Deception Quotes

Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don't have brains enough to be honest.

Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.

A deception that elevates us is dearer than a host of low truths.

Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.

All warfare is based on deception. Therefore, when capable, feign incapacity; when active, inactivity. When near, make it appear that you are far away; when far away, that you are to lure him; feign disorder and strike him. When he concentrates, prepare against him; where he is strong, avoid him. Anger his general and confuse him. Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance.

It is the cult of self that is killing the United States. This cult has within it the classic traits of psychopaths: superficial charm, grandiosity and self-importance ; a need for constant stimulation; a penchant for lying, deception and manipulation; and the incapacity for remorse or guilt.

Terrorism and deception are weapons not of the strong, but of the weak.

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.

Rationalization may be defined as self-deception by reasoning.

The worst of all deceptions is self-deception.

The supreme mystery of despotism, its prop and stay, is to keep men in a state of deception, and with the specious title of religion to cloak the fear by which they must be held in check, so that they will fight for their servitude as if for salvation.

A dolphin's smile is the greatest deception. It creates the illusion that they're always happy.

Governments are based pincipally on force and deception. Democratic governments are based chiefly on deception, other governments on force. And democratic governments, if you get too uppity, give up on the deception and resort to brute force, as a lot of us found out in the sixites. Those who didn't find out in the sixites will find out in the near future because we're going to have a rerun.

No one was ever injured by the truth; but he who persists in self-deception and ignorance is injured.

Deceivers are the most dangerous members of society. They trifle with the best affections of our nature, and violate the most sacred obligations.

The two principles of truth, reason and senses, are not only both not genuine, but are engaged in mutual deception. The senses deceive reason through false appearances, and the senses are disturbed by passions, which produce false impressions.

He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it the second time.

An offended heart is the breeding ground of deception.

The craftiest trickery are too short and ragged a cloak to cover a bad heart.

The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means.

Among other common lies, we have the silent lie - the deception which one conveys by simply keeping still and concealing the truth. Many obstinate truth-mongers indulge in this dissipation, imagining that if they speak no lie, they lie not at all.

It is a self-deception of philosophers and moralists to imagine that they escape decadence by opposing it. That is beyond their will; and, however little they acknowledge it, one later discovers that they were among the most powerful promoters of decadence.

The truth cannot be deceptive, and one who sees it cannot be deceived.

There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.

We must trust to nothing but facts: These are presented to us by Nature, and cannot deceive. We ought, in every instance, to submit our reasoning to the test of experiment, and never to search for truth but by the natural road of experiment and observation.