Quotes About Deception

You told me you had destroyed it. I was wrong. It has destroyed me.

A mask tells us more than a face.

Give a man a mask and he'll tell you the truth.

The secret to life is to enjoy the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived.

He is really not so ugly after all, provided, of course, that one shuts one's eyes, and does not look at him.

Pray don't talk to me about the weather, Mr. Worthing. Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else. And that makes me quite nervous.

The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray.

Life cheats us with shadows. We ask it for pleasure. It gives it to us with bitterness and disappointment in its train.

Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art.

I know he likes me. Of course I flatter him dreadfully. I find a strange pleasure in saying things to him that I know I shall be sorry for having said...Then I feel, Harry, that I have given away my whole soul to someone who treats it as if it were a flower to put in his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a summer's day.

You have always told me it was Ernest. I have introduced you to every one as Ernest. You answer to the name of Ernest. You look as if your name was Ernest. You are the most earnest-looking person I ever saw in my life. It is perfectly absurd your saying that your name isn't Ernest.

If people are dishonest once, they will be dishonest a second time. And honest people should keep away from them. (Lady Chiltern)

Romantic literature is in effect imaginative lying.

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he'll tell you the truth

I have given away my whole soul to some one who treats it as if it were a flower to put in his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a summer's day.

I don't like compliments and I don't see why a man should think he is pleasing a woman enormously when he says to her a whole heap of things that he doesn't mean.

Neither at things, nor at people should one look. Only in mirrors should one look, for mirrors do but show us masks.

To look wise is quite as good as understanding a thing, and very much easier.

Lord Illingworth told me this morning that there was an orchid there as beautiful as the seven deadly sins.

Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue.

That a man lives is because he is straight. That a man who dupes others survives is because he has been fortunate enough to be spared.

One who never anticipates deceit or expects duplicity, and yet is the first to recognize such things – is that not a sage indeed?

It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them. Confucius This is a major problem in America, where greed, power, and money are the highest value. This creates a paranoia atmosphere.I mention this all the time, but first time I have ever seen it.

You can't go yet, not without telling us what all's happened to you since we saw you last. I faked amnesia, nearly killed Alan Turing, got knocked unconscious by a collapsing wall, faked my own death, and met the Queen. It's a long story, he said.