Quotes About Deception

The world that our senses and our consciousness habitually acquaint us with is now nothing more than the shadow of itself; and it is cold like death.

Still, as long as you keep pointing to the specifics, you will miss the full meaning of your pain. You will deceive yourself into believing that if the people, circumstances, and events had been different, your pain would not exist. This might be partly true, but

As with our colleges, so with a hundred 'modern improvements;' there is an illusion about them; there is not always a positive advance. The devil goes on exacting compound interest to the last for his early share and numerous succeeding investments in them. Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at...

It's circumstantial evidence, like finding a trout in the milk.

Così i governi ci dimostrano quanto facilmente gli uomini possano essere ingannati e persino autoingannarsi nel proprio interesse.

If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life, to compare it with such things as we know, would be like a fairty tale from the Arabian Nights' Entertainments.

As with our colleges, so with a hundred modern improvements; there is an illusion about them; there is not always a positive advance. The devil goes on exacting compound interest to the last for his early share and numerous succeeding investments in them. Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at; as railroads lead to Boston or New York.

Mathematics does not lie, there are many lying mathematicians.

Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life, to compare it with such things as we know, would be like a fairy tale

By closing the eyes and slumbering, and consenting to be deceived by shows, men establish and confirm their daily life of routine and habit everywhere, which still is built on purely illusory foundations. Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure.

Don Juan : [...] Les voilà, mes spectres, les spectres de ce que je ne suis pas. Ce sont eux qui me persécutent et m'écoeurent, et qui me survivront. Ils vivront, car il sont le mensonge. Mais si je dois payer ma vie au prix de toutes les sottises et de tous les mensonges qu'on aura dits sur moi, peut-être vaudrait-il mieux n'avoir pas vécu. Je vais changer d'habit et mettre mon beau costume. Il faut être bien vêtu quand on va être arrêté.

One of the maxims which the devil, in a late visit upon earth, left to his disciples, is, when once you are got up, to kick the stool from under you. In plain English, when you have made your fortune by the good offices of a friend, you are advised to discard him as soon as you can.

men are strangely inclined to worship what they do not understand. A grand secret, upon which several imposers on mankind have totally relied for the success of their frauds.

Whether his religion was real, or consisted only in appearance, I shall not presume to say, as I am not possessed of any touchstone which can distinguish the true from the false.

The elegant Lord Shaftesbury somewhere objects to telling too much truth: by which it may be fairly inferred, that, in some cases, to lie is not only excusable but commendable. And

A treacherous friend is the most dangerous enemy.

Thus the hypocrite may be said to be a player; and indeed the Greeks called them both by one and the same name.

característica esencial de la inflación es infundir aliento a miles de engañosas ilusiones.>

I keep a band of music in my ante-room, he said once to her. It has orders to play without stopping; it renders me two excellent services. It keeps the sounds of the world from reaching the private apartments, and it makes the world think that dancing's going on within.

I am 'sort of' haunted by the conviction that the divine William is the biggest and most successful fraud ever practiced on a patient world.

Intelligent, unscrupulous, determined, and capable of seeing a man strangled without changing color.

I've been deceived too often; I've ceased to form attachments, to permit myself to feel attractions.

prevaricated

Oh, it was a trap — not designed but deep — to my imagination, to my delicacy, perhaps to my vanity; to whatever in me was most excitable.