Con Men Quotes

I've always loved movies about con men. I think con men are as American as apple pie. ~ Bill Paxton

I love con-men characters in film. ~ Simon Baker

In a democracy, of course, you always get a choice:
Do you want to be governed by the red or by the blue? It's entirely up to you.
Do you want to be patronized or condescended to by liars or by crooks? You get to choose.
Would you prefer your fundamental values to be insulted or ignored by con men or by charlatans?
In short, do you want your influence to be zero or nil?
And when would you like to be listened to, never or not at all?
It's your choice. Do you want some more choice?
Take it or leave it. Now there's a real choice. ~ Pat Condell

Pop culture. Nobody does bullshit better than us. Right? China took over manufacturing. And the Middle East has us on fossil fuels. That's just geography and politics. We're a nation of whacko immigrants. Scavengers and con men. We crossed the ocean on faith, stole some land and stone-cold made up a whole country out of nothing but balls and bullshit. Superhero comics got invented by crazy genius Jews who showed up and revamped the refugee experience into a Man of Steel sent from Krypton with a secret identity. ~ Damon Suede

We've become a nation of con men, living by selling double glazing to each other. ~ Fred Dibnah

The gods do not exists, and even if they exist they do not trouble themselves about people, and we have nothing in common with them. The piety and devotion to the gods that the majority of people invoke is a lie devised by swindlers and con men and, if you can believe it, by legislators, to keep criminals in line by putting the fear of God into them. ~ Epictetus

What you need to remember, with these guys, is that they don't know they're con men. They're wildly overconfident. Omnipotence, omniscience
that's part of the mythology that surrounds the Special Forces ... Your guy can walk in the door and promise training in something he personally doesn't know how to do, and not even realize he's bullshitting about his own capabilities. It's a special kind of gullibility ... ~ William Gibson

There was the goal of all those con men of library and classroom, who sold their revelations as reason, their "instincts" as science, their cravings as knowledge, the goal of all the savages of the non-objective, the non-absolute, the relative, the tentative, the probable - the savages who, seeing a farmer gather a harvest, can consider it only as a mystic phenomenon unbound by the law of causality and created by the farmers' omnipotent whim, who then proceed to seize the farmer, to chain him, to deprive him of tools, of seeds, of water, of soil, to push him out on a barren rock and to command: "Now grow a harvest and feed us! ~ Ayn Rand

It's one of the great temptations, you see
wanting to prove the strength of your own faith by making others believe what you believe. It shows you're right.
But it doesn't prove anything of the sort. All it proves is that you're condescending and arrogant and good at doing what half-decent actors can do, or advertising agents, or pop stars, or politicians, or con men, or any of the professional persuaders. They sell illusions. And that's all they do. And they feel good when they succeed. That's what their lives depend on.
Which isn't true about religion. Or shouldn't be. Your belief shouldn't depend on what other people think about it. And it certainly should not depend on whether other people believe the same as you. ~ Aidan Chambers

You name the TV psychic - they're con men. ~ Bruno Heller

Actors are con men and con men are actors. ~ Edward Burns

I despise the religions we have, nothing but flummery and manipulation based on texts and materials so reworked over time they're all meaningless. I despise the division religions religions bring; humans have enough problems without that. I despise con men like Father Melly. And yet, and yet … ~ Stephen Baxter

I read my copy of On the Road and dug the scenery whizzing past. On the Road is a semi-autobiographical novel about Jack Kerouac, a druggy, hard-drinking writer who goes hitchhiking around America, working crummy jobs, howling through the streets at night, meeting people and parting ways. Hipsters, sad-faced hobos, con-men, muggers, scumbags and angels. There's not really a plot -- Kerouac supposedly wrote it in three weeks on a long roll of paper, stoned out of his mind -- only a bunch of amazing things, one thing happening after another. He makes friends with self-destructing people like Dean Moriarty, who get him involved in weird schemes that never really work out, but still it works out, if you know what I mean.

