Deceive Quotes

Deceiving people was natural ... It had been my job for so long that lying to protect myself, or those I loved, was as easy as breathing. I'd promise Rachel that there would be no more lies, forgiving or not. When it came to her, there hadn't been, and there wouldn't be when she came back. But all bets were off until I found her. I would deceive anyone, lie about everything, and do anything to get her back. ~ Molly McAdams

Snakes and monkeys are subjected to the demon more than other animals. Satan lives in them and possesses them. He uses them to deceive men and to injure them. ~ Martin Luther

Do my ears deceive me, or can I actually hear the sounds of worms turning? You say a turning worm makes no sound? But how about a chorus of turning worms? ~ Calvin Trillin

My dear Usbek, when women feel, as they lose their attractiveness, that their end is coming in advance, they would like to go backwards to youth again. How could they possibly not attempt to deceive other people? - they make every effort to deceive themselves, and to escape from the most distressing thought we can have. ~ Montesquieu

Emotions talked to you before you had words, so listen to them ... they are often more honest than the mind's remarkable ability to self deceive. ~ William P. Young

Oh, Timothy, how could you not have loved someone all these years? Loving absolutely seeps from you, like a spring that bubbles up in a meadow." "Maybe you can convince me of that, but I doubt it. I find myself niggardly and self-seeking, hard as stone somewhere inside. Look how I've treated you." "Yes, but you could never deceive me into thinking you were hard as stone. You've always betrayed your tenderness to me, something in your face, your eyes, your voice ..." "Then I have no cover with you?" "Very little." " 'Violet only wanted a friend,' " he quoted, " 'but every time she tried to have one, she did something that chased them away. ~ Jan Karon

Nothing is more common on earth than to deceive and be deceived. ~ Johann G. Seume

You may deceive all the people part of the time, and part of the people all the time, but not all the people all the time. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Celebrity mentality sometimes misguides us to make wrong choices. That's why T.V screens sometimes lie to us! ~ Israelmore Ayivor

These men deceive themselves," said Roger Chillingworth, with somewhat more emphasis than usual, and making a slight gesture with his forefinger. "They fear to take up the shame that rightfully belongs to them. Their love for man, their zeal for God's service - these holy impulses may or may not coexist in their hearts with the evil inmates to which their guilt has unbarred the door, and which must needs propagate a hellish breed within them. But, if they seek to glorify God, let them not lift heavenward their unclean hands! If they would serve their fellowmen, let them do it by making manifest the power and reality of conscience, in constraining them to penitential self-abasement! Would thou have me to believe, O wise and pious friend, that a false show can be better - can be more for God's glory, or man' welfare - than God's own truth? Trust me, such men deceive themselves!" "It ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

…have you noticed, Rodion Romanovitch, that in our Petersburg circles, if two clever men meet who are not intimate, but respect each other, like you and me, it takes them half an hour before they can find a subject for conversation – they are dumb, they sit opposite each other and feel awkward? Everyone has subjects of conversation, ladies for instance…people in high society always have their subjects of conversation, c'est de rigueur; but people of the middle sort like us, thinking people that is, are always tongue-tied and awkward. What is the reason of it? Whether it is the lack of public interest, or whether it is we are so honest we don't want to deceive one another, I don't know. What do you think? ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Belief is in ignorance. If you know, you know. And it is good that if you don't know, know that you don't know - the belief can deceive you. The belief can create an atmosphere in your mind, where, without knowing, you start thinking that you know. Belief is not trust, and the more strongly you say that you believe totally, the more you are afraid of the doubt within you. ~ Osho

You know how important trust is to me, yet you've done nothing but deceive me. ~ Sherry Gammon

Frightening numbers of people were either easy to deceive or wished ardently to submit to any belief system, no matter how delusional, that reassured them and justified their hatreds. ~ Dean Koontz

I think I can deceive people. I'm like, the nice, sweet girl when you meet me. And I don't have any bad intentions. But I'm a bad girl too. ~ Alicia Silverstone

