Quotes About Deception

During a carnival, men put masks over their masks.

Beware of those who would use violence, too often it is violence they want and neither truth nor freedom.

Courage is more important than to be deceived by shallow victory waiting for a delayed defeat.

Cunning differs from wisdom as twilight from open day.

In modern times, what impresses one is not a simple and unassuming statement of the truth, but superficial showmanship and display.

Nothing is more hateful to wisdom than to much cunning.

Laws must never be made compatible with crimes, no more than lying should be in harmony with the truth.

Man has an inexhuastible faculty for lying, especially to himself.

It is scarcely credible to what degree discernment may be dazzled by the mist of pride, and wisdom infatuated by the intoxication of flattery.

For every problem, there exists a simple and elegant solution which is absolutely wrong.

True greatness is sovereign wisdom. We are never deceived by our virtues.

There is less misery in being cheated than in that kind of wisdom which perceives, or thinks it perceives, that all mankind are cheats.

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy.

All that glisters is not gold; Often have you heard that told: Many a man his life hath sold But my outside to behold: Gilded tombs do worms enfold.

The Bible says, 'The truth shall make you free.' But let's not forget it was Spiro Agnew who said that a good lie will keep you out of jail in the first place.

Our experience is composed rather of illusions lost than of wisdom acquired.

Cunning is the dwarf of wisdom.

From what you didn't say, lies that you did say.

Wisdom often exists under a shabby coat.

The cow never tells a lie, and the stone never steals, but, nevertheless, the cow remains a cow and the stone a stone. Man steals and man tells lies, and again it is man that becomes a god.

What was being put over (by Musso[lini] & Co.) was, she was never in doubt, based on trickery and false values, sanctified aggression, pandered to false pride; it made ignorant youth feel important, gave foolish people spurious hopes – it was dangerous stuff.

What we are looking for, I am afraid, is neither a true leader nor a true Messiah, but a false Messiah - a man who will give us over-simplified answers, who will justify our ways, who will castigate our enemies, who will vindicate our selfishness as a way of life and make us comfortable within our prejudices and preconceptions.

She felt that these clean-shaven men with bristling eyebrows were suavely concealing their doubts of her intelligence and her probity. Their jaws were like so many mouse-traps, baited with commonplaces.