Deceive Quotes & Sayings

Long looking at paintings is equivalent to being dropped into a foreign city, where gradually, out of desire and despair, a few key words, then a little syntax make a clearing in the silence. Art ... is a foreign city, and we deceive ourselves when we think it familiar ... We have to recognize that the language of art, all art, is not our mother-tongue. — Jeanette Winterson

Error is the ultimate inside job. Yes, the world can be profoundly confusing; and yes, other people can mislead or deceive you. In the end, though, nobody but you can choose to believe your own beliefs. That's part of why recognizing our errors is such a strange experience: accustomed to disagreeing with other people, we suddenly find ourselves at odds with *ourselves*. — Kathryn Schulz

Self-esteem is reliance on one's power to think. It cannot be replaced by one's power to deceive. The self-confidence of a scientist and the self-confidence of a con man are not interchangeable states, and do not come from the same psychological universe. The success of a man who deals with reality augments his self-confidence. The success of a con man augments his panic. — Ayn Rand

Men are not open to truth or reason. They cannot be reached by a rational argument. The mind is powerless against them. Yet we have to deal with them. If we want to accomplish anything, we have to deceive them into letting us accomplish it. Or force them. They understand nothing else. We cannot expect their support for any endeavor of the intellect, for any goal of the spirit. — Ayn Rand

[Amy Carmichael's] great longing was to have a "single eye" for the glory of God. Whatever might blur the vision God had give her of His work, whatever could distract or deceive or tempt other to seek anything but the Lord Jesus Himself she tried to eliminate. — Elisabeth Elliot

When we successfully deceive others, they are not aware of it; the same is true with self-deception. — Mardy Grothe

To deceive ones selfe is very easie. — George Herbert

Even when nothing is happening, nothing stands still ... I am not a rock, but a river; people deceive themselves by seeing me as a rock. Or is it I who deceive them and pretend that I am a rock when I am a river? — Nina Berberova

It is quite as ignominious to allow oneself to be deceived as to deceive. — Christina, Queen Of Sweden

A satyagrahi is sometimes bound to use language which is capable of two meanings, provided both the meanings are obvious and necessary and there is no intention to deceive anyone. — Mahatma Gandhi

Ah, the dear earth! The beautiful earth! She wants all that we have--the touch of our hands, the song of our hearts.
She wants to draw out from us all that is within, hidden even from ourselves.
This is her sorrow, that she finds out some things only to know that she has not found all. She loses before she attains.
Ah, the dear earth! We shall never deceive you.

(They sing.)
I shall crown you with my garland, before I take leave.
You ever spoke to me in all my joys and sorrows.
And now, at the end of the day, my own heart will break in speech.
Words came to me, but not the tune, and the song that I never sang to you remains hidden behind my tears. — Rabindranath Tagore

In the end, what would you gain from everlasting remembrance? Absolutely nothing. So what is left worth living for? This alone: justice in thought, goodness in action, speech that cannot deceive, and a disposition glad of whatever comes, welcoming it as necessary, as familiar, as flowing from the same source and fountain as yourself. — Marcus Aurelius

Lies are everywhere. Even nature herself lies. What is camouflage, for instance, but a lie? The chameleon disguises itself as a leaf in order to deceive a poor butterfly. He lies to it saying, Don't worry, my dear, can't you see I'm just a very green leaf waving in the breeze, and then he jets out his tongue at six hundred and twenty-five centimeters a second, and eats it. — Jose Eduardo Agualusa

And we often have a smile on our face and a word of encouragement, because no one can explain their loneliness to others, especially when we are always in good company. But this loneliness exists and eats away at the best parts of us because we must use all our energy to appear happy, even though we will never be able to deceive ourselves. But we insist, every morning, on showing only the rose that blooms, and keep the thorny stem that hurts — Paulo Coelho

Most important, you learn never to trust a man, even if he seems honest and sincere. You learn how men deceive themselves and how impossible it is to help them without injuring yourself. — Jack Abbott