I don't deceive myself. No, I get my clones to do it for me. ~ Jarod Kintz

...progress of civilization has brought along with it much beclouding of realities and grave danger. Apparent economies may easily deceive us. But technical progress should never be the goal, only the means. ~ Tenny Pinheiro

Those who try to achieve success without hard work ultimately deceive themselves-or worse-deceive others. ~ Tim Cook

Derivatives serve practically no purpose except to enrich bankers through opaque pricing and to deceive investors through off-the-balance-sheet accounting. ~ James Rickards

Don't deceive yourself. Everyone is guilty of something, and even the innocent can be a threat. Perhaps it takes small crimes to prevent bigger ones, Colonel West, but it's up to bigger men than us to decide. ~ Joe Abercrombie

There are no absolutes in this world, and there will always be mistakes that are made within brokerage firms; there will always be people who set out to deceive the regulators and even deceive their own senior management. ~ Mary Schapiro

Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive. ~ William Shakespeare

5 weeks since the Rapture "Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition." Thessalonians 2:3 ~ Phillip W. Simpson

Self-assertion may deceive the ignorant for a time; but when the noise dies away, we cut open the drum, and find it was emptiness that made the music. ~ Mary Elizabeth Braddon

He will choose you, disarm you with his words, and control you with his presence. He will delight you with his wit and his plans. He will show you a good time but you will always get the bill. He will smile and deceive you, and he will scare you with his eyes. And when he is through with you, and he will be through with you, he will desert you and take with him your innocence and your pride. You will be left much sadder but not a lot wiser, and for a long time you will wonder what happened and what you did wrong. And if another of his kind comes knocking on your door, will you open it?

-From an essay signed "A psychopath in prison ~ Robert D. Hare

Deception is parcel to ruling. I tell my enemies, my allies, and my subjects what they need to know, when I feel they need to know it. This philosophy tends to have some effects. A man cannot take it as his business to repeatedly deceive the world, without somehow deceiving himself. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

Literature is a defense against the attacks of life. It says to life: You can't deceive me. I know your habits, foresee and enjoy watching all your reactions, and steal your secret by involving you in cunning obstructions that halt your normal flow. ~ Cesare Pavese

I apologize for lying to you. I promise I won't deceive you except in matters of this sort. ~ Spiro T. Agnew

Numbers are a lot like people. They each have a story. They interact with one another. They entertain. They inform. They deceive. They can create happiness or inflict enormous pain. You have to know how to get them to talk. ~ Lee Goldberg

Let no man deceive you with vain words or vain hopes or false notions of a slight and sudden repentance. As if heaven were a hospital founded on purpose to receive all sick and maimed persons that, when they can live no longer to the lusts of the flesh and the sinful pleasures of this world, can but put up a cold and formal petition to be admitted there. No, no, as sure as God is true, they shall never see the Kingdom of God who, instead of seeking it in the first place, make it their last refuge and retreat. ~ John Tillotson

Appearances do not deceive if there are enough of them. ~ Laura Riding

Liars share with those they deceive the desire not to be deceived. ~ Sissela Bok

A true master will not deceive an able disciple. You are hampered by the limits you set and no limit can be set on skill. ~ Wayne Gerard Trotman

You should have taken me with you, I whisper to him. Then I lean my head against his and begin to cry. In my mind, I make a silent promise to my brother's killer.
I will hunt you down. I will scour the streets of Los Angeles for you. Search every street in the Republic if I have to. I will trick you and deceive you, lie, cheat and steal to find you, tempt you out of your hiding place, and chase you until you have nowhere else to run. I make you this promise: your life is mine. ~ Marie Lu

Someday someone should make a study of the silence that falls inside a car when you're returning home after having flaunted your well-being, partly to edify the company, partly to deceive yourself. It's a silence that tolerates no sound, not even the radio, for who in that mute war of opposition would dare to turn it on? ~ Yasmina Reza

