Deceptions Quotes

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

One of Satan's most frequently used deceptions is the notion that the commandments of God are meant to restrict freedom and limit happiness. ~ Ezra Taft Benson

Envelope me oh Lord envelope me
From the storms of life envelope me
That I may see your light as you envelope me
Through the thick and thin of life I beseech

Envelope me oh Lord, envelope me!


With thy cloud of glory, envelope me
In thy showers of fountain, envelope me!
Far from all evil I beseech that you shall envelope me
In thy abundant grace oh Lord, envelope me


Envelope me oh Lord, envelope me!


Envelope me oh Lord, envelope me
In the envelope of thy strong might
That my life shall be right in thy sight
Alluring deceptions I meet every time

Envelope me oh Lord, envelope me!


Up and down life goes; riches that take my time
In sorrow do l grow cold; joy that overtake my mind
Uncertainties of life that meet mankind
Before thy throne I beseech insight of all kind
That I may understand life composed of things of different kind


Envelope me oh lord, envelope me! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

I do know this much though: If a man resorts to wiles, guile and petty deceptions, it means he's nowhere near being in love. ~ Orhan Pamuk

There were many paths that led up into those mountains, and many passes over them. But most of the paths were cheats and deceptions and led nowhere or to bad ends; and most of the passes were infested by evil things and dreadful dangers. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

We are the result of our decisions, everyday we deal with its consequences. Actions without thinking creates a world of deceptions and humiliations. When you make a wrong move, your experiences becomes your punishment. With prudence you must consider both sides when deciding, your fear or your foolish overconfidence will tell you to go left or to go right, but to decide see what's in the middle and considere it, do not rush, it will demonstrates your capability. Remeber always, there is balance in everything. ~ Natasha Helvin

And we all nodded at him: the man of finance, the man of accounts, the man of law, we all nodded at him over the polished table that like a still sheet of brown water reflected our faces, lined, wrinkled; our faces marked by toil, by deceptions, by success, by love; our weary eyes looking still, looking always, looking anxiously for something out of life, that while it is expected is already gone – has passed unseen, in a sigh, in a flash – together with the youth, with the strength, with the romance of illusions. ~ Joseph Conrad

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

Deceptions and lies reign in a country where focus is on messages of miracles and wonders ~ Sunday Adelaja

Only to say that the myths survive when everything else has been forgotten. And that sometimes the myths, for all their slippery deceptions, tell us more about the past than ruined walls and broken pots. ~ Tom Harper

The worst of all deceptions is self-deception. ~ Plato

Today I trust me. I trust in my perceptions. Today I will live my own truth that glows within, a life of no deceptions. ~ Patricia Robin Woodruff

Man can try to name love, showering upon it all the names at his command, and still he will involve himself in endless self deceptions. If he possesses a grain of wisdom he will lay down his arms and name the unknown by the more unknown - ignotum per ignotius - that is by the name of God. ~ Carl Jung

It's not unfortunate that people aren't genuine; what's unfortunate is that insincere people try to act sincere and in doing so, mislead and deceive the other. I would rather meet a person who is not amiable and who does not feel any burden to act amiable towards me, than to have the misfortune of knowing people who feel like they need to be gracious and compassionate so they will appear to be good people, whilst possessing none of those qualities within themselves! It's the latter that causes the pain in life. And that's another reason why I don't believe in religion; I have observed that religion tells people that it is highly prized a quality to act kind and compassionate and so on and so forth, but some people just do not have these innate qualities within them! We get deceived, and I'd rather not be deceived! I'd rather be able to see a person for who he/she is and not judge a brute for being a brute, but avoid the brute who carries the burden of acting like a wonderful one! ~ C. JoyBell C.

