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Quotes About Deception

Since the Indians were better woodsmen than the English and virtually impossible to track down, the method was to feign peaceful intentions, let them settle down and plant their corn wherever they chose, and then, just before harvest, fall upon them, killing as many as possible and burning the corn. . . . Within two or three years of the massacre the English had avenged the deaths of that day many times over.
~ Howard Zinn
The president, the secretary of state, and the secretary of defense were lying to the American public—there was no evidence of any attack, and the American destroyers were not on "routine patrol" but on spying missions.
~ Howard Zinn
Outright lying or quiet omission takes the risk of discovery which, when made, might arouse the reader to rebel against the writer. To state the facts, however, and then to bury them in a mass of other information is to say to the reader with a certain infectious calm: yes, mass murder took place, but it's not that important—it should weigh very little in our final judgments; it should affect very little what we do in the world.
~ Howard Zinn
We have here a forecast of the long history of American politics, the mobilization of lower-class energy by upper-class politicians, for their own purposes. This was not purely deception; it involved, in part, a genuine recognition of lower-class grievances, which helps to account for its effectiveness as a tactic over the centuries. As
~ Howard Zinn
In the question period someone asked, "Why did you write so harshly in Black Bourgeoisie?" His response brought laughter and applause from the audience: "My friend, white people have bamboozled us. Preachers have bamboozled us. Teachers have bamboozled us, and kept us all bamboozled. We need someone to debamboozle us!
~ Howard Zinn
Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags.
~ Howard Zinn
To make the country ours, before and after the American Revolution, we had to displace or annihilate the indigenous people who had lived here for thousands of years. We had expanded by using deception and force, by military forays into Florida to persuade Spain to "sell" that to us (no money changed hands), by invading Mexico and taking almost half its land.
~ Howard Zinn
A little study of history was instructive. To make the country ours, before and after the American Revolution, we had to displace or annihilate the indigenous people who had lived here for thousands of years. We had expanded by using deception and force, by military forays into Florida to persuade Spain to "sell" that to us (no money changed hands), by invading Mexico and taking almost half its land.
~ Howard Zinn
You are kept apart that you may be separately fleeced of your earnings. You are made to hate each other because upon that hatred is rested the keystone of the arch of financial despotism which enslaves you both. You are deceived and blinded that you may not see how this race antagonism perpetuates a monetary system which beggars both.
~ Howard Zinn
Mencken, the acerbic social critic of the 1920s, put it: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
~ Howard Zinn
This is what men call genius, just as they call a painted face beauty and a richly attired figure majesty. The confound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud.
~ Hugo, Victor
The main problem in any democracy is that crowd-pleasers are generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage & whup their supporters into an orgiastic frenzy—then go back to the office & sell every one of the poor bastards down the tube for a nickel apiece.
~ Hunter S. Thompson
Reality itself is too twisted.
~ Hunter S. Thompson
Every time I think of Tim Leary I get angry. He was a liar and a quack and a worse human being than Richard Nixon. For the last twenty-six years of his life he worked as an informant for the FBI and turned his friends into the police and betrayed the peace symbol he hid behind.
~ Hunter S. Thompson
To infiltrate the infiltrators would be to accept the fate of all spies: "As always, if you or any member of your organization is apprehended by the enemy, the Secretary will deny any Knowledge, etc.…
~ Hunter S. Thompson
Hubert Humphrey is a treacherous, gutless old ward-heeler who should be put in a goddamn bottle and sent out with the Japanese current.
~ Hunter S. Thompson
stupid lie, regardless of who writes it or tries to justify it, is still a stupid lie Ã¢â'¬Â¦ even when it's wrapped up in flowers.
~ Hunter S. Thompson
Apesar de desejar muito todas as coisas que o dinheiro compra, havia uma corrente diabólica a desviar-me para outro caminho, para a anarquia, para a pobreza e para a doidice. Tinha aquela ilusão louca de que um homem pode levar uma vida decente sem se alugar como um Judas
~ Hunter S. Thompson
Most people inhabit a universe that is like French café au lait—fifty per cent skim milk and fifty per cent stale chicory, half psychophysical reality and half conventional verbiage.
~ Huxley Aldous Leonard
Une vérité sans éclat peut être éclipsée par un mensonge passionnant.
~ Huxley Aldous Leonard
And a more foolish notion can scarcely be imagined, it being obvious that the reader is only informed of what the writer wishes him to know, and is thus seduced into believing almost anything.
~ Iain Pears
Rouvier was the Finance Minister; I knew him by sight, although I had not yet met him. He was not widely liked. Apart from the whiff of indecency that Lucien referred to, he was also rumoured to be less than straightforward in his dealings with his fellow men. To put it another way, he was devious even by the standards of politicians; a long and successful career awaited him.
~ Iain Pears
I knew salesmen, they made good murderers.
~ Iain Pears
He's not a bad guy really, except he's so crooked, you shake hands with him you better count your fingers afterwards.
~ Ian Fleming