If you want to be transparent with your people, do not do anything cosmetic, whether to deceive your people or to get some applaud from the West. — Bashar Al-Assad

If you are honest, people may deceive you. Be honest anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfishness. Be kind anyway. All the good you do today will be forgotten by others tomorrow. Do good anyway. Amat — Fredrik Backman

It is my belief that nearly any invented quotation, played with confidence, stands a good chance to deceive. — Mark Twain

Lying is a false significance of speech, with a will to deceive, which cannot be cured but by shame and reason; it is a monstrous and wicked evil, that filthily depraved and defileth the tongue of man. — Jon Jones

Cheats easily believe others as bad as themselves; there is no deceiving them, nor do they long deceive. — Jean De La Bruyere

You can't deceive your own mother. That's the one person, the only one, to whom you will always be transparent. — Alexander McCall Smith

Marriage is not a natural phenomenon. It is artificial, arbitrary. And when it disappears you cannot do anything to bring it back. You can pretend, but that pretension makes you a hypocrite. And your pretension cannot deceive the woman, because she has known your love and the pretension cannot become the substitute. The only way is to separate - in friendship, because you have given each other so much. — Rajneesh

7 Stay away from fools, for you won't find knowledge on their lips. 8 The prudent understand where they are going, but fools deceive themselves. — Anonymous

We underestimate the power of science, and overestimate the power of personal observation. A peer-reviewed, journal-published, replicated report is worth far more than what you see with your own eyes. Our own eyes can deceive us. People can fool themselves, hallucinate, and even go insane. The controls on publication in major journals are more trustworthy than the very fabric of your brain. If you see with your own eyes that the sky is blue, and Science says it is green, then sir, I advise that you trust in Science.
This is not what most scientists will tell you, of course; but I think it is pragmatically true. Because in real life, what happens is that your eyes have a little malfunction and decide that the sky is green, and science will tell you that the sky is blue. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. — Peter J. Tanous

But who for a moment can deceive the eyes of love? — Matthew Gregory Lewis

In some big cities [in Pakistan] some women have access to a job and education - but the UN reported that more than 5 million girls cannot go to school. It's become an open secret. In some big cities they build schools to deceive people around the world, while the level of education remains very low, and even when they can go to school there is no security. — Malalai Joya

Well, people are like that too. THey create a false door - to deceive. If they are conscious of weakness, of inefficiency, they make an imposing door of self-assertion, of bluster, of overwhelming authority - and, after a time, they get to believe in it themselves. They think, and everybody thinks, that they are like that. But behind that door, Renisenb, is bare rock... And so when reality comes and touches them with the feather of truth - their true self reasserts itself. — Agatha Christie

The love of nature is the only love that does not deceive human hopes. — Honore De Balzac

This explained to me
and I suppose, forgave me
my inability to see the face of this man, because whoever must deceive us in order to live will by necessity far exceed the skill of ordinary men, who are as much tempted by the desire to be honest as they are plagued by guilt and shame when they have broken faith. — Michael Ennis

Man may deceive his fellow-men, deception may follow deception, and the children of the wicked one may have power to seduce the foolish and untaught, till naught but fiction feeds the many, and the fruit of falsehood carries in its current the giddy to the grave; but one touch with the finger of his love, yes, one ray of glory from the upper world, or one word from the mouth of the Savior, from the bosom of eternity, strikes it all into insignificance, and blots it forever from the mind. (Messenger and Advocate Oct 1934 pp 14-16) — Oliver Cowdery

But I've been turning over in my mind the question of nostalgia, and whether I suffer from it. I certainly don't get soggy at the memory of some childhood knickknack; nor do I want to deceive myself sentimentally about something that wasn't even true at the time - love of the old school, and so on. But if nostalgia means the powerful recollection of strong emotions - and a regret that such feelings are no longer present in our lives - then I plead guilty. — Julian Barnes

He had two lives: one, open, seen and known by all who cared to know, full of relative truth and of relative falsehood, exactly like the lives of his friends and acquaintances; and another life running its course in secret. And through some strange, perhaps accidental, conjunction of circumstances, everything that was essential, of interest and of value to him, everything in which he was sincere and did not deceive himself, everything that made the kernel of his life, was hidden from other people. — Anton Chekhov

In what, then, can those engaged in this kind of warfare place their hope? The Nakano Military School answered this question with a simple sentence: "In secret warfare, there is integrity." And this is right, for integrity is the greatest necessity when a man must deceive not only his enemies but his friends. With integrity - and I include in this sincerity, loyalty, devotion to duty and a sense of morality - one can withstand all hardships and ultimately turn hardship itself into victory. This was the lesson that the instructors at Futamata were constantly trying to instill in us. One of them put it this way: "If you are genuinely pure in spirit, people will respond to you and cooperate with you." This meant to me that so long as I remained pure inside, whatever measures I saw fit to take would eventually redound to the good of my country and my countrymen. — Hiroo Onoda

My object is to mystify and entertain. I wouldn't deceive you for the world. — Howard Thurston

It is easier to deceive yourself, and to do so unperceived, than to deceive another. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Mind what you do; if you deceive me once I shall never believe you again. — Denis Diderot

Fake food
I mean those patented substances chemically flavored and mechanically bulked out to kill the appetite and deceive the gut
is unnatural, almost immoral, a bane to good eating and good cooking. — Julia Child

He will choose you, disarm you with his words, and control you with his presence. He will delight you with his wit and his plans. He will show you a good time but you will always get the bill. He will smile and deceive you, and he will scare you with his eyes. And when he is through with you, and he will be through with you, he will desert you and take with him your innocence and your pride. You will be left much sadder but not a lot wiser, and for a long time you will wonder what happened and what you did wrong. And if another of his kind comes knocking on your door, will you open it?

-From an essay signed "A psychopath in prison — Robert D. Hare

This is one of the reasons I study psychology. I've never understood why people are so irrational. How supposedly intelligent people can believe and do obviously stupid things. I sometimes wonder if our ability to deceive ourselves gave us some evolutionary advantage, but I can't figure out what it would be. — G.F. Gustav

There are so many ways to betray someone.
You can whisper behind his back.
You can deceive him on purpose.
You can deliver him into the hands of his enemy, when he trusts you.
You can break a promise.
The question is, if you do any of those things, are you also betraying yourself? — Jodi Picoult

Life is, you know, but an idea. You can fill it up with anything really and deceive yourself into believing that is what you need. You can be happy, sad, benevolent, crafty, unpleasant. That man filled it up with nastiness and it destroyed him in the end. I wonder what could have made him that way. Cruelty on the part of others or cruelty in his heart?" - Lady Cavendish — Noorilhuda

Its like reproaching someone who has no ear for music because he's bored at a symphony concert. Is it fair to blame me because you ascribed to me qualities that I hadn't got? I never tried to deceive you by pretending I was anything I wasn't. I was just pretty and gay. You don't ask for a pearl necklace or a sable coat at a booth in a fair; you ask for a tin trumpet and a toy balloon. — W. Somerset Maugham

As children's inquiries are not to be slighted, so also great care is to be taken, that they never receive deceitful and illuding answers. They easily perceive when they are slighted or deceived, and quickly learn the trick of neglect, dissimulation, and falsehood, which they observe others to make use of. We are not to intrench upon truth in any conversation, but least of all with children; since, if we play false with them, we not only deceive their expectation, and hinder their knowledge, but corrupt their innocence, and teach them the worst of vices. — John Locke

Self-assertion may deceive the ignorant for a time; but when the noise dies away, we cut open the drum, and find it was emptiness that made the music. — Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Psychopaths have a grandiose self-structure which demands a scornful and detached devaluation of others, in order to ward off their envy toward the good perceived in other people. He will choose you, disarm you with his words, and control you with his presence. He will delight you with his wit and his plans. He will show you a good time but you will always get the bill. He will smile and deceive you, and he will scare you with his eyes. And when he is through with you, and he will be through with you, he will desert you and take with him your innocence and your pride. — Robert D. Hare

That before the Antichrist can be revealed, there will be a falling away, a forsaking, on the part of professing believers. This will not be a time when just a few people abandon their doctrinal beliefs; it will mark a period of major, widespread departure from the faith. In His Olivet discourse, Jesus predicted such a time: "Many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold" (Matthew 24:10-12). — David Jeremiah

Still, as long as you keep pointing to the specifics, you will miss the full meaning of your pain. You will deceive yourself into believing that if the people, circumstances, and events had been different, your pain would not exist. This might be partly true, but — Henri J.M. Nouwen

[Descartes] And so it was he who discovered the gulf between the subjective or ideal and the objective or real. He clothed this insight in the form of a doubt concerning the existence of the external world; but by his inadequate solution of such doubt, namely that God Almighty would surely not deceive us, he has shown how profound the problem is and how difficult it is to solve. — Arthur Schopenhauer

The purpose of continuous repentance in the life of a quality man is not a return to the crisis of salvation but part of what the Bible calls sanctification. Repentance is the choice to embrace the Holy Spirit's daily work of convicting us about ongoing sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. — James MacDonald

Growing up is learning to deceive. — Ken Follett

Nothing is so easy as to deceive one's self when one does not lack wit and is familiar with all the niceties of language. Language is a prostitute queen who descends and rises to all roles. Disguises herself, arrays herself in fine apparel, hides her head and effaces herself; an advocate who has an answer for everything, who has always foreseen everything, and who assumes a thousand forms in order to be right. The most honorable of men is he who thinks best and acts best, but the most powerful is he who is best able to talk and write — George Sand

What I like about experience is that it is such an honest thing. You may take any number of wrong turnings; but keep your eyes open and you will not be allowed to go very far before the warning signs appear. You may have deceived yourself, but experience is not trying to deceive you. The universe rings true wherever you fairly test it. — C.S. Lewis

I detest those who deceive me... — Steve Berry

Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled, that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugationthe last arguments to which kings resort. — Patrick Henry

Plains deceive you; they cause you to think that life is easy! Mountains never deceive you; they teach you the realties! Go to the mountains! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Our enemies must not deceive themselves-in the 2,000 years of German history known to us, our people have never been more united than today. The Lord of the Universe has treated us so well in the past years that we bow in gratitude to a providence which has allowed us to be members of such a great nation. We thank Him that we also can be entered with honor into the ever-lasting book of German history! — Adolf Hitler

O woman, born first to believe us; Yea, also born first to forget; Born first to betray and deceive us, Yet first to repent and regret. — Joaquin Miller

The reason we bitterly hate those who deceive us is because they think they are cleverer than we are. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Many people are walking along the shore, turning poetic springtime faces towards the sea; they're having a holiday because of the sun. [ ... ] The true sea is cold and black, full of animals; it crawls under this thin green film made to deceive human beings. — Jean-Paul Sartre

It is difficult not to believe that the next year will be better than the old one! And this illusion is not wrong. Future is always good, no matter what happens. It will always give us what we need and what we want in secret. It will always bless us with right gifts. Thus in a deeper sense our belief in the New Year cannot deceive us. — Kersti Bergroth

But this loneliness exists and eats away at the best parts of us because we must use all our energy to appear happy, even though we will never be able to deceive ourselves. — Paulo Coelho

Arin thought of Cheat, Tensen, Kestrel. He wondered if some part of him was drawn to lies. What was it that made him so easy to deceive? — Marie Rutkoski

People would say bad things about you, because it is the only way their insignificant self can feel better than you. — Dennis E. Adonis