There was a rhythm to the words, it was luscious, I could hear it being read aloud in my head. It made me want to lie down in the bed of a pickup truck and wake up in a dusty little town somewhere in the central valley on the way to LA, one of those places with a gas station and a diner, and just walk out into the fields and meet people and see stuff and do stuff. ~ Cory Doctorow

Except for the con men borrowing money they shouldn't get and the widows who have to visit with the handsome young men in the trust department, no sane person ever enjoyed visiting a bank. ~ Martin Mayer

His name put in with the great traitors, con men, and self-aggrandizing egomaniacs of history. ~ James S.A. Corey

The Democratic Party: Con-men elected by the ignorant and the arrogant. ~ John Ray

Successful con men are treated with considerable respect in the South. A good slice of the settler population of that region were men who'd been given a choice between being shipped off to the New World in leg-irons and spending the rest of their lives in English prisons. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

Selling eternal life is an unbeatable business, with no customers ever asking for their money back after the goods are not delivered. ~ Victor J. Stenger

Hollywood is largely about scammers and con men. It was my main livelihood for about 25 years, and the scams were beautiful and ugly, cheap and expensive, but, wow, were there a lot of scammers. ~ Ben Stein

Con men and tricksters run the world. Rascals rule. And do you know why?
because they are hungier than we are. because they know what they want. because they believe in life more than we do. ~ Paul Auster

All boxers are liars. Con men. The better the liar, the better the fighter. That's because if you knew what was in a fighter's heart, if you knew what he was really thinking, he'd be easier to find. And if you could find him, he'd be easier to hit. And if you could hit him, you might expose him. And that might expose every person they never stood up to and every person they never stood up for. A single blow can unveil the watermark of your soul in a way nothing else ever can. ~ Brin-Jonathan Butler

A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received. - ALBERT EINSTEIN ~ Howard Schultz

Indeed, men who have either quaffed or even tasted the liberal arts penetrate with their aid far more deeply
into the secrets of the divine wisdom." - John Calvin ~ John Calvin

The leader of men in warfare can show himself to his followers only through a mask, a mask that he must make for himself, but a mask made in such form as will mark him to men of his time and place as the leader they want and need. ~ John Keegan

Good will attract good to itself, and those involved will unite toward a common goal. Evil, in turn, draws evil men, but they will never truly act as one. They will always be distrustful, always jealous. Ultimately, they seek power for themselves alone, and for that reason they will always fall apart at the end. ~ John Connolly

Easier were it To hurl the rooted mountain from its base, Than force the yoke of slavery upon men Determin'd to be free. ~ Robert Southey

I did no research on 'The Best Man.' That was something that came out from my own head. ~ Malcolm D. Lee

I never meant to be a sexual object for anyone but my husband. I never thought a picture of my body would be tacked up in men's bathrooms. I hate men looking at me and thinking what they think. And I know what they think. They write and tell me. ~ Lynda Carter

In order to dance well, nothing is so important as the turning outwards of the thigh; and nothing is so natural to men as the contrary position. ~ Jean-Georges Noverre

Without a thorough conviction of sin, men may seem to come to Jesus and follow Him for a season, but they will soon fall away and return to the world. ~ J.C. Ryle

Not that I wish to give you any ammunition, but the sad fact of it is-most men are sheep. Where one goes, the rest will follow. And didn't you say you wished to be married?'
'Not to someone who follows you as the lead sheep. ~ Julia Quinn

As the saying goes: God made man and woman; Colonel Colt made them equal. ~ Ann Coulter

Young men often laugh at the sensible girls whom they secretly respect, and affect to admire the silly ones whom they secretly despise, because earnestness, intelligence, and womanly dignity are not the fashion. ~ Louisa May Alcott

If John had been paying close attention to Lester's face, he would have seen him go white, the way men do when they see a trap swinging shut on them. ~ Douglas Wilson

The beautiful in nature is the unmarred result of God's first creative or forming will,and ..the beautiful in art is the result of an unmistaken working of man in accordance with the beautiful in nature. ~ William Barnes

Like all dominant groups, men seek to promote an image of their subordinate's nature that contributes to the preservation of the status quo. For thousands of years, males have seen women not as women could be, but only as males want them to be. ~ Marvin Harris

The greatest mystery a man ever learned, is to know how to control the human mind, and bring every faculty and power of the same in subjection to Jesus Christ; this is the greatest mystery we have to learn while in these tabernacles of clay. ~ Brigham Young

