Deception Quotes

Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues. ~ Thomas Hobbes

How deaf and stupid have I been!" he thought, walking swiftly along.
"When someone reads a text, wants to discover its meaning, he will not
scorn the symbols and letters and call them deceptions, coincidence, and
worthless hull, but he will read them, he will study and love them, letter
by letter. But I, who wanted to read the book of the world and the book
of my own being, I have, for the sake of a meaning I had anticipated be-fore I read, scorned the symbols and letters, I called the visible world a
deception, called my eyes and my tongue coincidental and worthless
forms without substance. No, this is over, I have awakened, I have in-deed awakened and have not been born before this very day. ~ Hermann Hesse

The spirit of deception, you see," Father Maximos explained, "has egotism and pride as its primary attribute. ~ Kyriacos C. Markides

It is not brains or intelligence that is needed to cope with the problems with Plato and Aristotle and all of their successors to the present have failed to confront. What is needed is a readiness to undervalue the world altogether. This is only possible for a Christian ... All technologies and all cultures, ancient and modern, are part of our immediate expanse. There is hope in this diversity since it creates vast new possibilities of detachment and amusement at human gullibility and self-deception. There is no harm in reminding ourselves from time to time that the "Prince of this World" is a great P.R. man, a great salesman of new hardware and software, a great electric engineer, and a great master of the media. It is his master stroke to be not only environmental but invisible for the environmental is invincibly persuasive when ignored. ~ Marshall McLuhan

Faulty mindset reveals a great deception regarding the destiny of every believer ~ Sunday Adelaja

She had come into the garden expecting summer roses and had instead been caught in a bank of twisted, thorny, frostbitten vines. ~ Nenia Campbell

We do not have to do with others as "they really are" but with our idea of them.
This means that the experience of loss occurs both when we really lose someone and when this someone, for whatever reason, no longer corresponds to the idea we had of him.
It is an inner grief just as strong and from which we often defend ourselves, as long as we can, through denial.
Denial ends when the energy needed to deny becomes superior to what it takes to process the loss and move on. ~ Luigina Sgarro

The power of self deception is great in the case of all men, but I incline to think that it is greatest in the case of a popular official such as a Bishop, who never hears anything but his own voice, and the syncophantic acclamations which it evokes. ~ Herbert Hensley Henson

Governments are based pincipally on force and deception. Democratic governments are based chiefly on deception, other governments on force. And democratic governments, if you get too uppity, give up on the deception and resort to brute force, as a lot of us found out in the sixites. Those who didn't find out in the sixites will find out in the near future because we're going to have a rerun. ~ Robert Anton Wilson

Lives begun in deception are always lived in shadow. (Stated by Yellowfang, page 3) ~ Erin Hunter

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

If people are innately saddled with certain sins and flaws, like selfishness, prejudice, sort-sightedness, and self-deception, then political reform would seem to be a waste of time. ~ Steven Pinker

To know how to disguise is the knowledge of kings. ~ Cardinal Richelieu

By contrast, the late-modern and post-modern self has in essence no essence. To this fragmented, fluid and compartmentalized self, denial, far from being an aberration, is only to be expected. This, however, is not just a change in world-views. Freud himself was quite clear that the unitary self of even the healthiest, 'integrated' person was permanently under siege. The self could never be fully socialized; denial and self-deception are part of being human. ~ Stanley Cohen

It wasn't a deception: all lovers live on partial knowledge. ~ Teju Cole

When you meet triumph or disaster, treat these imposters alike. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

He was right. I knew the score. He'd never pretended it was other than it was
whatever the hell that was.
I'd never kidded myself there was any chance for us. Well, not often anyway.
I guess my mistake had been in believing he was too smart and too honest not to eventually realize ...
Not his feelings for me
because I didn't think what he felt for me was that significant
but his own true nature. How could he deny what he was? How could he choose to live such a profound and cancerous deception? ~ Josh Lanyon

If B follows A, then B is not necessarily a cause of A. ~ Steven Novella

It's always the 'others' who are deceived. ~ Marty Rubin

A marriage based on full confidence, based on complete and unqualified frankness on both sides; they are not keeping anything back; there's no deception underneath it all. If I might so put it, it's an agreement for the mutual forgiveness of sin. ~ Henrik Ibsen

There is something distinctly odd about the argument, however. Believing is not something you can decide to do as a matter of policy. At least, it is not something I can decide to do as an act of will. I can decide to go to church and I can decide to recite the Nicene Creed, and I can decide to swear on a stack of bibles that I believe every word inside them. But none of that can make me actually believe it if I don't. Pascal's Wager could only ever be an argument for feigning belief in God. And the God that you claim to believe in had better not be of the omniscient kind or he'd see through the deception. ~ Richard Dawkins

Unfortunately, most Christians do not understand the battle they are fighting, the enemy that they face, or the means God has provided to overcome the temptations and deception of this present world system. ~ Chip Ingram

It is probable that the
most inhuman monsters, even the Himmlers and the Mengeles, convince themselves that they are
engaged in noble and courageous acts. ~ Noam Chomsky

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

His mentality was dressed up as a moral code, but when naked, was simply a preference. ~ J.S. Mason

It was fascinating, how people could be so reluctant to recognize blackmail, how eager they could be to convince themselves it was something else, even something fundamentally mutually cooperative. And sometimes it seemed the more powerful the individual, the greater the capacity for self-deception. He ~ Barry Eisler

To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them ratified. ~ William James

All warfare is based on deception. For years, the West hypocrisy has made the world a battlefield. The corrupt talk while our brothers and sons spill their own blood. But deceit cuts both ways. The bigger the lie, the more likely people will believe it, and when a nation cries for vengeance, the lie spreads like a wildfire. The fire builds, devouring everything in its path. Our enemies believe that they alone dictate the course of history, and all it takes is the will of a single man. ~ Vladimer Makarov

You have but little more to do than throw up your cap for entertainment these American days ... Farmers' sons will stare by the hour to see a juggler draw ribbons from his throat, though he tells them it is all deception. Surely, men love darkness rather than light. ~ Henry David Thoreau

The realization is disconcerting because it suggests that in a given disagreement, the other guy might have a point, we may not be as pure as we think, the two sides will come to blows each convinced that it is in the right, and no one will think the better of it because everyone's self-deception is invisible to them. For ~ Steven Pinker

How do you know? How best to ensure his nervous breakdown?" I ask.
"Keep going," Christian says. "Just go on as if nothing has happened. We all hate that. ~ Suzanne Finnamore

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

The problem with politicians is they tell people what they wish to hear instead of what they need to know. ~ C.A.A. Savastano

We must not promise what we ought not, lest we be called on to perform what we cannot. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Euphemisms, like fashions, have their day and pass, perhaps to return at another time. Like the guests at a masquerade ball, they enjoy social approval only so long as they retain the capacity for deception. ~ Freda Adler

You just sit there and tolerate it, the same way everything in this country is tolerated. Every deception, every lie, every bullet in the brains. Just as you are already tolerating bullets in the brains that will be implemented only after the bullet is put in your brains. ~ Imre Kertesz

The picture of the world that's presented to the public has only the remotest relation to reality. The truth of the matter is buried under edifice after edifice of lies upon lies. It's all been a marvellous success from the point of view in deterring the threat of democracy, achieved under conditions of freedom, which is extremely interesting. ~ Noam Chomsky

When you love someone, you can't lie to them. It hurts to much. It's a deception that goes too deep. ~ Abbi Glines