They ate and moved on, leaving the fire on the ground behind them, and as they rode up into the mountains this fire seemed to become altered of its location, now here, now there, drawing away, or shifting unaccountably along the flank of their movement. Like some ignis fatuus belated upon the road behind them which all could see and of which none spoke. For this will to deceive that is in things luminous may manifest itself likewise in retrospect and so by sleight of some fixed part of a journey already accomplished may also post men to fraudulent destinies. As ~ Cormac McCarthy

Human beings will continue to deceive and overpower one another. Basically, everyone exists in the very nature of suffering, so to abuse or mistreat each other is futile. The foundation of all spiritual practice is love. That you practice this well is my only request. ~ Dalai Lama

Why did I write it down? In order to remember, of course, but exactly what was it I wanted to remember? How much of it actually happened? Any of it? Why do I keep a notebook at all?
It is easy to deceive oneself on all those scores. The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful if accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that compulsion tries to justify itself. I suppose that it begins or does not begin in the cradle.
Although I have felt compelled to write things down since I was five years old, I doubt my daughter ever will, for she is a singularly blessed and accepting child, delighted with life exactly as life presents itself to her, unafraid to wake up.
Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearranger of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentment of loss. ~ Joan Didion

There was no sugar! That was better for our health; no need to taste such a boring thing. Sugar is one of these decorative ingredients; those ingredients that deceive you by changing the bitterness of reality into some dazzling bites of sweetness. ~ Noha Alaa El-Din

I was always a liar. But one thing I failed to realize about being a liar is that you know when you are deceiving someone else, but when you deceive yourself you believe you are telling the truth. ~ Jack Gantos

People need to remember that a man who is deceptive deceives by hiding that he is deceptive. He is not going to openly validate that he is deceiving you because his aim is to deceive you. ~ Suzy Kassem

He should have said something, why hadn't he? Costis wondered. In fact, the king had. He had complained at every step all the way across the palace, and they'd ignored it. If he'd been stoic and denied the pain, the entire palace would have been in a panic already, Eddisian soldiers on the move. He'd meant to deceive them, and he'd succeeded. It made Costis wonder for the first time just how much the stoic man really wants to hide when he unsuccessfully pretends not to be in pain. ~ Megan Whalen Turner

Its like reproaching someone who has no ear for music because he's bored at a symphony concert. Is it fair to blame me because you ascribed to me qualities that I hadn't got? I never tried to deceive you by pretending I was anything I wasn't. I was just pretty and gay. You don't ask for a pearl necklace or a sable coat at a booth in a fair; you ask for a tin trumpet and a toy balloon. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Yet another video has emerged of MIT professor and Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber calling Americans 'stupid,' and bragging about how the Affordable Care Act's drafters had to deceive the public in order to pass the law. ~ Alexander Viets Griswold

Everybody's playing the game but nobody's rules are the same ... Never make a promise or plan. Take a little love where you can ... Never stay too long in your bed. Never lose your heart, use your head ... Never take a stranger's advice. Never let a friend fool you twice ... Never be the first to believe. Never be the last to deceive ... Never leave a moment too soon. Never waste a hot afternoon ... Never stay a minute too long. Don't forget the best will go wrong ... Better learn to go it alone. Recognise you're out on your own. Nobody's on nobody's side. ~ Tim Rice

I want a world where hearts are not deceived and do not deceive others. ~ Naguib Mahfouz

To recklessly excuse a failure is to believe that I've effectively erased it from the story of my life, when I've actually imprinted it in indelible ink. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Man may deceive his fellow-men, deception may follow deception, and the children of the wicked one may have power to seduce the foolish and untaught, till naught but fiction feeds the many, and the fruit of falsehood carries in its current the giddy to the grave; but one touch with the finger of his love, yes, one ray of glory from the upper world, or one word from the mouth of the Savior, from the bosom of eternity, strikes it all into insignificance, and blots it forever from the mind. (Messenger and Advocate Oct 1934 pp 14-16) ~ Oliver Cowdery