Fake it may be, lies and deceptions, but this is the world in which we find ourselves, and here we must make our little lives. ~ Ian McDonald

It's the little deceptions that no one catches that are going to dissolve it all someday. We'll look at clocks and we won't believe the hands. They'll forecast sun but we'll pack our slickers anyway. ~ Walter Kirn

For every man there are certain words that are as if closer and more intimate to him than any others. And often, unexpectedly, in some remote, forsaken backwater, some deserted desert, one meets a man whose warming conversation makes you forget the pathlessness of your paths, the homelessness of your nights, and the contemporary world full of people's stupidity, of deceptions for deceiving man. Forever and always an evening spent in this way will vividly remain with you, and all that was and that took place then will be retained by the faithful memory: who was there, and who stood where, and what he was holding
the walls, the corners, and every trifle. ~ Nikolai Gogol

The two biggest self-deceptions of all are that life has a 'meaning'and each of us is unique. ~ David Byrne

..that all-seeing eye which reads the heart, could not fail to discriminate between the living and the dead, and the gentle soul of the unfortunate girl was already far removed beyond the errors, or deceptions, of any human ritual. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

Dada aimed to destroy the reasonable deceptions of man and recover the natural and unreasonable order. ~ Hans Arp

Congratulations on surviving life up to this point. All the trials, heartaches, deceptions, sorrows and anxieties...You've come through all the adversity and are still here to tell the tale! you are quite simply, brilliant! ~ Karen Gibbs

One of the great self-deceptions
and one of the great foolishnesses
is to tell yourself, Only I will know. Only you will know that you are a liar; only you will know you deal unethically with people who trust you; only you will know you have no intention of honoring your promise. Whose knowledge or judgment do you imagine is more important? It is precisely your own ego from which there is no escape. ~ Nathaniel Branden

You will leave her alone," Gabriel said. "One way or another."
"That sounds like a death threat, Walsh."
"Then you lack imagination. ~ Kelley Armstrong

Teachers, let me tell you, are born deceivers of the lowest sort, since what they want from life is impossible - time-freed, existential youth forever. It commits them to terrible deceptions and departures from the truth. And literature, being lasting, is their ticket. ~ Richard Ford

Ruthven surmised that he had hit upon some of the central deceptions which had wrecked him and reduced him and so many of his colleagues to this condition. To surmise was not to conquer, of course; he was as helpless as ever but there was a dim liberation in seeing how he had been lied to, and he felt that at least he could take one thing from the terrible years through which he had come: he was free of self-delusion. ~ Barry N. Malzberg

A perfume is a perfume because of the fragrance it produces ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

In war, bullets; in love, deceptions kill us. ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

We can reframe and recast our lives -- not with lies, not with deceptions, but with the truth of who we are and of who we are choosing to become. ~ Sandra Marinella

In order to reach your destination, you first need to face thousands of deceptions. But it's worth it, because each grey cloud, each tear, each sweat are ingredients to get you there. ~ Efrat Cybulkiewicz

To notice people's deceptions yet not reveal it in words, to bear people's insults without showing any change of attitude-there is endless meaning in this, and also endless function. ~ Zicheng Hong

The greatest revelation any believer can have is coming in a revelatory understanding of the cross of Christ. One of the greatest deceptions in the movement today is teaching central to needs of people instead of preaching the Cross, the blood and the power of walking out the way of the cross. It is by the cross of Christ that sets the captive free, heals the sick, and saves the lost. The Necessity of the Cross Living in the reality of the Cross is mandatory. ~ Peter Vandever

We are the children of death and it is death that rescues us from the deceptions of life. ~ Sadegh Hedayat

Men are tested and tried amongst deceptions radically and they are winning for themselves abilities to give, to deliberate, to stand fast, to choose well, to discriminate."
"They are far from the 'automata' of the Universe some think them to be. They dance the starry path and are sharpening their knowledge with every orbit of each positive thought travelled. ~ Gabriel Brunsdon

Disillusionment means having no more misconceptions, false impressions, and false judgments in life; it means being free from these deceptions. Refusing to be disillusioned is the cause of much of the suffering of human life. ~ Oswald Chambers

Seeing everything that goes on in your daily life, your daily activities - when you pick up a pen, when you talk, when you go out for a drive or when you are walking alone in the woods - can you with one breath, with one look, know yourself very simply as you are? When you know yourself as you are, then you understand the whole structure of man's endeavour, his deceptions, his hypocrisies, his search. To do this you must be tremendously honest with yourself throughout your being. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