Even in death, a good man would not deceive. — Publilius Syrus

Always make a note of what you are doing and where it leads. By and by, you will become aware of that which is ego and that which is nature; which is real and which is false. It will take time and alertness, observation. And don't deceive yourself - because only ego leads to misery, nothing else. Don't throw the responsibility on the other; the other is irrelevant. Your ego leads to misery, nobody else leads you into misery. Ego is the gate of hell, and the natural, the authentic, the real that comes from your center, is the door to heaven. You will have to find it and work it out. — Rajneesh

Many people are very intelligent in accomplishing worldly attainments. This intelligence is not wisdom because worldly attainments such as a high position, reputation, wealth and success in business are deceptive. If we die tomorrow they will disappear tomorrow, and nothing will be left for our future. Wisdom, however, will never deceive us. — Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

If we judge our lives by what we know or by what we say, we can easily deceive ourselves into thinking that we are something we are not; it is wiser to evaluate ourselves by the amount of truth we actually live. This is very humbling. — Paul Washer

Do not deceive or be faithless even with your enemy. — Abu Bakr

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

It is not difficult to deceive the first time, for the deceived possesses no antibodies; unvaccinated by suspicion, she overlooks lateness, accepts absurd excuses, permits the flimsiest patching to repair great rents in the quotidian. — John Updike

We cannot separate doubt from deception. Doubt robs a man of his confidence; it is a fearful thing. Offer him deception to restore that confidence and he will embrace the falsehood for the comfort it brings. If you would deceive, begin with doubt. — D.A. Blankinship

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

None more deceive themselves than they who think their religion is true and genuine, thought it refines not their spirits and reforms not their lives. — Benjamin Whichcote

A lie does not consist in the indirect position of words, but in the desire and intention, by false speaking, to deceive and injure your neighbour. — Jonathan Swift

Killy arched an eyebrow in disbelief. Don't be thinkin' you can deceive this old man. I've been makin' a fool of myself over women since before you were born. — Pamela Clare

Sophistry, like poison, is at once detected and nauseated, when presented to us in a concentrated form; but a fallacy which, when stated barely in a few sentences, would not deceive a child, may deceive half the world, if diluted in a quarto volume. — Richard Whately

Nature never deceives us;
it is always we who deceive ourselves. — Scott Lynch

You can forgive a fool because he only runs in one direction and doesn't deceive anybody. It's the deceivers who make you feel bad. — Charles Bukowski

All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince. — Plato

His very chains helped to deceive him about the harshness of his service. — Bruno Bauer

To say nothing of what you lose, lose, lose, are losing, man. You fool, you stupid fool ... You've even been insulated from the responsibility of genuine suffering ... Even the suffering you do endure is largely unnecessary. Actually spurious. It lacks the very basis you require of it for its tragic nature. You deceive yourself. — Malcolm Lowry

I [i.e., God] have given you baptism as a gift for the forgiveness of sins, and preach to you unceasingly by word of mouth concerning this treasure, sealing it with the Sacrament of my body and blood, so that you need never doubt. True, it seems little and insignificant that by the washing of water, the Word, and the Sacrament this should all be effected. But don't let your eyes deceive you. — Martin Luther

Self-love makes us deceive ourselves in almost all matters, to censure others, and to blame them for the same faults that we do not correct in ourselves; we do this either because we are unaware of the evil that exists within us, or because we always see our own evil disguised as a good. — Madeleine De Souvre, Marquise De ...