Don't trust your eyes, they can deceive you ~ Obi-wan Kenobi

Words dazzle and deceive because they are mimed by the face. But black words on a white page are the soul laid bare. ~ Guy De Maupassant

...it was the business of such men as were prudent and wise to deceive the people in matters of religion, and in that very thing not only to worship, but also to imitate the demons, whose greatest lust is to deceive. For just as the demons cannot possess any but those whom they have deceived with guile, so also men in princely office, not indeed being just, but like demons, have persuaded the people in the name of religion to receive as true those things which they themselves knew to be false; in this way, as it were, binding them up more firmly in civil society, so that they might in like manner possess them as subjects. ~ Augustine Of Hippo

I will vouch for him before the seat of Denethor,' said Gandalf. 'And as for valour, that cannot be computed by stature. He has passed through more battles and perils than you have, Ingold, though you be twice his height; and he comes now from the storming of Isengard, of which we bear tidings, and great weariness is on him, or I would wake him. His name is Peregrin, a very valiant man.'
Man?' said Ingold dubiously; and the others laughed.
Man!' cried Pippin, now thoroughly roused. 'Man! Indeed not! I am a hobbit and no more valiant than I am a man, save perhaps now and again by necessity. Do not let Gandalf deceive you! ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

The reason we bitterly hate those who deceive us is because they think they are cleverer than we are. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

This hotel-the Amazon- was for women only, and they were mostly girls my age with wealthy parents who wanted to be sure their daughters would be living where men couldn't get at them and deceive them. ~ Sylvia Plath

My eyes are too shy to deceive me; because I am still young and fresh. ~ Mwanandeke Kindembo

While all deception requires secrecy, all secrecy is not meant to deceive. ~ Sissela Bok

There is nothing so seductive to a girl as to be loved by a poetic-depressive type. And if she is vain enough to deceive herself into thinking that she loves him faithfully by clinging to him instead of giving him up, then her task will be easy. She will enjoy both the distinction and the good conscience of being faithful, and at the same time the most finely distilled romantic love. God save everyone from such faithfulness! ~ Soren Kierkegaard

One can tell a child everything, anything. I have often been struck by the fact that parents know their children so little. They should not conceal so much from them. How well even little children understand that their parents conceal things from them, because they consider them too young to understand! Children are capable of giving advice in the most important matters. How can one deceive these dear little birds, when they look at one so sweetly and confidingly? I call them birds because there is nothing in the world better than birds! ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Alone with Rolfe, Celaena raised her sword. "Celaena Sardothien, at your service."
The pirate was still staring at her, his face pale with rage. "How dare you deceive me?" She sketched a bow.
"I did nothing of the sort. I told you I was beautiful. ~ Sarah J. Maas

So you were going to rescue the Prince! Why did you pretend to run away? To deceive the Witch?"
"Not likely! I'm a coward. Only way I can do something this frightening is to tell myself I'm not doing it! ~ Diana Wynne Jones

Subtlety may deceive you; intedrity never will. ~ Oliver Cromwell

Very often, when tides start turning, great gears start shifting, and gusting winds start blowing at the onset of a really wonderful dream's alignment with your present life, there is commotion, unpredictability, even turmoil.
So, hey, let's always assume that's the case whenever you experience commotion, unpredictability, even turmoil. K?
Let not your senses deceive, for even as the tempest may howl, just beyond it lies a serenity that could not otherwise find you. The storm before the calm, if you will. ~ Mike Dooley

Saruman," I said, "I have heard speeches of this kind before, but only in the mouths of emissaries sent from Mordor to deceive the ignorant. I cannot think that you brought me so far only to weary my ears. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

In the first place, then, men should guard against the beginning of change, and in the second place they should not rely upon the political devices of which I have already spoken invented only to deceive the people, for they are proved by experience to be useless. ~ Aristotle.

Grimalkin snorted. "Just because he cannot lie does not mean he cannot deceive, human. Robin Goodfellow is an expert at dancing around the truth."
"Oh, look who's talking. If you're not an expert at screwing people over, I'll eat my head. ~ Julie Kagawa

We deceive ourselves into thinking life is long, but fire reminds us-it is flickering. Life is a flickering-and then it is gone. So, we must make the most of it.

