists and propagandists for Islam, will attempt to deny or obscure the real meaning, nature, and intent of jihad. Some will say that jihad means only a Muslim's 'inner struggle' to be a better person, and that jihad has no military meaning whatever. Others will acknowledge that Muslims have a religious duty to spread Islam throughout the world, but insist that it is to be spread only peacefully, through dawah - literally 'the call' - meaning persuasion and reasoning. Finally, some will go so far as to admit that it can also mean warfare, but insist that in Islam, warfare is allowed only in self-defense or against oppression. However, all of these assertions are examples of a tactic that Islam encourages in waging jihad: taqiyya or Kithman - 'lying,' 'deception,' 'deceit.' Muslims are encouraged to lie if, in the opinion of the liar, telling the lie will be 'good' for Islam. This is a documented fact according to both ancient and modern scholars of Islam. — Brigitte Gabriel

Nothing is easier than self-deceit.
For what every man wishes,
that he also believes to be true. — Demosthenes

How often have I painted a splendid picture of a journey marked by courageous ascents and daring desert crossings when all along all I've really been doing is running? — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Allow me to presume upon this new friendship of ours by telling you that denying your fiance your company in order to gain whatever it is you want, is not only foolish but risky. It was obvious to me that his grace has a great affection for you, and I truly think he would give you anything you want if you simply gave him that lovely smile of yours and asked him for it. Deceit and deviousness do you no credit, my child, and what's more, they will get you absolutely nowhere with the duke. He has known females far more skilled in deception and trickery than you, and all those ladies ever got from him was the opportunity to amuse him for a very brief time. While you, by being direct and forthright as I sense that you are, have gained the very thing those other females most desired. You have gained the offer of his grace's hand in marriage.
-Dr. Whitticomb — Judith McNaught

To live a lie may allow us to avoid the truth, but the real lie lays in believing that we can avoid the truth in the first place. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Deceit is the false road to happiness; and all the joys we travel through to vice, like fairy banquets, vanish when we touch them. — Aaron Hill

Human life is thus only a perpetual illusion; men deceive and flatter each other. No one speaks of us in our presence as he does of us in our absence. Human society is founded on mutual deceit; few friendships would endure if each knew what his friend said of him in his absence, although he then spoke in sincerity and without passion. — Blaise Pascal

I am convinced that human life is filled with many pure, happy, serene examples of insincerity, truly splendid of their kind-of people deceiving one another without (strangely enough) any wounds being inflicted, of people who seem unaware even that they are deceiving one another. — Osamu Dazai

It is the dirt within men's hearts that is most offensive; the filth you cannot see. — Jocelyn Murray

I became a virtuoso of deceit. It wasn't pleasure I was after, it was knowledge. I consulted the strictest moralists to learn how to appear, philosophers to find out what to think and novelists to see what I could get away with. — Christopher Hampton

The old fellow seemed to spot deceit as if it reeked like a goat. — Margery Allingham

Even if there are instances in which it can be mistook by onlookers, never fool yourself into using misunderstood genius as an excuse to be a fool. — Criss Jami

I love that she loves me a 10, on a 5-point scale. Well, I know it's a 5-point scale, though I asked her on a 1-100 scale. — Dark Jar Tin Zoo

When one with honeyed words but evil mind
Persuades the mob, great woes befall the state. — Euripides

Allow me now to return to the cottagers, whose story excited in me such various feelings of indignation, delight, and wonder, but which all terminated in additional love and reverence for my protectors (for so I loved, in an innocent, half painful self-deceit, to call them). — Mary Shelley

Deceit is a kind of garment that conceals the soul. It might even be compared to a whole wardrobe, so many are its guises. — Maria Montessori

In order to deceive others, it is necessary also to deceive oneself. The actor playing Hamlet must indeed believe that he is the Prince of Denmark, though when he leaves the stage he will usually remember who he really is. On the other hand, when someone's entire life is based on pretense, they will seldom if ever return to reality. That is the secret of successful politicians, evangelists and confidence tricksters - they believe that they are telling the truth, even when they know that they have faked the evidence. Sincerity, my dear Julia, is a quality not to be trusted. — Sarah Caudwell

If you don't want to deceive yourself in this new year, don't be a miracle chaser — Sunday Adelaja

Deceit comes in through the ears, but usually leaves through the eyes. — Baltasar Gracian

Those who replace love in people's life with bread, are deceitful, and call their deceit "pious". — Alireza Salehi Nejad

OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES
It is a pity that we often succeed in our endeavors to deceive each other.
~Empress Irene~ — Kris Waldherr

An honorable man or woman is one who is truthful; free from deceit; above cheating, lying, stealing, or any form of deception. An honorable man or woman is one who learns early that one cannot do wrong and feel right. A man's character is judged on how he keeps his word and his agreements. — Ezra Taft Benson

For example, if (as Dawkins argues) deceit is fundamental in animal communication, then there must be strong selection to spot deception and this ought, in turn, to select for a degree of self-deception, rendering some facts and motives unconscious so as not to betray - by the subtle signs of self-knowledge - the deception being practiced. — Richard Dawkins

And here and now we must insist again that fidelity, honor, and love of country demand untrammeled debate and open dissent. At no time is that truer than in the midst of a war rooted in deceit and justified by continuing deception. — John F. Kerry

The evidence is overwhelming that George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney have engaged in deceit and deception over going to war in Iraq. This is an impeachable offense. — John Dean

True evil is unlikely to receive an invitation from us, so it clothes itself in just enough truth to make itself look appealing and then it looks to unpeel us. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Keep the enemy in the dark about where and when our forces will attack. — Mao Zedong

Mindfulness helps us get better at seeing the difference between what's happening and the stories we tell ourselves about what's happening, stories that get in the way of direct experience. Often such stories treat a fleeting state of mind as if it were our entire and permanent self. — Sharon Salzberg

There is no killing the suspicion that deceit has once begotten. — George Eliot

It is important to realize that a person with the gift of discernment can often tell the difference between what is of God and what is not. Such a person can often point out false teachings or false teachers - he has an almost uncanny ability to perceive
hypocrisy, shallowness, deceit, or phoniness. — Billy Graham

If ... deceit is fundamental to animal communication, then there must be strong selection to spot deception and this ought, in turn, to select for a degree of self-deception, rendering some facts and motives unconscious so as not to betray - by the subtle signs of self-knowledge - the deception being practiced.' Thus, 'the conventional view that natural selection favors nervous systems which produce ever more accurate images of the world must be a very naive view of mental evolution. — Robert Trivers

Keep your finger on the pulse of society, take controversies with a grain of salt, lick your finger and then lift it to the wind; always know what is going on, my friend, so this world can never steer you wrong again. — Criss Jami

Anything someone gets conned into will never be that great. — Roberto Hogue

Love in the service of self is greed in disguise. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

What was to be the value of the long looked forward to,
Long hoped for calm, the autumnal serenity
And the wisdom of age? Had they deceived us
Or deceived themselves, the quiet-voiced elders,
Bequeathing us merely a receipt for deceit?
The serenity only a deliberate hebetude,
The wisdom only the knowledge of dead secrets
Useless in the darkness into which they peered
Or from which they turned their eyes. There is, it seems to us,
At best, only a limited value
In the knowledge derived from experience.
The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies,
For the pattern is new in every moment
And every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been. We are only undeceived
Of that which, deceiving, could no longer harm. — T. S. Eliot