Every culture that's ever existed has operated under the illusion that it understood 95% of reality and that the other 5% would be delivered in the next 18 months, and from Egypt forward they've been running around believing they had a perfect grip on things and yet we look back at every society that preceded us with great smugness at how naive they all were. Well, it never occurs to us, then, that maybe we're whistling in the dark too! That the universe is stranger than you CAN suppose, and that that openness that that perception imparts is a great joy, a great blessing, because then you can live your life not in service to some fascistic metaphor but in service to the living mystery: the fact that you're not going to understand it; it is not going to yield to logic; or magic; or any other technique that's been developed ... ~ Terence McKenna

Talking to her is like coming home and finding the furniture in every room rearranged. The same pieces are there, the same sense of comfort, but nothing is exactly the where you'd expect. ~ C.J. Redwine

Lucifer is a master at gradual deception. ~ Joseph B. Wirthlin

The American people, Neil, are sick and tired of excuses. They are sick and tired of the blame game. And they're sick and tired of the deception coming from this president and this administration. This is why I believe that I am doing so well in the polls. ~ Herman Cain

We may convince ourselves that something is true, but that doesn't make it true. ~ Petros Scientia

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

Make an effort with tenacity to make real impact that works and don't just create an impression with deception ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Those who engage in deception generally have nothing good to offer; Satan has nothing good to offer humanity. John 8:44 ~ Felix Wantang

No man engaged in a work he does not like can preserve many saving illusions
about himself. The distaste, the absence of glamour, extend from the occupation to the personality. It is only when our
appointed activities seem by a lucky accident to obey the particular earnestness of our temperament that we can taste the comfort of complete self-deception. ~ Joseph Conrad

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

The killing fields of Chicago, of Baltimore, of Detroit, were created by the policy of Dreamers, but their weight, their shame, rests solely upon those who are dying in them. There is a great deception in this. To yell "black-on-black crime" is to shoot a man and then shame him for bleeding. And the premise that allows for these killing fields - the reduction of the black body - is no different than the premise that allowed for the murder of Prince Jones. The Dream of acting white, of talking white, of being white, murdered Prince Jones as sure as it murders black people in Chicago with frightening regularity. Do not accept the lie. Do not drink from poison. The same hands that drew red lines around the life of Prince Jones drew red lines around the ghetto. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

I liked the idea of a person shedding their life, and someone else putting it on.
-Oliver Harris on writing The Hollow Man for Crime Time online magazine ~ Oliver Harris

It is better to not believe a truth than to believe a lie, because this defines yourself too. If you believe a lie that has negative effects, it shows you may have malicious intentions. But if you don't believe a truth that has negative effects, then you may be well-disposed. ~ Maria Karvouni

The areas in which we felt most insecure, unsafe, unloved, uncomfortable, embarrassed, angry, and generally unresolved as a child are the areas that we will be most prone to self-deception as an adult. ~ Cortney S. Warren

She and I are as far apart as the stars in the sky and the soles of my feet." Detective Sean Ryan ~Deception on Sable Hill by Shelley Gray ~ Shelley Gray

Except for a handful, chess players don't have such illusions. The game has a severe analytic quality that makes self-deception difficult. Unlike the undiscovered poet who, despite the harsh criticism of his peers, lives on his fantasies for the day that he will be recognized as the next Dylan Thomas, even a young chess player can usually gauge his talent. When Josh was six, he played several games against a pudgy thirteen-year-old who was the top player on his high school team. He beat Josh every time, but a couple of the games were close, and afterwards the boy seemed gloomy about his performance. He explained that if he didn't make significant improvement during the next year, he would wind up as just another wood-pusher. Despite his celebrity in school, he seemed to know that he didn't have it. While ~ Fred Waitzkin

Don't trust anything, motivations vary. ~ Maria Karvouni

It is important to realize that a person with the gift of discernment can often tell the difference between what is of God and what is not. Such a person can often point out false teachings or false teachers - he has an almost uncanny ability to perceive
hypocrisy, shallowness, deceit, or phoniness. ~ Billy Graham

Help, Lord, for no one is faithful anymore; those who are loyal have vanished from the human race. Everyone lies to their neighbor; they flatter with their lips but harbor deception in their hearts. ~ Anonymous

