Quotes About Deception

people were so ridiculous with their illusions, carrying their fool's caps unawares, thinking their own lies opaque while everybody else's were transparent, making themselves exceptions to everything, as if when all the world looked yellow under a lamp they alone were rosy.

What we call the 'just possible' is sometimes true and the thing we find it easier to believe is grossly false.

What have you been doing lately?' 'I? Oh, minding the house–pouring out syrup–pretending to be amiable and contented–learning to have a bad opinion of everybody.

I fear that in this thing many rich people deceive themselves. They go on accumulating the means but never using them; making bricks, but never building.

The prevarication and white lies which a mind that keeps itself ambitiously pure is as uneasy under as a great artist under the false touches that no eye detects but his own, are worn as lightly as mere trimmings when once the actions have become a lie.

porque nada me dá mais a volta às tripas do que um homem que prega a sua religião sem dar descanso a ninguém e que apregoa que os dez mandamentos para ele não chegam, ao mesmo tempo que é pior do que metade dos que estão no degredo.

You go against rottenness, and there is nothing more thoroughly rotten than making people believe that society can be cured by a political hocus-pocus.

Shallow natures dream of an easy sway over the emotions of others, trusting implicitly in their own petty magic to turn the deepest streams, and confidant, by pretty gestures and remarks, of making the thing that is not there as though it were.

We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, 'Oh, nothing!' Pride helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our own hurts – not to hurt others.

Ignorance is not so damnable as humbug; but when it prescribes pills it may happen to do more harm.

Don't judge a book by it's cover

It's no mischief much while she's a little un; but an over-'cute woman's no better nor a long-tailed sheep,—she'll fetch none the bigger price for that.

Mrs. Stelling was not a loving, tender-hearted woman; she was a woman whose skirt sat well, who adjusted her waist and patted her curls with a preoccupied air when she inquired after your welfare.

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand

How do we handle feelings? What significance should we attach to them? If we want to keep our feelings from deceiving and defeating us, we must make some tough choices in our lives. We must trust God to keep our feelings under His control. We must make a choice to rejoice, and we must do it constantly. Feelings go where our thoughts and choices take them. So we can have confidence that God will use our choice and release to us the feelings that we need.

I will say that the idea of a woman being deceptive came from that original discussion with critics and reporters about if woman could do that kind of thing. Evelyn, herself, grew out of the discussions about how capable women are of deceit and lying and manipulation.

I don't really care what people tell children - when you believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, one more fib won't hurt. But I am infuriated by the growing notion, posited in some touchy-feely quarters, that all women are, or can be, beautiful.

Abatement in the hostility of one's enemies must never be thought to signify they have been won over. It only means that one has ceased to constitute a threat.

Most 'reality' shows aren't reality at all. They're game shows with no prize. Like 'Rock of Love.' His aren't genuine feelings. Then again, Bob Barker didn't really care whether or not you won the toaster. Sorry to shatter everyone's dreams.

It's odd, because I used to see pictures, on telly or wherever, of what I now know to be Shaftesbury Avenue and I used to wonder what that amazing street with all the lights was. Well, now I know. I think when you get a wee taste of something, it maybe isn't what you thought it was.

Unbeknown to me, my manager, under my very nose (in a crouching position) has all these years been secretly compiling a book from my correspondence. I often wondered what she was doing in my office. She never did a stroke of work for me. All the time, I have been working for her.

The Chinese seemed to be mourning Mao in a heartfelt fashion. But I wondered how many of their tears were genuine. People had practiced acting to such a degree that they confused it with their true feelings.

What is the difference between the novelist and the liar? At some moments, I have often wondered.

This is the wonderful thing about espionage, nothing exists any more.