Deceives Quotes & Sayings

Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many; the intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden. — Phaedrus

It may be laid down as a position which seldom deceives, that when a man cannot bear his own company, there is something wrong. — Samuel Johnson

One does not deceive oneself about the consequences of one's acts; one deceives oneself about the ease with which one can live with those consequences. — John Edward Williams

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. — Franz Kafka

Day deceives, but at night no one is safe from hallucinations. — Elizabeth Smart

The one you love leans forward, smiles, deceives you, Opens a door through which you see dark dreams. — Conrad Aiken

When Scripture describes Satan as an angel of light, it should make the hair on your neck stand up with terror. Man's greatest enemy is most present when we are most certain he is not. He comes as an angel of light. Satan is working his deception through disguise. We think we are doing the right thing, taking the needed stand, fighting the most important foe, but if we are not careful, extremely wise, and cautious, we are doing the opposite. Intending to advance the agenda of our King, we slip very easily into fighting the Lord and assisting satanic schemes. In every section of this book, we will spend one study assessing how Satan deceives us into believing we do well even when we fail to act like men. — James MacDonald

History deals with situations and figures not imaginary but real. It demands therefore a combination of qualities unnecessary to the poet or writer of romance - glacial judgment coupled with fervent sympathy. The poet may be an uninspired illiterate, the romance-writer an uninspired hack. Under no circumstances can either of them be accused of wrongdoing or deceiving the public, however incongruous their efforts. They write well or badly, and there the matter ends. The historian, who fails in his duty, deceives the reader and wrongs the dead. — Norman Douglas

The student who deceives himself into thinking that he is giving his life like an ascetic in the spirit of sacrifice for art, is the victim of a deplorable species of egotism. — Alma Gluck

There is nothing that deceives us more than our own judgment when used to give an opinion on our own works. It is sound in judging the work of our enemies but not that of our friends, for hate and love are two of the most powerfully motivating factors found among living things. — Leonardo Da Vinci

A liar is a man who does now know how to deceive, a flatterer one who only deceives fools: he who knows how to make skilful use of the truth, and understands its eloquence, can alone pride himself in cleverness. — Luc De Clapiers

Cursed graze that burns; cursed mind that never stops thinking. Mirrors that don't lie; doubts that torment; dictators who torture every hope on the rack. The crossroads approach, and it makes my head spin; we choose the path that allows us to sleep; we reject the tempting loophole. Lose yourself within the eyes of the one who deceives, or find yourself within those of the one who still loves you. The uncertainty of what hasn't been experienced versus the certainty of the already expired. Merge the experiences; the game is as controlled as a fire. Feel the heat; feel the cold. Wager, then, on your own defeat. — Eva Garcia Saenz

Whoever, in middle age, attempts to realize the wishes and hopes of his early youth, invariably deceives himself. Each ten years of a man's life has its own fortunes, its own hopes, its own desires. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

A cunning woman is her own mistress because she confides in no one. She who deceives others anticipates deceit, and guards herself. — Ninon De L'Enclos

Success is a very hideous thing. Its false resemblance to merit deceives men. — Victor Hugo

The extortions and oppressions of government will go on so long as such bare fraudulence deceives and disarms the victims; so long as they are ready to swallow the immemorial official theory that protesting against the stealings of the archbishop's secretary's nephew's mistress' illegitimate son is a sin against the Holy Ghost. — H.L. Mencken

Is there any one among you who believes he can be spared the way? Can he swindle his way past the pain of Christ? I say: Such a one deceives himself to his own detriment. He beds down on thorns and fire. No one can be spared the way of Christ, since this way leads to what is to come. — C. G. Jung

Love brings the high and concealed characteristics of the lover into the light
what is rare and exceptional in him: to that extent it easily deceives regarding his normality. — Friedrich Nietzsche

If a man decides that it is better for him to resist the demands of a present feeble love, in the name of another, of a future manifestation, he deceives either himself or other people, and loves no one but himself. Future love does not exist. Love is a present activity only. The man who does not manifest love in the present has not love. — Leo Tolstoy

Subjects have no greater liberty in a popular than in a monarchial state. That which deceives them is the equal participation of command. — Thomas Hobbes

Everything that deceives also enchants. — Plato

The wind is awake, pretty leave, pretty leaves, Heed not what he says, he deceives, he deceives; Over and over To the lowly clover He has lisped the same love (and forgotten it, too). He will be lisping and pledging to you. — John Vance Cheney

Choosing to be honest is the first step in the process of love. There is no practitioner of love who deceives. Once the choice has been made to be honest, then the next step on love's path is communication. — Bell Hooks

Be courageous when the mind deceives you Be courageous In the final account only this is important — Zbigniew Herbert

All the worth of some people lies in their name; upon a closer inspection it dwindles to nothing, but from a distance it deceives us. — Jean De La Bruyere

Knowledge without love inflates the ego and deceives the mind. — Alexander Strauch

He who thinks new favours will cause great personages to forget old injuries deceives himself. — Niccolo Machiavelli

It's good when a man deceives your expectations, when he doesn't correspond to the preconceived notion of him. To belong to a type is the end of a man, his condemnation. If he doesn't fall into any category, if he's not representative, half of what's demanded of him is there. He's free of himself, he has achieved a grain of immortality. — Boris Pasternak

Men of great conversational powers almost universally practise a sort of lively sophistry and exaggeration which deceives for the moment both themselves and their auditors. — Thomas B. Macaulay

In fact, a case could be made that worrying about a problem actually prevents you from resolving it, because it deceives your mind into thinking that you're doing something when really you're not. — Sarah Strohmeyer

The days have taught you not to trust happiness because it hurts when it deceives. — Mahmoud Darwish

The thought of death deceives us; for it causes us to neglect to live. — Luc De Clapiers

Life deceives everyone except the individual who doesn't contemplate it, the individual who demands nothing from it, the individual who serenely accepts its few gifts and serenely makes the most of them. — Ivan Turgenev

Memory weaves and traps us at the same time according to a scheme in which we do not participate: we should never speak of our memory, for it is anything but ours; it works on its own terms, it assists us while deceiving us or perhaps deceives up to assist us. — Julio Cortazar

Vice deceives us when dressed in the garb of virtue. — Juvenal

Misery will not come to the one who does not deceive his own Self. Miseries arise because one deceives one's own Self. — Dada Bhagwan

201. - He who thinks he has the power to content the world greatly deceives himself, but he who thinks that the world cannot be content with him deceives himself yet more. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Truth is a strange companion. It devastates one moment and enthralls the next. But it never deceives. And because of that, in the end, it comforts. — Susan Meissner

The worst sinners, according to Jesus, are not the harlots and publicans, but the religious leaders with their insistence on proper dress and grooming, their careful observance of all the rules, their precious concern for status symbols, their strict legality, their pious patriotism ... the haircut becomes the test of virtue in a world where Satan deceives and rules by appearances. — Hugh Nibley

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

We must not be so ready to fancy ourselves intentionally injured ... It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us. — Jane Austen

My mind blazed with ravishing lies. I thought, I cannot accept this gift of myself, myself as a gift, of my person, of having this mind that does not stop burning, that deceives itself and consumes itself and immolates itself and believes its own lies and chokes on plain fact. — Paul Harding

We live in a sad society. Succeed--that is the advice which falls drop by drop from the overhanging corruption. In passing, we might say that success is a hideous thing. Its false similarity to merit deceives men. — Victor Hugo

Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

He who imagines he can do without the world deceives himself much; but he who fancies the world cannot do without him is still more mistaken. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

One is never deceived; one deceives oneself. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

For a terrible time of life a teen-ager deceives himself; he believes he can trick the world. He believes he is invulnerable. An adolescent who is an orphan at this phase is in danger of never growing up. — John Irving

He who desires anything but God deceives himself, and he who loves anything but God errs miserably. — Philip Neri

Everything that deceives may be said to enchant. — Plato

Amusement allures and deceives us and leads us down imperceptibly in thoughtlessness to the grave — Blaise Pascal

Whoever has done a wrong deed and thinks that no one knows it, deceives himself. — Johanna Spyri

Nature never deceives us; it is we who deceive ourselves. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Abraham I cannot understand; in a way all I can learn from him is to be amazed. If one imagines one can be moved to faith by considering the outcome of this story, one deceives oneself, and is out to cheat God of faith's first movement, one is out to suck the life-wisdom out of the paradox. One or another may succeed, for our age does not stop with faith, with its miracle of turning water into wine; it goes further, it turns wine into water. — Johannes De Silentio

