The Ancient Deception Quotes & Sayings

Come poor, lost, undone sinner, come just as you are to Christ. — George Whitefield

But I'd made up my mind early on in life that I never wanted to be a mother. — Marie Helvin

We are aware that the gods of patriarchy are pale derivatives and reversals of ancient yet always Present Goddess(es). We suspect that phallocentric writers and artists who have even a glimmer of insight are sometimes made uncomfortable by their own state of deception. Those who have any awareness of the heinous crime of reversal which is patriarchy must be in a state of deep conflict and fear of...Her. — Mary Daly

Ralph Waldo Emerson would definitely be my homeboy. — Rainn Wilson

I tried to look presentable for a show, but not for sexual attraction. It was strictly for show business. — Little Richard

Not really. I'm tired and I'd like to go to bed."
"At last, we agree on something." He moved toward her.
"Oh, no, you don't. I'm saving myself for my future husband."
"Thank you."
"It won't be you," she told him doggedly. "I'm not crazy enough to think that. You aren't a marrying man, remember? You don't want commitment."
"I don't know what I want anymore," he muttered.
"Well, I do," she said. "I want to go home."
"To a lonely apartment in Chicago?"
"It won't be lonely long," she assured him. "I'm going to start my very own lonely hearts chapter."
"Over my dead body."
"Nobody would want to meet over your old dead body. — Diana Palmer

I think most people can do a whole lot more if they just try. — Gordon Parks

Surely you know the Thirty-Six Stratagems." I shook my head. "The ancient Chinese art of deception." "Oh, right. Sun Tzu. Jay Stoddard's favorite." "Forget Sun Tzu's Art of War. That's so commonplace." He held up a gnarled, age-spotted finger. "Far more interesting than Sun Tzu is Chu-ko Liang. Perhaps the most brilliant military strategist ever. One of his stratagems was to defeat your enemy from within. Infiltrate the enemy's camp in the guise of cooperation or surrender. Then, once you've discovered the source of his weakness, you strike." Somehow the setting - the visitors' room of the Altamont Correctional Facility - made my father's advice a little less authoritative. As I walked out of the visitors' room, I savored a feeling of relief. Because at that moment I knew that my brother was alive. — Joseph Finder

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

You don't have to succeed. You just need to stop failing. — Peter James West

We should never forget that Jesus was executed in the name of "freedom and justice" - whether it was the Roman version or the Jewish version. But the cross shames the ancient deception that freedom and justice can be attained by killing. The crowd believes this pernicious lie, but Christ never does. The Passover crowd shouted, "Hosanna!" (" Save now!") until it realized that Jesus wouldn't save them by killing their enemies; then it shouted, "Crucify him!" Jesus refused to be a messiah after the model of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Judah Maccabeus, William Wallace, or George Washington - and the crowd despises him for it. The crowd loves their violent heroes. The crowd is predisposed to believe in the idea that "freedom and justice" can be achieved by violence. — Brian Zahnd

She draws patterns on my face / These lines make shapes that can't replace / the version of me that I hold inside / when lying with you, lying with you, lying with you. — Maggie Stiefvater

Marriage appeared something remote and forbidding, with which desire for Barbara had little or no connexion. She seemed to exist merely to disturb my rest: to be possessed neither by lawful nor unlawful means: made of dreams, yet to be captured only by reality. — Anthony Powell

Socrates is a shining example of a man who bravely lived up to his ideals, and, in the end, bravely died for them. Throughout his life, he never lost faith in the mind's ability to discern and decide, and so to apprehend and master reality. Nor did he ever betray truth and integrity for a pitiable life of self-deception and semi-consciousness. In seeking relentlessly to align mind with matter and thought with fact, he remained faithful both to himself and to the world, with the result that he is still alive in this sentence and millions of others that have been written about him. More than a great philosopher, Socrates was the living embodiment of the dream that philosophy might one day set us free. — Neel Burton

It is not brains or intelligence that is needed to cope with the problems with Plato and Aristotle and all of their successors to the present have failed to confront. What is needed is a readiness to undervalue the world altogether. This is only possible for a Christian ... All technologies and all cultures, ancient and modern, are part of our immediate expanse. There is hope in this diversity since it creates vast new possibilities of detachment and amusement at human gullibility and self-deception. There is no harm in reminding ourselves from time to time that the "Prince of this World" is a great P.R. man, a great salesman of new hardware and software, a great electric engineer, and a great master of the media. It is his master stroke to be not only environmental but invisible for the environmental is invincibly persuasive when ignored. — Marshall McLuhan

It's 1am, I have fiction to write! — C.S. Woolley

We need to educate young people to deal with new modes of education that are emerging with the new electronic technologies and we need to educate them to not only learn how to critically read this ubiquitous screen culture but also how to be cultural producers. — Henry Giroux