The activity of a commander-in-chief does not at all resemble the activity we imagine to ourselves when we sit at ease in our studies examining some campaign on the map, with a certain number of troops on this and that side in a certain known locality, and begin our plans from some given moment. A commander-in-chief is never dealing with the beginning of any event - the position from which we always contemplate it. The commander-in-chief is always in the midst of a series of shifting events and so he never can at any moment consider the whole import of an event that is occurring. Moment by moment the event is imperceptibly shaping itself, and at every moment of this continuous, uninterrupted shaping of events the commander-in-chief is in the midst of a most complex play of intrigues, worries, contingencies, authorities, projects, counsels, threats, and deceptions and is continually obliged to reply to innumerable questions addressed to him, which constantly conflict with one another. ~ Leo Tolstoy

A value debased and an illusion unmasked have the same pitiful shell. ~ Milan Kundera

Above all, political discussion is stunned by a delusion about science. This term has come to mean an institutional enterprise rather than a personal activity, the solving of puzzles rather than the unpredictably creative activity of individual people. Science is now used to label a spectral production agency which turns out better knowledge just as medicine produces better health. The damage done by this misunderstanding about the nature of knowledge is even more fundamental than the damage done to the conceptions of health, education, or mobility by their identification with institutional outputs. False expectations
of better health corrupt society, but they do so in only one particular sense. They foster a declining concern with healthful environments, healthy life styles, and competence in the personal care of one's neighbor. Deceptions about health are circumstantial. The institutionalization of knowledge leads to a more general and degrading delusion. It makes people
dependent on having their knowledge produced for them. It leads to a paralysis of the moral and political imagination. ~ Ivan Illich

God knows we are subtle creatures who are more than able to use candour to avoid acknowledging our deceptions of others and ourselves. ~ Stanley Hauerwas

[S]in in popular Christianity is often understood individualistically, obscuring the reality of "social sin." An emphasis upon sin most often leads to introspection about what I have done wrong. Of course, such introspection can be helpful, but it clouds the fact that much of human suffering and misery is not because of our individual sins, but because of collective sin. For example, when it is emphasized that Jesus "died for our sins" (and thus for your sins and my sins), our sins are seen as responsible for Jesus' death.

But it wasn't individual sins that caused Jesus' death. He wasn't killed because of the impure thoughts of adolescents or our everyday deceptions or our selfishness. The point is not that these don't matter. The point, rather, is that these were not what caused Jesus' death. Rather, Jesus was killed because of what might be called "social sin," namely, the domination system of his day. The common individualistic understanding of sin typically domesticates the political passion of the Bible and Jesus. ~ Marcus J. Borg

If the gift of God is for personal use and gain, God would have used it personally ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Because if one has an image, however dim and romantic, of a journey's end, one may, in the end, surely reach it, after no matter how many detours and deceptions and abandonings of hope. And hope could never have been entirely abandoned, even in the worst days. ~ Margaret Drabble

It is sometimes useful to pretend we are deceived, because when we show a deceiving man that we see through his artifices, we only encourage him to increase his deceptions. ~ Madeleine De Souvre, Marquise De ...

When you find your way you cannot be scared. You need to be brave enough to take wrong steps. The deceptions, failures, lack of enthusiasm, are tools that God places in our way to reveal the path. ~ Paulo Coelho

do not fear the tanker but the fuel that is in the tanker ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

It is one of the dangerous self-deceptions of our society to pretend that mechanisms of control do not really exist, and to maintain, without qualification, that we are an economically "free" people. ~ Robert Heilbroner

I've never known a musician who regretted being one. Whatever deceptions life may have in store for you, music itself is not going to let you down. ~ Virgil Thomson

I don't know what game you and geek boy are playing, Gautier. But you get in my way as I leave and I'll wipe my boots on your balls. (Brett)
Before he realized what was happening, Simi had taken Brett's hand and squeezed it so hard Nick heard the bones break.)
Nick is a friend of the Simi's. You threaten him and you make the Simi really unhappy and want to eat your head. Trust me, not something you want me to think about. Now go away mean person or the Simi will tell akri she don't know what happened to you and your masticated form. Not that I like to lie, but there are deceptions to every rule. And you're about to become one. Now get in there and be quiet. (Simi) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Deceptions are more frequent than changes ~ Franz Kafka