In order to use color effectively it is necessary to recognize that color deceives continually. — Josef Albers

A suspicious person is the rival of him that deceives, both seem to practice a knowledge of cunning device, and equable sense of disengenuous merit. — Norm MacDonald

Pleasure is a difficult taskmaster, ' Trenton observed thoughtfully, 'and one that people do not mind submitting to. Most don't even realize that it is their master. Once they are enslaved to pleasure, it deceives them into believing that they control their own lives. — Erika Mathews

The man who deceives shows more justice than he who does not — Gorgias

Any given man sees only a tiny portion of the total truth, and very often, in fact almost perpetually, he deliberately deceives himself about that little precious fragment as well. — Philip K. Dick

Conscience is the voice of the soul, the passions are the voice of the body. Is it astonishing that often these two languages contradict each other, and then to which must we listen? Too often reason deceives us; we have only too much acquired the right of refusing to listen to it; but conscience never deceives us; it is the true guide of man; it is to man what instinct is to the body; which follows it, obeys nature, and never is afraid of going astray. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

When we see an effect happen always in the same manner, we infer that it takes place by a natural necessity; as, for instance, that the sun will rise to morrow; but nature often deceives us, and will not submit to its own rules. — Blaise Pascal

Whoever commits a fraud is guilty not only of the particular injury to him who he deceives, but of the diminution of that confidence which constitutes not only the ease but the existence of society. — Samuel Johnson

Let weak and frail man come here suppliantly to adore the Sacrament of Christ, not to discuss high things, or wish to penetrate difficulties, but to bow down to secret things in humble veneration, and to abandon God's mysteries to God, for Truth deceives no man-Almighty God can do all things. Amen. — Paul Of The Cross

Memory fans out from imagination, and vice versa, and why not. Memory isn't a well but an offshoot. It goes secretly. Comes apart. Deceives. It's guilty of repurposing the meaning of deep meaning and poking fun at what you've emotionalized. And — Durga Chew-Bose

The green girl necessarily pines for the past, because the present is too uncomfortable to be present in and the future, unimaginable. The need to long, to desire that which she cannot have, that which has eluded her, because she deceives herself that it was this person, this chance, where she would have found happiness. — Kate Zambreno

So no, I'm not too big on religion ... and not very fond of politics or economics either ... And why should I be? They are the man-created trinity of terrors that ravages the earth and deceives those I care about. What mental turmoil and anxiety does any human face that is not related to one of those three? — Wm. Paul Young

To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect upon myself is to live on the doorstep of hell. Selfishness is doomed to frustration, centered as it is upon a lie. To live exclusively for myself, I must make all things bend themselves to my will as if I were a god. But this is impossible. Is there any more cogent indication of my creaturehood than the insufficiency of my own will? For I cannot make the universe obey me. I cannot make other people conform to my own whims and fancies. I cannot make even my own body obey me. When I give it pleasure, it deceives my expectation and makes me suffer pain. When I give myself what I conceive to be freedom, I deceive myself and find that I am the prisoner of my own blindness and selfishness and insufficiency. — Thomas Merton

Guard yourself from lying; there is he who deceives and there is he who is deceived. — Sextus Empiricus

A natural, polite smile deceives no one. — Ogwo David Emenike

Amusement that is excessive and followed only for its own sake, allures and deceives us. — Blaise Pascal

People, in general, tend to project onto others their own state of mind. Well-meaning people inevitably assume other people are well meaning. People who cheat assume everyone cheats. People who deceive assume everybody deceives.
Confessions of a Whistle-Blower: Lessons Anna C. Salter. Ethics & Behavior, Volume 8, Issue 2 June 1998 — Anna C. Salter

Thought always deceives us, when it becomes a substitute for action. — Marty Rubin

It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us. Women fancy admiration means more than it does.
And men take care that they should. — Jane Austen

He that once deceives is ever suspected. — George Herbert

My father, my father, and dost thou not hear
The words that the Erl-King now breathes in mine ear?
'Be calm, dearest child, 'tis thy fancy deceives;
Tis the sad wind that sighs through the withering leaves. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Hope deceives more men than cunning does. — Luc De Clapiers

Neo-Darwinian theory has trouble accounting for the strange, sudden, and belated appearance of man, the conscious self which speaks, lies, deceives itself, and also tells the truth. — Walker Percy

Things are not always as they seem; the first appearance deceives many. — Phaedrus

