Quotes About Deception

We believe we have dived down to the most unfathomable depths, and when we reappear on the surface, the drop of water that glistens on our trembling finger-tips no longer resembles the sea from which it came. We believe we have discovered a grotto that is stored with bewildering treasure; we come back to the light of day, and the gems we have brought are false – mere pieces of glass – and yet does the treasure shine on, unceasingly, in the darkness!

It has always been easy to hide violence with declarations of peace.

Machiavelli is the complete contrary of a machiavellian, since he describes the tricks of power and "gives the whole show away." The seducer and the politician, who live in the dialectic and have a feeling and instinct for it, try their best to keep it hidden

To get a child's trust - you may know or not - is a very hard thing to do. They're so used to not believing adults - because adults tell tales and lies all the time.

There's a word for that kind of lie. Hope.

A joke is not a thing but a process, a trick you play on the listener's mind. You start him off toward a plausible goal, and then by a sudden twist you land him nowhere at all or just where he didn't expect to go.

A joke is a good camouflage. Next best comes sentiment... But the best camouflage of all - in my opinion - is the plain and simple truth. Because nobody ever believes it.

Ich bin nicht Stiller!

Die beste und sicherste Tarnung ist immer noch die blanke und nackte Wahrheit. Komischerweise die glaubt niemand.

Es gibt allerlei Arten, einen Menschen zu morden oder wenigstens seine Seele, und das merkt keine Polizei der Welt. Dann genügt ein Wort, eine Offenheit im rechten Augenblick. Dann genügt ein Lächeln. Ich möchte den Menschen sehen, der nicht durch Lächeln umzubringen ist oder durch Schweigen.

Yet since 1917 the Soviet Union had created an edifice of self-deceit unrivalled in human history.

One of Beria's most cynical ruses was carried out in August 1941: NKVD agents disguised as Nazi parachutists were dropped into the Volga German autonomous region, to test the loyalty of its citizens. Villages where the new arrivals were offered shelter were liquidated wholesale; the entire region's surviving population was eventually deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan.

a nation of superior, unfriendly, discourteous people, set in the old ways of inefficiency, clinging to old dreams of a greatness which we cannot perpetuate…We deceive ourselves if we think the soil is clean. The seeds of distrust and dislike lie dormant in it.

poppy in wine.

taking a roundabout route in an effort to disorient the Amorite.

The web of hypocrisy of today hangs on the frontiers of two domains, between which our time swings back and forth, attaching its fine threads of deception and self-deception. No longer vigorous enough to serve morality without doubt or weakening, not yet reckless enough to live wholly to egoism, it trembles now toward the one and now toward the other in the spider-web of hypocrisy, and, crippled by the curse of halfness, catches only miserable, stupid flies.

Everything is a spook

Lies—there you have the religion of slaves and taskmasters.

I guess I had all kinds of ideas about him, but they weren't really him, they were just what I made him in my head. The reality was not as attractive as the ideal.

A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretense. No truth seems true.

No amount of saying 'I love you' and 'I trust you' makes it true when it isn't.

Wealthy old woman + devious imagination - restraint = Aunt Agatha

For you, Lady Copley, Lady Agatha wishes you to have her china set, since you complimented it." Blake bit back laughter at Lady Copley's expression. She had loathed the china set, obviously, and only complimented it as part of the games. But Agatha had known how to discern the truth from the lies.

Kasno je, sje?anja, uzalud se javljate, beskorisne su vaše nemo?ne utjehe i podsje?anja na ono što je moglo da bude, jer što nije bilo, nije ni moglo da bude. A uvijek izgleda lijepo ono što se nije ostvarilo. Vi ste varka koja ra?a nezadovoljstvo, varka koju ne mogu i ne želim da otjeram jer me razoružava i tihom tugom brani od patnje.