Fire is red. It is yellow. It is blue. It is black as ash, brown as seared lines on timbers. Fire is the pink of flesh, and the gray of smoke that trails. Fire is the all-color that dwells before color, that which comes when one feels a fire will be set... ~ Jesse Ball

But over and beyond all that can be written on the subject - inventiveness is a personal matter, beyond all formulas - the true general must be able to take in, deceive, decoy, delude his adversary at every turn, as the particular occasion demands. In fact, there is no instrument of war more cunning than chicanery; ~ Xenophon

Men are sponges, which, to pour out, receive;
Who know false play, rather than lose, deceive.
For in best understandings sin began,
Angels sinn'd first, then devils, and then man.
Only perchance beasts sin not ; wretched we
Are beasts in all but white integrity. ~ John Donne

I suspect it's because Truman Democrats have been replaced by Gruber Democrats - self-styled elitists who feed lavishly at the public trough and think government should serve them, not the hoi polloi they disdain and deceive. ~ Jack Kelly

When a man devotes himself body and spirit to a single object, if he has training and aptitude, no matter how mediocre he may be in ordinary affairs, he will produce something so nearly akin to a work of genius as to deceive half the judges who think themselves competent to decide between genius and talent.
("The Phantom Model") ~ Hume Nisbet

It is not only old and early impressions that deceive us; the charms of novelty have the same power. ~ Blaise Pascal

Life is, you know, but an idea. You can fill it up with anything really and deceive yourself into believing that is what you need. You can be happy, sad, benevolent, crafty, unpleasant. That man filled it up with nastiness and it destroyed him in the end. I wonder what could have made him that way. Cruelty on the part of others or cruelty in his heart?" - Lady Cavendish ~ Noorilhuda

Nature never deceives us;
it is always we who deceive ourselves. ~ Scott Lynch

Each day I deceived myself, unlike you who could never deceive yourself. Anxiety was trapped in the depths of my heart, like a formation of black clouds I could not break free of. ~ Osamu Dazai

They who once engage in iniquitous designs miserably deceive themselves when they think that they will go so far and no farther; one fault begets another, one crime renders another necessary; and thus they are impelled continually downward into a depth of guilt, which at the commencement of their career they would have died rather than have incurred. ~ Robert Southey

No longer an innocent newborn, Elizabeth can tease, joke, and play make-believe because a gap has opened between what she knows to be so and what she pretends or imagines. More than any other quality, this gap is what distinguishes our species, enabling us to deceive one another and ourselves, but also enabling us to see beyond the way things happen to be, to envision alternatives, to make art and science and revolution, to invent things new under the sun. ~ Scott Russell Sanders

22Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.m ~ Anonymous

Harris: Yes. In fact, self-deception might have paid evolutionary dividends in other ways. Robert Trivers argues, for instance, that people who can believe their own lies turn out to be the best liars of all - and an ability to deceive rivals has obvious advantages in the state of nature. Now, clearly many things may have been adaptive for our ancestors - such as tribal warfare, rape, xenophobia - that we now deem unethical and would never want to defend. But I'm wondering if you see any possibility that a social system that maximizes truth-telling could be one that fails to maximize the well-being of all participants. Is it possible that some measure of deception is good for us? ~ Sam Harris

It's the easiest thing in the world for a man to deceive himself. ~ Benjamin Franklin

If we say that we have no sin,
We deceive ourselves, and there's no truth in us.
Why then belike we must sin,
And so consequently die.
Ay, we must die an everlasting death. ~ Christopher Marlowe

It is, perhaps, a debatable question, whether a person who has always been notoriously in the habit of lying, has a right to tell the truth; it is, of course, the only device by which he can deceive people. ~ George D. Prentice

I thought to myself with what means, with what deceptions, with how many varied arts, with what industry a man sharpens his wits to deceive another and through these variations the world is made more beautiful. ~ Francesco Vettori