Within our working lives, and perhaps even amongst friends, we see deceptions played out before our eyes: people who pretend to be happy when they are aching with sadness, or to like each other when they feel nothing but contempt. Perhaps these are actions of self-preservation, driven by a will to hide our pain from a wider audience. Within a relationship, though, pretence is indeed both unreasonable and illogical. Admit to being the person you really are. Never play that deadly game of charades. ~ Rachel Abbott

The universe is an emanation of mind. As human consciousness evolves in an accelerated spiral, we are being compelled to realize that our minds are manifesting reality to an ever-increasing extent- our collective shadow-projections of wasteful technologies, wars, and weaponry reflect subtler interior regions of our psyche and the discordant deceptions in our intimate relationships. If this interpretation is valid, it forces upon us a concomitant responsibility, a grave burden. ~ Daniel Pinchbeck

He was full of ironical admiration of his childishness and innocence in letting a wandering and characterless and scandalous American load him up with deceptions of so transparent a character that they ought not to have deceived the housecat. On the other hand, he was remorselessly severe upon me for beguiling him, by studied and discreditable artifice, into bragging and boasting about his poor game in the presence of a professional expert disguised in lies and frauds, who could empty more balls in billiard pockets in an hour than he could empty into a basket in a day. ~ Mark Twain

What they want seems so simple-time together, a lifetime together, or what is left of a lifetime together-and yet that small goal, he knows, is fraught with endless complications: a maze of responsibilities and commitments, deceptions and betrayals. Why, why, why he asks himself silently for the hundredth time, couldn't they have remained somehow connected-in touch , with all that phrase implies-until they were old enough to find each other again? ~ Anita Shreve

Of what use was memory anyway than as a template for one's most reassuring self-deceptions! ~ Ashim Shanker

It is within your power to see that all you have experienced, trials, errors, faults, deceptions, passions, your love and your hope, shall be merged wholly in your aim. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The most dire of all of life's grueling deceptions wedge themselves in in our minds between truth and perceptions. ~ Wes Fesler

Thereby men do not flee from being deceived as much as from being damaged by deception: what they hate at this stage is basically not the deception but the bad, hostile consequences of certain kinds of deceptions. In a similarly limited way man wants the truth: he desires the agreeable life-preserving consequences of truth, but he is indifferent to pure knowledge, which has no consequences; he is even hostile to possibly damaging and destructive truths. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

There is a hierarchy of deceptions. Near the bottom of the ladder is journalism: a steady stream of irresponsible distortions that most people find refreshing although on the morning after, or at least within a week, it will be stale and flat. ~ Martin Buber

He had long observed with disapprobation and contempt the superstition which governed Madrid's inhabitants. His good sense had pointed out to him the artifices of the monks, and the gross absurdity of their miracles, wonders, and suppositious relics. He blushed to see his countrymen, the dupes of deceptions, so ridiculous, and only wished for an opportunity to free them from their monkish fetters. That opportunity, so long desired in vain, was at length presented to him. He resolved not to let it slip, but to set before the people, in glaring colours, how enormous were the abuses but too frequently practised in monasteries, and how unjustly public esteem was bestowed indiscriminately upon all who wore a religious habit. He longed for the moment destined to unmask the hypocrites, and convince his countrymen, that a sanctified exterior does not always hide a virtuous heart. ~ Matthew Gregory Lewis

philosophers have noted that people who habitually deceive
finally fall for their own deceptions. This is the well-known
phenomenon that confidence artists appeal to the willingness of
their victims to deceive both themselves and others in one and
the same act: The victims are encouraged to deceive
themselves into thinking that they deceive only others while
ignoring their own greed and the immorality of the way they
choose to satisfy it. To this Russell added that the same holds
true for all self -deception: ~ Joseph Agassi

