Quotes About Deception

The camera cannot lie, but it can be an accessory to untruth.

Political language—and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservative to anarchist—is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

Speechwriter Barton Swaim cheerfully explains why the opaque may be a virtue. "Using vague, slippery or just meaningless language," he writes, "is not the same as lying: it's not intended to deceive so much as to preserve options, buy time, distance oneself from others, or just to sound like you're saying something instead of nothing.

Orwell, of course: Political language—and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservative to anarchist—is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

Sir William Haley, one of my predecessors as editor of the Times, said, "There are things which are bad and false and ugly and no amount of specious casuistry will make them good or true or beautiful.

Politicians say they're beefing up our economy. Most don't know beef from pork.

Power? It's like a Dead Sea fruit. When you achieve it, there is nothing there.

Clinton's hands remain incredibly clean, don't they, and Tony Blair's smile remains as wide as ever. I view these guises with profound contempt.

One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness.

There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.

The speech we hear is an indication of that which we don't hear. It is a necessary avoidance, a violent, sly, and anguished or mocking smoke screen which keeps the other in its true place. When true silence falls we are left with echo but are nearer nakedness. One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness.

The past is what you remember, imagine you remember, convince yourself you remember, or pretend you remember.

She made me love her," said Colson, "and she scared me at the same time. I was suspicious of her on account of the way her husband, Peter Gunness, died.

Belle Gunness was a lady fair In Indiana State. She weighed about three hundred pounds, And that is quite some weight. That she was stronger than a man Her neighbors all did own; She butchered hogs right easily, And did it all alone. But hogs were just a sideline She indulged in now and then; Her favorite occupation Was a-butchering of men.

Technically, psychopaths aren't legally insane. They know the difference between right and wrong. They are rational, often highly intelligent people. Some are capable of great charm. Indeed, the scariest thing about them is that they seem so normal.

Shortly before Valentine's Day in 1948, the two miscreants—posing as brother and sister-in-law—traveled to Royersford, Pennsylvania, to meet Ray's latest mark, Esther M. Henne, a forty-one-year-old teacher at the Pennhurst Asylum for "feeble-minded" children.

the country is almost ruined with pious white people: such pious politicians as we have just before elections, such pious goings on in all departments of church and state, that a fellow does not know who'll cheat him next.

Women have always been spies.

In Georgia to suspect was to believe, and the only hand you could really trust was that of your enemy because you knew it held a dagger.

W]e were fighting one another instead of those who'd sent us there. Oh, they're clever these capitalists. It's hard to beat them at their game. They've got us fooled with words like patriotism and duty and honor, and they've got us divided up into classes and religions so that each one of us figures he's better than the other.

Fi . That's 'if' backwards. Griffiths . Nice ordinary name, but two more 'if's lurking at the heart of it. My name, literally, is as iffy as you can get. The only solid sound, the only one you can actually hang on to, is that opening G, and it's not to be trusted.

It is well known that in war, the first casualty is truth - that during any war truth is forsaken for propaganda.

World War II has always been of great interest to me. I've known for decades that it was just one more war the politicians suckered us into.

It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction.