Quotes About Deception

Garde tes amis près de toi, et tes ennemis encore plus près.

Que pour être efficace, il faut cacher ses intentions.

Des hommes, en effet, on peut dire généralement ceci: qu'ils sont ingrats, changeants, simulateurs et dissimulateurs, ennemis des dangers, avides de gain; et tant que tu leur fais du bien, ils sont tout à toi, t'offrent leur sang, leurs biens, leur vie, leurs enfants, comme j'ai dit plus haut, quand le besoin est lointain; mais quand il s'approche de toi, ils se dérobent.

Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are.

Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, for everyone can see and few can feel. Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are.

Pentru ca viaÈ›a-i scurt?, cu mult? suferin??, È™i f?r? cazn? trai nu-i cu putin?? conduÈ™i de pofte È™i dorinÈ›i noi ne petrecem È™i ne roadem anii; cin` la pl?ceri renun?? doar str?danii g?seÈ™te, chin È™i suferinÈ›i; de-a lumii am?gire acela n-are È™tire, nici de-ntâmpl?ri-i sucite, de orori ce-apas? greu pe-atâÈ›ia muritori. (M?tr?guna)

For this can be said of men in general: that they are ungrateful, fickle, hypocrites and dissemblers, avoiders of dangers, greedy for gain; and while you benefit them, they are entirely yours, offering you their blood, their goods, their life, their children,...when need is far away, but when you actually become needy, they turn away. (translated by Wayne A. Rebhorn)

Hitler lied shamelessly about himself and about his enemies. He convinced millions of men and women that he cared for them deeply when, in fact, he would have willingly sacrificed them all. His murderous ambition, avowed racism, and utter immorality were given the thinnest mask, and yet millions of Germans were drawn to Hitler precisely because he seemed authentic. They screamed, "Sieg Heil" with happiness in their hearts, because they thought they were creating a better world.

This was how twentieth-century Fascism began: with a magnetic leader exploiting widespread dissatisfaction by promising all things.

Falsehood flies," observed Jonathan Swift, "and the truth comes limping after it.

This is the first rule of deception: repeated often enough, almost any statement, story, or smear can start to sound plausible. The Internet should be an ally of freedom and a gateway to knowledge; in some cases, it is neither.

but I still held my breath waiting for Brünnhilde to rise up out of the pyre at the end. And then, instead of a beautiful maiden emerging from the flames, there rose up a great fat

You've got a good man there,' Ivy said to Lena. 'Yes,' Lena said. Ivy looked at her sharply. 'Deep down he's full of heart,' Ivy insisted. Ivy, who knew how unfaithful he was, how hard she tried to entertain him. Ivy, who alone knew that they were not married, could be fooled by this little gesture of goodwill.

Then she wanted to tell them that Mary Paula had got herself hooked to a liar and deceiver in the international league. She wanted to say that she could tell them a story about their future brother-in-law and his deceptions that would make their pale greasy hair stand on end.

If he hadn't lied to you, he would have been a different person than he is.' She is trying to get me to see that although I thought I loved this man very completely for exactly who he was, I was in fact blind to the man he actually was, or is.

If I fall down the stairs," she added in a low dry voice, "and end up sprawled at the bottom in front of all those swells, I'm going to pretend that I'm dead. You tell someone to haul me off to the nearest boardinghouse, then go have your supper.

dollar. It sickened me to watch it. I tried to warn anyone who

What the Israelites saw, from high on the ridge, was an intimidating giant. In reality, the very thing that gave the giant his size was also the source of his greatest weakness. There is an important lesson in that for battles with all kinds of giants. The powerful and the strong are not always what they seem.

Some pretend to be rich, yet have nothing; others pretend to be poor, yet have great wealth.

To assume the best about another is the trait that has created modern society. Those occasions when our trusting nature gets violated are tragic. But the alternative—to abandon trust as a defense against predation and deception—is worse.

We are bad lie detectors in those situations when the person we're judging is mismatched.

Puzzle Number One: Why can't we tell when the stranger in front of us is lying to our face?

Just think about how many times you have criticized someone else, in hindsight, for their failure to spot a liar. You should have known. There were all kinds of red flags. You had doubts. Levine would say that's the wrong way to think about the problem. The right question is: were there enough red flags to push you over the threshold of belief? If there weren't, then by defaulting to truth you were only being human.

The trickster is not a trickster by nature. He is a trickster by necessity.