Sometimes what-if fantasies are useful. Imagine that the entirety of Western civilisation's coding for computer systems or prints of all films ever made or all copies of Shakespeare and the Bible and the Qur'an were encrypted and held on one tablet device. And if that tablet was lost, stolen, burnt or corrupted, then our knowledge, use and understanding of that content, those words and ideas, would be gone for ever – only, perhaps, lingering in the minds of a very few men of memory whose job it had been to keep ideas alive. This little thought-experiment can help us to comprehend the totemic power of manuscripts. This is the great weight of responsibility for the past, the present and the future that the manuscripts of Constantinople carried. Much of our global cultural heritage – philosophies, dramas, epic poems – survive only because they were preserved in the city's libraries and scriptoria. Just as Alexandria and Pergamon too had amassed vast libraries, Constantinople understood that a physical accumulation of knowledge worked as a lode-stone – drawing in respect, talent and sheer awe. These texts contained both the possibilities and the fact of empire and had a quasi-magical status. This was a time when the written word was considered so potent – and so precious – that documents were thought to be objects with spiritual significance. (...)

It was in Constantinople that the book review was invented. Scholars seem to have had access to books within a proto-lendi ~ Bettany Hughes

If you wanted nothing done at all, Balfour was the man for the job. ~ Winston Churchill

I was glamorous because of magicians like George Folsey, James Wong Howe, Oliver Marsh, Ray June, and all those other great cinematographers. I trusted those men and the other experts who made us beautiful. The rest of it I didn't give a damn about. I didn't fuss about my clothes, my lighting, or anything else, but, believe me, some of them did. ~ Myrna Loy

Human beings cannot probe the mind of God by asking themselves what they would do if they were God. They are men and not God. And if they are virtuous men, they will wait for God to reveal himself under conditions of his own choosing. ~ Edward John Carnell

Those men and women are fortunate who are born at a time when a great struggle for human freedom is in progress. It is an added good fortune to have parents who take a personal part in the great movements of their time. I am glad and thankful that this was my case. ~ Emmeline Pankhurst

There can be no sexual love without lust; but, on the other hand, until the currents of lust in the organism have been irradiatedas to affect other parts of the psychic organism
at the least the affections and the social feelings
it is not yet sexual love. Lust, the specific sexual impulse, is indeed the primary and essential element in this synthesis, for it alone is adequate to the end of reproduction, not only in animals but in men. But it is not until lust is expanded and irradiated that it develops into the exquisite and enthralling flower of love. ~ Havelock Ellis

In North Carolina, I stopped to gas up at a Humble Oil station, then walked around the corner to use the toilet. There were two doors and three signs. MEN was neatly stenciled over one door, LADIES over the other. The third sign was an arrow on a stick. It pointed toward the brush-covered slope behind the station. It said COLORED. Curious, I walked down the path, being careful to sidle at a couple of points where the oily, green-shading-to-maroon leaves of poison ivy were unmistakable ... There was no facility. What I found at the end of the path was a narrow stream with a board laid across it on a couple of crumbling concrete posts ... If I ever give you the idea that 1958's all Andy-n-Opie, remember the path, okay? The one lined with poison ivy. And the board over the stream. ~ Stephen King

The fundamental defect of the female character is a lack of a sense of justice. This originates first and foremost in their want of rationality and capacity for reflexion but it is strengthened by the fact that, as the weaker sex, they are driven to rely not on force but on cunning: hence their instinctive subtlety and their ineradicable tendency to tell lies: for, as nature has equipped the lion with claws and teeth, the elephant with tusks, the wild boar with fangs, the bull with horns and the cuttlefish with ink, so it has equipped woman with the power of dissimulation as her means of attack and defence, and has transformed into this gift all the strength it has bestowed on man in the form of physical strength and the power of reasoning. Dissimulation is thus inborn in her and consequently to be found in the stupid woman almost as often as in the clever one. To make use of it at every opportunity is as natural to her as it is for an animal to employ its means of defence whenever it is attacked, and when she does so she feels that to some extent she is only exercising her rights. A completely truthful woman who does not practice dissimulation is perhaps an impossibility, which is why women see through the dissimulation of others so easily it is inadvisable to attempt it with them. – But this fundamental defect which I have said they possess, together with all that is associated with it, gives rise to falsity, unfaithfulness, treachery, ingratitude, etc. Women are guilty of ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