You are a man without a heart, Dr. Leddell.
And you, Mary Cooper, are a meddler. A woman can be forgiven for many transgressions but not that.
I have been called worse. And by people I hold in more esteem than you.
Ha! I pity the poor man unfortunate enough to marry you someday. He writes his own ticket to hell.
If he does, then I'll make that hell as pleasant a place for him as I know how. But I won't deceive him and tell him it's heaven, then stoke the fires behind his back and cover it all with the scent of lilacs. ~ Ann Rinaldi

Never lie to a child about doctors or medicine or anything else; but if you feel, as some people seem to feel, that life without lying is an impossibility, at least don't lie about the amount of pain likely to result from a surgical procedure, or about the taste of some medicine. If you know that something to be done will hurt, say so; if a mixture to be swallowed is unpleasant, say so. If you deceive a child once in such matters, do not imagine that it will trust you again. You do not deserve trust, and you will not get it. ~ Lyman Abbott

Bush and Blair combined their efforts to deceive both nations in a carefully coordinated manner, more so than anyone is willing to point out in the media. ~ Bianca Jagger

Well, let's just suppose for the sake of argument that I decided to take Holly travelling to some ancient Indian burial ground in the middle of the desert. I've considered it, from time to time… anyway, he would be using the Black Arts to invoke fallen spirits, spirits that would generally be unwilling, uncooperative… so, there would be an explicit contest of wills. Holly would have to heap conjuration upon conjuration, precisely because spirits and demons are often reluctant to be summoned, and if they were summoned, they would do everything in their power to escape Holly's control, threaten him and deceive him. To gain the upper hand in the game, Holly would have to wield a horrible amount of power… which he does indeed have, and it would be quite spectacular to watch, no doubt. Thousands of ghouls and skeletons rising up from the ground, rushing forth against the wind on deceased white horses towards the crashing waves of the sea, and considering that Holly has more in common with demons himself than he will ever care to admit, he probably wouldn't be able to stop once he started. We would have radical weather patterns and rising sea levels on our hands for days, perhaps even weeks… if he ever tried it, it would probably kill him, but hell's bells, it would be a really captivating show to see! ~ Rebecca McNutt

Yes, suddenly I saw it clearly: most people deceive themselves with a pair of faiths: they believe in eternal memory (of people, things, deeds, nations) and in redressibility (of deeds, mistakes, sins, wrongs). Both are false faiths. In reality the opposite is true: everything will be forgotten and nothing will be redressed. The task of obtaining redress (by vengeance or by forgiveness) will be taken over by forgetting. No one will redress the wrongs that have been done, but all wrongs will be forgotten. ~ Milan Kundera

To beguile is to deceive or lead astray, as Lucifer beguiled Eve in the Garden of Eden. ~ Joseph B. Wirthlin

Do not deceive or be faithless even with your enemy. ~ Abu Bakr

If I could conceal from myself the impression that the life had been drained out of me like blood and saliva and mucus from a patient during an operation, maybe I could deceive Mario as well. ~ Elena Ferrante

He hated words. Words glossed every real thing with brittle artifice and deceit. Words were always lies, always intended to deceive even when they held the truth. . . . ~ Bill Granger

Did it fall out?" Leo asked. "Is she bald?"
"No, not at all. It's just that her hair is...green."
To look at Leo's face, one would think it was Christmas morning. "What shade of green?"
"Leo, hush," Win said urgently. "You are not to torment her. It's been a very trying experience. We mixed a peroxide paste to take the green out, and I don't know if it worked or not. Amelia was helping her to wash it a little while ago. And no matter what the result is, you are to say nothing."
"You're telling me that tonight, Marks will be sitting at the supper table with hair that matches the asparagus, and I'm not supposed to remark on it?" He snorted. "I'm not that strong."
"Please, Leo," Poppy murmured, touching his arm. "If it were one of your sisters, you wouldn't mock."
"Do you think that little shrew would have any mercy on me, were the situations reversed?" He rolled his eyes as he saw their expressions. "Very well, I'll try no to jeer. But I make no promises."
Leo sauntered toward the house in no apparent hurry. He didn't deceive either of his sisters.
"How long do you think it will take him to find her?" Poppy asked Win.
"Two, perhaps three minutes," Win replied, and they both sighed. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Do not compare, do not measure. No other way is like yours. All other ways deceive and tempt you. You must fulfill the way that is in you. ~ Carl Jung