When virtuous mental attitudes, like mindfulness, respect, and compassion, are invoked to justify nonvirtuous acts like hunting, fishing, and eating animal products, the mental attitudes are insincere. They are self-deceptions that we create to justify habits that in our hearts we know are wrong, but to which we have become attached. ~ Norm Phelps

I had my battles, my deceptions, and my gardens of failure. ~ Jon Armstrong

The scholar who knowingly speaks, writes, or teaches falsehood, who knowingly supports lies and deceptions, not only violates organic principles. He also, no matter how things may seem at the given moment, does his people a grave disservice. He corrupts its air and soil, its food and drink; he poisons its thinking and its laws, and he gives aid and comfort to all the hostile, evil forces that threaten the nation with annihilation. ~ Hermann Hesse

This lack of coverage had been convenient for the US and other Western governments because it enabled them to play down the extent to which the "war on terror" had failed so catastrophically in the years since 9/11. This failure is also masked by deceptions and self-deceptions on the part of governments. ~ Patrick Cockburn

A lie has no power, until you believe it. ~ Shannon L. Alder

There are any number of reasons to want novels to survive. The way [Jonathan] Franzen thinks about it is that books can do things, socially useful things, that other media can't. He cites -- as one does -- the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard and his idea of busyness: that state of constant distraction that allows people to avoid difficult realities and maintain self-deceptions. With the help of cell phones, e-mail and handheld games, it's easier to stay busy, in the Kierkegaardian sense, than it's ever been.

Reading, in its quietness and sustained concentration, is the opposite of busyness. "We are so distracted by and engulfed by the technologies we've created, and by the constant barrage of so-called information that comes our way, that more than ever to immerse yourself in an involving book seems socially useful," Franzen says. "The place of stillness that you have to go to to write, but also to read seriously, is the point where you can actually make responsible decisions, where you can actually engage productively with an otherwise scary and unmanageable world. ~ Lev Grossman

He loved her for her wit, her cynicism, her deceptions. Less than lovable these seem to me now. They are both sly, Hugh and Margaret, they are socially awkward, easily embarrassed. But cold underneath, you may be sure, colder than us easy flirts with our charms and conquests. They do not reveal themselves. They will never admit to anything, never have to talk about anything, no, I could claw their skin and it would be my own fingers that would bleed. I could scream at them till my throat bursts and never alter their self-possession, change the look of their sly averted faces. Both blond, both easy blushers, both cold mockers. They have contempt for me. That is rubbish of course. Nothing for me. All for each other. Love. ~ Alice Munro

We live our lives hiding from the things that displease and discomfort us. We reinvent ourselves and our history, constantly placing things in a light most favorable to us. It is in the nature of mankind to do this. Mostly, our deceptions are small ones. But they gather weight through numbers, and having them revealed all at once can be crushing. As well, there are larger truths that, exposed, seem more than we can bear, and so we hide them most carefully. ~ Terry Brooks

Judgment consists not in seeing through deceptions and evil intentions, but in being able to awaken the decency dormant in every person. ~ Eric Hoffer

Faeries make up for their inability to lie with a panoply of deceptions and cruelties. Twisted words, pranks, omissions, riddles, scandals, not to mention their revenges upon one another for ancient, half-remembered slights. Storms are less fickle than they are, seas less capricious. ~ Holly Black

Art is a deception that creates real emotions - a lie that creates a truth. And when you give yourself over to that deception, it becomes magic. ~ Marco Tempest

How can any of us even know what to believe anymore? Our culture's full of so much phoniness and deception. Companies advertise products to make us believe that we will be more beautiful, more healthy, or live longer by consuming their products. We are seduced by lovers who feed their porn addictions when we're asleep. We're taught to believe that if we work hard and take risks, that we can achieve our dreams, yet youth unemployment is the highest it's been in decades. Fairytales tell us that true love exists, but half of all marriages end in divorce. ~ Shannon Mullen

Who can say what goes through the mind of a clapper in the moments before carrying out that evil deed? No doubt whatever those thoughts are, they are lies. However, like all dangerous deceptions, the lies that clappers tell themselves wear seductive disguises.