The weak will try to convince you that weakness is strength. ~ Wayne Gerard Trotman

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

The saying 'flattery gets you everywhere' appalls me. If you're going to pay someone a compliment make sure it's 100% genuine or not at all.-Flattery is deception and who wants to be lied to? ~ Miya Yamanouchi

If ... deceit is fundamental to animal communication, then there must be strong selection to spot deception and this ought, in turn, to select for a degree of self-deception, rendering some facts and motives unconscious so as not to betray - by the subtle signs of self-knowledge - the deception being practiced.' Thus, 'the conventional view that natural selection favors nervous systems which produce ever more accurate images of the world must be a very naive view of mental evolution. ~ Robert Trivers

In our day, deception becomes all the easier to arrange because so many Christians are no longer greatly shaped by Scripture. It is difficult to unmask subtle error when it aligns with the culture, deploys spiritual God-talk, piously cites a passage or two, and "works. ~ D. A. Carson

To the man of science, on his unassuming and laborious travels, which must often enough be journeys through the desert, there appear those glittering mirages called 'philosophical systems'; with bewitching deceptive power they show the solution of all enigmas and the freshest draught of the true water of life to be near at hand; his heart rejoices, and it seems to the weary traveller that his lips already touch the goal of all the perseverance and sorrows of the scientific life... Other natures again, may well grow exceedingly ill-humoured and curse the salty taste which these apparitions leave behind in the mouth and from which arises a raging thirst – without one having been brought so much as a step nearer to any kind of spring. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The liar's punishment is, not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else. ~ George Bernard Shaw

More dangers have deceived men than forced them. ~ Francis Bacon

Two chimpanzees were observed maltreating a chicken: One would extend some food to the fowl, encouraging it to approach; whereupon the other would thrust at it with a piece of wire it had concealed behind its back. The chicken would retreat but soon allow itself to approach once again
and be beaten once again. Here is a fine combination of behavior sometimes thought to be uniquely human: cooperation, planning a future course of action, deception and cruelty. ~ Carl Sagan

I think that there is an ongoing conspiracy in the philosophical community, an organized form of self-deception, as in a cult, to simply all together pretend that we knew what "first-person perspective" (or "quale" or "consciousness") means, so that we can keep our traditional debates running on forever. ~ Thomas Metzinger

The devil's finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist. ~ Charles Baudelaire

We consume far too many animal products, processed and refined foods, saturated fats, and empty calories. Industries that profit from both our ignorance and our misfortune spoon-feed us confusion and deception. ~ Kris Carr

Far too often, the best thing I can have in my hand when someone makes a promise is a really big broom so that I can sweep up the broken pieces. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

To repeat: we can tolerate existence only if we believe - in accord with a complex of
illusions, a legerdemain of impenetrable deception - that we are not what we are. We are creatures with consciousness, but we must suppress that consciousness lest it break us with a sense of being in a universe without direction or foundation. In plain language, we cannot live with ourselves except as impostors. ~ Thomas Ligotti

I was aware of the self-deception, but man will do anything to live with himself. ~ Blake Crouch

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

As a grandiose self-deception, war is o' the same magnitude as religion. We embrace war or religion - usually both at the same time - as a means o' defeatin' death, but neither o' them do a blinkin' thing but sanction dyin'. Throughout history, Death's best friend has been a priest with a knife. ~ Tom Robbins

Sylph and Jodi return to my side, each carrying a cloth sack full of chickweed. I wrap my arm around Sylph's waist and give her a quick squeeze. "Lesson's over for today. I have something to discuss with Logan."
"Sounds serious." Jodi wiggles her brows at me.
"I think that's just Rachel for 'I need to go kiss my boy.'" Sylph laughs when I glare at her. ~ C.J. Redwine