I am a vile polluted lump of earth; So I've continued since my birth; Although Jehovah grace does daily give me, As sure this monster Satan will deceive me. Come, therefore, Lord, from Satan's claws relieve me. Wash me in Thy blood, O Christ, And grace divine impart. Then search and try the corners of my heart, That I in all things may be fit to do Service to Thee, and sing Thy praises too.14 ~ Douglas Bond

If you love, love totally; if you hate, hate totally. Don't be fragmentary; suffer the consequences. Because of consequences you try to deceive. ~ Rajneesh

In short, one who loves the illusion of the good is eventually won over to actually loving the good. But how can love of the illusion of the good lead to love of the good itself? If one loves the illusion of the good and enacts this illusion in social intercourse, one might come to appreciate its worth and to love the good itself for its own sake. Correlatively, from the point of view of the spectator, loving the illusion of the good in others may make us act politely in order to become lovable, which leads us to exercise our self-mastery, control our passions, and, eventually, to love the good for its own sake. In this sense, paradoxically, by deceiving others through politeness and social pretence, we in fact deceive ourselves and transform our pragmatic, polite behavior into virtuous behavior: by deceiving others through the pretence of virtue, we foster civil society, and in doing so, deceive ourselves by transforming our pretense of virtue into a disposition for virtue itself. Does not this line of thought recall Pascal's advice to non-believers who would like to believe, but cannot bring themselves to accomplish the leap of faith? "Kneel down, pray, act as if you believe, and belief will come by itself. ~ Slavoj Zizek

Comrade, you can deceive us. Anyone can―for a time. But not a very long time. ~ Tom Clancy

As children's inquiries are not to be slighted, so also great care is to be taken, that they never receive deceitful and illuding answers. They easily perceive when they are slighted or deceived, and quickly learn the trick of neglect, dissimulation, and falsehood, which they observe others to make use of. We are not to intrench upon truth in any conversation, but least of all with children; since, if we play false with them, we not only deceive their expectation, and hinder their knowledge, but corrupt their innocence, and teach them the worst of vices. ~ John Locke

Past, present, and future, the symbiosis of our lives," the old man continued quietly, gently. "Our birth, our life, our death, all tied into a single package that we spend our time on this earth unwrapping. Sometimes we see clearly what it is we are looking at. Sometimes we do not. Sometimes things happen to distract or deceive us, and we must look more carefully at what it is we hold. ~ Terry Brooks

All My Life

All my life I've been searching for something
Something never comes, never leads to nothing
Nothing satisfies, but I'm getting close
Closer to the prize at the end of the rope
All night long I dream of the day
When it comes around and it's taken away
Leaves me with the feeling that I feel the most
Feel it come to life when I see your ghost

Calm down, don't you resist
You've such a delicate wrist
And if I give it a twist
Something to hold when I lose my grip
Will I find something in there
To give me just what I need
Another reason to bleed
One by one hidden up my sleeve
One by one hidden up my sleeve

Hey don't let it go to waste
I love it but I hate the taste
Weight keep pinning me down

Hey don't let it go to waste
I love it but I hate the taste
Weight keep pinning me down

Will I find a believer
Another one who believes
Another one to deceive
Over and over down on my knees
If I get any closer
And if you open up wide
And if you let me inside
On and on I got nothing to hide
On and on I got nothing to hide

Hey don't let it go to waste
I love it but I hate the taste
Weight keep pinning me down

Hey don't let it go to waste
I love it but I hate the taste
Weight keep pinning me down

All my life I've been searching for something
~ Foo Fighters