He wants to be known deep down, abysmally deep down, before he is capable of being loved at all; he dares to let himself be fathomed. He feels that his beloved is fully in his possession only when she no longer deceives herself about him, when she loves him just as much for his devilry and hidden insatiability as for his graciousness, patience, and spirituality. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Pretence about anything sometimes deceives the wisest and shrewdest man, but, however cunningly it is hidden, a child of the meanest capacity feels it and is repelled by it. — Leo Tolstoy

A liar deceives himself more than anyone, for he believes he can remain a person of good character when he cannot. — Richelle E. Goodrich

The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs ... In fact, the Athanasian paradox that one is three, and three but one, is so incomprehensible to the human mind, that no candid man can say he has any idea of it, and how can he believe what presents no idea? He who thinks he does, only deceives himself. He proves, also, that man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without a rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason, and the mind becomes a wreck.
[Letter to James Smith discussing Jefferson's hate of the doctrine of the Christian trinity, December 8 1822] — Thomas Jefferson

Language dazzles and deceives because it is masked by faces, because we see it emerging from the lips, because lips please and eyes beguile. But words on paper, black on white, reveal the naked soul. — Guy De Maupassant

Always get rid of theory private object in this way: assume that it constantly changes, but that you do not notice the change because your memory constantly deceives you. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

My bones whisper to my blood; my sleep deceives me. — Theodore Roethke

If there is a media in a country which deceives its own people, that country needs no other enemy! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

The great dragon was thrown out - the ancient serpent ... the Devil and Satan, the one who deceives the whole world. Revelation 12:9 — Beth Moore

Someone once said that love is the closest thing to magic that this world has, but magic enchants, deceives and casts a spell. — Donna Lynn Hope

The book is silent as long as you need silence,
eloquent whenever you want discourse.
He never interrupts you if you are engaged
but if you feel lonely he will be a good companion.
He is a friend who never deceives or falters you,
and he is a companion who does not grow tired of you. — Al-Jahiz

Memory is a sly devil that pretends to wear the cloak of truth, but deceives us both in our youth and our age. — Harley King

After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,
Guides us by vanities. Think now
She gives when our attention is distracted
And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions
That the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late
What's not believed in, or if still believed,
In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon
Into weak hands, what's thought can be dispensed with
Till the refusal propagates a fear. Think
Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices
Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues
Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.
These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree. — T. S. Eliot

One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived. — Niccolo Machiavelli

Gaze not on beauty too much, lest it blast thee; nor too long, lest it blind thee; nor too near, lest it burn thee. If thou like it, it deceives thee; if thou love it, it disturbs thee; if thou hunt after it, it destroys thee. If virtue accompany it, it is the heart's paradise; if vice associate it, it is the soul's purgatory. It is the wise man's bonfire, and the fool's furnace. — Francis Quarles

They say that the Soviet delegates smile. That smile is genuine. It is not artificial. We wish to live in peace, tranquility. But if anyone believes that our smiles involve abandonment of the teaching of Marx, Engels and Lenin he deceives himself poorly. Those who wait for that must wait until a shrimp learns to whistle. — Nikita Khrushchev

Death deceives relations often, and doctors sometimes, but the patient - never. — Phyllis Bottome

Kurti had believed in politics, and politics had deceived him, the way politics deceives everyone. — Imre Kertesz

Fisherman deceives the fish with bait; this action makes the fisherman dishonest! For a fisherman to be honest, he must not put any bait to his fishhook! He who dares to be ideally honest, let him know how hard it is to be such an honest! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Everything that deceives does so by casting a spell. — Plato

Images detached from every aspect of life merge into a common stream, and the former unity of life is lost forever. Apprehended in a partial way, reality unfolds in a new generality as a pseudo-world apart, solely as an object of contemplation. The tendency toward the specialization of images-of-the-world finds its highest expression in the world of the autonomous image, where deceit deceives itself. The spectacle in its generality is a concrete inversion of life, and, as such the autonomous movement of non-life. — Guy Debord

A sincere friend conceals all your deformities, deceives and convince others that you are extremely perfect, the insincere will tell the truth of destruction, leave you open for others to glare and laugh. — Michael Bassey Johnson

The Primrose for a veil had spread The largest of her upright leaves; And thus for purposes benign, A simple flower deceives. — William Wordsworth