The self-deception of slave owners and proponents of slavery is well documented by the historians Eugene Genovese and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese in their book Fatal Self-Deception: Slaveholding Paternalism in the Old South. Slavery was not perceived by most slaveholders in the nineteenth century to be an exploitation of humans by other humans for economic gain; instead, slaveholders painted a portrait of slavery as a paternalistic and benign institution in which the slaves themselves were seen as not so different from all laborers - black and white - who toiled everywhere in both free and slave states; further, the South's "Christian slavery" was claimed to be superior. ~ Michael Shermer

In football, side netting can sometimes look like a real goal and it can make spectators jubilate for a moment, and then ponder! So is life! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Deceit comes in through the ears, but usually leaves through the eyes. ~ Baltasar Gracian

Lyndon Johnson was a master of self-justification. According to his biographer Robert Caro, when Johnson came to believe in something, he would believe in it "totally, with absolute conviction, regardless of previous beliefs, or of the facts in the matter." George Reedy, one of Johnson's aides, said that he "had a remarkable capacity to convince himself that he held the principles he should hold at any given time, and there was something charming about the air of injured innocence with which he would treat anyone who brought forth evidence that he had held other views in the past. It was not an act… He had a fantastic capacity to persuade himself that the 'truth' which was convenient for the present was the truth and anything that conflicted with it was the prevarication of enemies. He literally willed what was in his mind to become reality." Although Johnson's supporters found this to be a rather charming aspect of the man's character, it might well have been one of the major reasons that Johnson could not extricate the country from the quagmire of Vietnam. A president who justifies his actions only to the public might be induced to change them. A president who has justified his actions to himself, believing that he has the truth, becomes impervious to self-correction. ~ Carol Tavris, Elliot Aronson

I am not good at deception,' said Tuesday gloomily, flushing.
Right, my boy, right,' said the President with a ponderous heartiness, 'You aren't good at anything. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Confronting a liar makes a better liar. ~ Wayne Gerard Trotman

The Soul Toupee is that thing about ourselves we are most deeply embarrassed by and like to think we have cunningly concealed from the world, but which is, in fact, pitifully obvious to everybody who knows us. ~ Tim Kreider

..deceivers must expect to be deceived. ~ Michael Frayn

Dear 2600: I think my girlfriend has been cheating on me and I wanted to know if I could get her password to Hotmail and AOL. I am so desperate to find out. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
And this is yet another popular category of letter we get. You say any help would be appreciated? Let's find out if thats true. Do you think someone who is cheating on you might also be capable of having a mailbox you don't know about? Do you think that even if you could get into the mailbox she uses that she would be discussing her deception there, especially if we live in a world where Hotmail and AOL passwords are so easily obtained? Finally, would you feel better if you invaded her privacy and found out that she was being totally honest with you? Whatever problems are going on in this relationship are not going to be solved with subterfuge. If you can't communicate openly, there's not much there to salvage. ~ Emmanuel Goldstein

Anything someone gets conned into will never be that great. ~ Roberto Hogue

If you want to convey fact, this can only ever be done through a form of distortion. You must distort to transform what is called appearance into image. ~ Francis Bacon

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

She felt safe for a while and derived solace from the reflection that there would always be church. If she were a governess all her life there would be church. There was a little sting of guilt in the thought. It would be practising deception.... To despise it all, to hate the minister and the choir and the congregation and yet to come - running - she could imagine herself all her life running, at least in her mind, weekly to some church - working her fingers into their gloves and pretending to take everything for granted and to be just like everybody else and really thinking only of getting into a quiet pew and ceasing to pretend. It was wrong to use church like that. She was wrong - all wrong. It couldn't be helped. Who was there who could help her? She imagined herself going to a clergyman and saying she was bad and wanted to be good - even crying. He would be kind and would pray and smile - and she would be told to listen to sermons in the right spirit. She could never do that.... There she felt she was on solid ground. Listening to sermons was wrong... people ought to refuse to be preached at by these men. Trying to listen to them made her more furious than anything she could think of, more base in submitting... those men's sermons were worse than women's smiles... just as insincere at any rate... and you could get away from the smiles, make it plain you did not agree and that things were not simple and settled... but you could not stop a sermon. It was so unfair. The se ~ Dorothy M. Richardson