The earth would be covered with men amongst whom there world would be almost no communication; we would make contact at some points without being united by a single one; everyone would remain isolated amongst the rest, everyone would think only of himself; our understanding would not develop; we would live without sensing anything, we would die without having lived; our entire happiness would consist of not knowing our misery; there would be neither goodness in our hearts, nor morality in our actions, and we would never have tasted the most delicious sentiment of the soul, which is the love of virtue. ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I don't know if there is a gene for comedy, but my dad was a very funny man. He just didn't know it. He was a naturally funny character, and when my brother and I would laugh at things he said and did, he would say, 'What do you think is so funny?' ~ James Belushi

A time will come when the eye of man will perceive colors as feelings within itself. ~ Umberto Boccioni

Sometimes evil didn't need an excuse. Sometimes evil just was. ~ Nenia Campbell

All the windy ways of men Are but dust that rises up, And is lightly laid again. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

God made bees, and bees made honey, God made man, and man made money, Pride made the devil, and the devil made sin; So God made a cole-pit to put the devil in. ~ William Cowper

The way to fight a woman is with your hat. Grab it and run.
The guy who said that was a wise man. He knew what most men don't - Women are powerful creatures who should be handled with care, or they can become very, very dangerous. ~ Christina Dodd

I've never been to the Oscars, but if I was ever invited to the Oscars, I would have this weird paranoia of terrorism. It just feels like The Poseidon Adventure, everyone in their tuxes. Somehow, I feel like the whole time I would be looking for where the nearest exit was, and in a cold sweat about some kind of man-made disaster, like a terrorist strike or something. It seems like such a scary, claustrophobic proposition. ~ Mike White

The critical habit of thought, if usual in society, will pervade all its mores, because it is a way of taking up the problems of life. Men educated in it cannot be stampeded by stump orators ... They are slow to believe. They can hold things as possible or probable in all degrees, without certainty and without pain. They can wait for evidence and weigh evidence, uninfluenced by the emphasis or confidence with which assertions are made on one side or the other. They can resist appeals to their dearest prejudices and all kinds of cajolery. Education in the critical faculty is the only education of which it can be truly said that it makes good citizens. ~ William Graham Sumner

The most important man in my life is and always will be Alain Delon. He is always there when I need a shoulder to cry on ... even today Alain is the only man I can count on. He would always help me. Only Alain shaped me as a woman. Even though he hurt me a lot when he left me I also matured because of it. ~ Romy Schneider

Perhaps the greatest evil I see in this existence is when supposedly holy men prey upon the basic fears of death of the common folk to take from them. "Give to the church!" they cry. "Only then will you find salvation! Even more subtle are the many religions that do not directly ask for a person's coin, but insist that anyone of goodly and godly heart who is destined for their particular description of heaven, would willingly give that coin over. ~ R.A. Salvatore

He started to talk about my writing and I stopped listening. I was embarrassed and it made me feel sick for people to talk about my writing to my face, and I looked at him and his marked-for-death look and I thought, you con man conning me with your con. I've seen a battalion in the dust on the road, a third of them for death or worse and no special marks on them, the dust was for all, and you and your marked for death look, you con man, making a living out of your death. Now you will con me. Con not, that thou be not conned. Death was not conning with him. It was coming all right. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

In order to be a leader a man must have followers. And to have followers, a man must have their confidence. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Marshall, all big men, and strong in every sense, deferred to him. ~ Mark David Ledbetter

Take a look at the police and how they treat you,
Take a look at these corporations that cheat you.
Democrats and Republicans are all see-through.
Now we votin for the lesser of two evils ...
Man, don't let 'em deceive you.
This is an autocracy, not a democracy,
But to call this a democracy without mock interest
In the laws of society? That's called hypocrisy. ~ KRS-One

When men speak ill of thee, live so that nobody will believe them. ~ Plato

I know myself a Man
Which is a proud and yet a wretched thing. ~ Sir John Davies

We cannot change ideas in the minds of men and races with machine guns or battle ships. ~ Herbert Hoover

All travel is circular. I had been jerked through Asia, making a parabola on one of the planet's hemispheres. After all, the grand tour is just the inspired man's way of heading home. ~ Paul Theroux

It was a highly geared world whose nature was conflict and action, a world whose limited area and vision imperiously urged men to satisfy their organisms, a world that existed on a plane of animal sensation alone. It ~ Richard Wright

I'm glad I'm not bisexual. I couldn't stand being rejected by men as well as women. ~ Bernard Manning