Men are so simple, and governed so absolutely by their present needs, that he who wishes to deceive will never fail in finding willing dupes. — Niccolo Machiavelli

Satan intends to deceive us by getting us to take our eyes off of who we are in Christ and focus on our flaws - and then spend our days figuring out how we can hide them. — Renee Swope

For that matter, Odysseus himself might have borrowed a trick or two from the rabbit hero, for he is very old and was never at a loss for a trick to deceive his enemies. — Richard Adams

Galatians 6:2-6 Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, for each one should carry their own load. Nevertheless, the one who receives instruction in the word should share all good things with their instructor. — Bible. New International Version

Very often, when tides start turning, great gears start shifting, and gusting winds start blowing at the onset of a really wonderful dream's alignment with your present life, there is commotion, unpredictability, even turmoil.
So, hey, let's always assume that's the case whenever you experience commotion, unpredictability, even turmoil. K?
Let not your senses deceive, for even as the tempest may howl, just beyond it lies a serenity that could not otherwise find you. The storm before the calm, if you will. — Mike Dooley

If a person trusts you and you deceive him, it's fraud. If a person doesn't trust you, it's politics. — Gurazada Apparao

And since we cannot deceive the whole human race all the time, it is most important thus to cut every generation off from all others; for where learning makes a free commerce between the ages there is always the danger that the characteristic errors of one may be corrected by the characteristic truths of another. — C.S. Lewis

I often had no scruples about deceiving nitwits and scoundrels and fools when I found it necessary ... We avenge intelligence when we deceive a fool, and ... deceiving a fool is an exploit worthy of an intelligent man. What has infused my very blood with an unconquerable hatred of the whole tribe of fools from the day of my birth is that I become a fool myself when I am in their company. — Giacomo Casanova

Languor is upon your heart and the slumber is still on your eyes.

Has not the word come to you that the flower is reigning in splendour among thorns? Wake, oh awaken! let not the time pass in vain!

At the end of the stony path, in the country of virgin solitude, my friend is sitting all alone. Deceive him not. Wake, oh awaken!

What if the sky pants and trembles with the heat of the midday sun---what if the burning sand spreads its mantle of thirst---

Is there no joy in the deep of your heart? At every footfall of yours, will not the harp of the road break out in sweet music of pain? — Rabindranath Tagore

The new naval treaty permits the United States to spend a billion dollars on warships - a sum greater than has been accumulated by all our endowed institutions of learning in their entire history. Unintelligence could go no further! ... [In Great Britain, the situation is similar.] ... Until the figures are reversed, ... nations deceive themselves as to what they care about most. — Abraham Flexner

To free a man from error is not to deprive him of anything but to give him something: for the knowledge that a thing is false is a piece of truth. No error is harmless: sooner or later it will bring misfortune to him who harbours it. Therefore deceive no one, but rather confess ignorance of what you do not know, and leave each man to devise his own articles of faith for himself. — Arthur Schopenhauer

But there is one whom you do not deceive, and that is Christ, our Lord. He knows all. Personally, I have felt that nobody need keep much of a record about me, except what I keep myself in my mind, which is a part of my spirit. I often question in my mind, whether it is going to require very many witnesses in addition to my own wrongdoing. — J. Reuben Clark

He intrigued her. Powerful men, in her experience, were usually not so full of doubt. Kuni was consumed by the desire to do good for others, but uncertain what "good" might be and whether he was the right man for the job.
Kuni was the sort of man, Risana realized, who, rather than deceive himself, was so full of self-doubt that he could not longer see himself — Ken Liu

The Devil can so completely assume the human form, when he wants to deceive us, that we may well lie with what seems to be a woman, of real flesh and blood, and yet all the while 'tis only the Devil in the shape of a woman. 'Tis the same with women, who may think that a man is in bed with them, yet 'tis only the Devil; and ... the result of this connection is oftentimes an imp of darkness, half mortal, half devil ... — Martin Luther

For as a surfeit of the sweetest things The deepest loathing to the stomach brings, Or as tie heresies that men do leave Are hated most of those they did deceive, So thou, my surfeit and my heresy, Of all be hated, but the most of me! — William Shakespeare

If you love, love totally; if you hate, hate totally. Don't be fragmentary; suffer the consequences. Because of consequences you try to deceive. — Rajneesh