Restrain an inordinate desire for knowledge, in which is found much anxiety and deception. Learned men always wish to appear so, and desire recognition of their wisdom. But there are many matters, knowledge of which brings little or no advantage to the soul. ~ Thomas A Kempis

Street law dictated that for a parley of this kind each lieutenant be seconded by two of his foot soldiers and that they all be unarmed. Parley. The word felt like a deception - strangely prim, an antique. No matter what street law decreed, this night smelled like violence. ~ Leigh Bardugo

People are always talking about it being their duty to find their way to their fellow men - to their neighbour, as they are forever saying with all the baseness of false sentiment - when in fact it is purely and simply a question of finding their way to themselves. Let each first find his way to himself! And since hardly anyone has yet found his way to himself, it is inconceivable that any of these unfortunate millions has ever found his way to another human being - or to his neighbour, as they say, dripping with self-deception. ~ Thomas Bernhard

Charlie had always been a sucker for this part ... the first days. The days when you let yourself believe the lies ... Not just that there's someone who truly sees you ... truly understands you ... to your soul ... but that you even want them to. That's the sweetest lie, the one you tell yourself. ~ Ed Brubaker

It is the camp law: people going to their death must be deceived to the very end. ~ Tadeusz Borowski

For some, life may be a playground to undermine the brainwaves of others or simply a vainglorious game with an armory of theatrics, illustrating only bleak self-deception, haughty narcissism and dim deficiency in empathy. ("Another empty room") ~ Erik Pevernagie

But first let me mention the second aid to understanding provided by science. We know today that in a physical experiment the observer himself enters into the experiment and only by doing so can arrive at a physical experience. This means that there is no such thing as pure objectivity in in physics, that even here the result of the experiment, nature's answer, depends on the question put to it. In the answer there is always a bit of the question and a bit of the questioner himself; it reflects not only nature in itself, in its pure objectivity, but also gives back something of man, of what is characteristically ours, a bit of the human subject. This too, mutatis mutandis, is true of the question of God. There is no such thing as a mere observer. There is no such thing as pure objectivity. One can even say that the higher an object stands in human terms, the more it generates the center of individuality; and the more it engages the beholder's individuality, then the smaller the possibility of the mere distancing involved in pure objectivity. Thus, whenever an answer is presented as unemotionally objective, as a statement that finally goes beyond the prejudices of the pious and provides purely factual, scientific information, then it has to be said that the speaker has here fallen victim to self-deception. This kind of objectivity is quite simply denied to man. He cannot ask and exist as a mere observer. He who tries to be a mere observer experiences nothing. Even the reality ~ Benedict XVI

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

Strange how things turn out. Two birds, one stone and all that.' McBlane chuckled at his own impromptu joke. 'But things have worked out for the best and now we all get to work together,' he said, and a smile spread across his face as easy as a politician's lie. ~ R.D. Ronald

Beauty is a mute deception. ~ Theophrastus

A man does not marry a girl, nor a woman. He marries a promise, and it shines with a bright purity that is ageless. It shines, in other words, with the glory of lies. The deception is self inflicted. The promise was simple in its form, as befitted the thick-headedness of young men, and in its essence it offered the delusion that the present moment was eternal; that nothing would change; not the fires of desire, not the flesh itself, not the intense look in the eye. ~ Steven Erikson

There is no greater shackle than self-deception. A man who denies his heart, either through fear of personal consequence - whether regarding physical jeopardy, or self-doubt, or simply of being ostracized - is not free. To go against your values and tenets, against that which you know is right and true, creates a prison stronger than adamantine bars and thick stone walls. ~ R.A. Salvatore