For clappers who have been led to believe their acts are smiled upon by God, their lie is clothed in holy robes and has outstretched arms promising a reward that will never come.

For clappers who believe their act will somehow bring about change in the world, their lie is disguised as a crowd looking back at them from the future, smiling in appreciation for what they've done.

For clappers who seek only to share their personal misery with the world, their lie is an image of themselves freed from their pain by witnessing the pain of others.

And for clappers who are driven by vengeance, their lie is a scale of justice, weighted evenly on both sides, finally in balance

It is only when a clapper brings his hands together that the lie reveals itself, abandoning the clapper in that final instant so that he exits this world utterly alone, without so much as a lie to accompany him into oblivion.

Or her. ~ Neal Shusterman

To the degree that the British right hand didn't know what the left was doing, it was because a select group of men at the highest reaches of its government went to great lengths to ensure it. To that end, they created a labyrinth of information firewalls - deceptions, in a less charitable assessment - to make sure that crucial knowledge was withheld from Britain's wartime allies and even from many of her own seniormost diplomats and military commanders. ~ Scott Anderson

The presence of death annihilates all superstitions. We are the children of death, and it is death that rescues us from the deceptions of life. In the midst of life he calls us and summons us to him. ~ Sadegh Hedayat

It is still difficult for many to believe that a deception of such magnitude is possible. Deceptions and false declarations have ben the standard in the politics of the powerful, and certainly are in Israel's policy toward the Palestinians from the start. ~ Tanya Reinhart

Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli

I walk away. I walk away from the voices, the shouts, the disappointment.
I walk away from my deceptions, my mistakes, my regrets. I walk away from all that I am supposed to be and all I cannot be. For all of it is a lie. ~ K.A. Tucker

The myth of true love is one of the greatest self-deceptions ever embraced by the female sex. It's right up there with the ridiculous notion that money can't buy happiness and size doesn't matter. ~ J.T. Geissinger

Each time the losses and deceptions of life teach us about impermanence, they bring us closer to the truth. When you fall from a great height, there is only one possible place to land: on the ground-the ground of truth. And if you have the understanding that comes from spiritual practice, then falling is in no way a disaster, but the discovery of an inner refuge. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche

I come from all places and to all places I go: I am art among the arts and mountain among mountains. I know the strange names of flowers and herbs and of fatal deceptions and magnificent griefs. In night's darkness I've seen raining down on my head pure flames, flashing rays of beauty divine. ~ Jose Marti

The monster likes to talk; he jumps into your head and opens your mouth, making it spout your deepest darkest deceptions. Making you say all the things you'd rather not say, at least not in mixed company. (Ellen Hopkins) ~ Ellen Hopkins

Only God's inspired truth can protect us against the deceptions of the enemy. ~ Bill Crowder

People enjoy the passion of delusions. However, the world is built on a basis that if you free yourself, you find yourself within another illusion. There is always a truth hidden within a truth. It is no different from illusions and deceptions of reality. The question then becomes
how does one become truly free? ~ Lionel Suggs

deep inside the eyes of a true lover lies the heart of a true lover. ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

-We need more love, to supersede hatred, -We need more strength,
to resist our weaknesses,
-We need more inspiration,
to lighten up our innermind.
-We need more learning,
to erase our ignorance,
-We need more wisdom,
to live longer and happier,
-We need more truths, to suppress deceptions,
-We need more health,
to enjoy our wealth,
-We need more peace, to stay in harmony with our brethren
-We need more smiles,
to brighten up our day,
-We need more hero's, and not zero's,
-We need more change of ourselves, to change the lives of others,
-We need more understanding,
to tackle our misunderstanding,
-We need more sympathy,
not apathy,
-We need more forgiveness,
not vengeance,
-We need more humility to be lifted up,
-We need more patience and not undue eagerness,
-We need more focus, to avoid distraction,
-We need more optimism,
not pessimism
-We need more justice,
not injustice,
-We need more facts, not fiction,
-We need more education,
to curb illiteracy,
-We need more skills, not incompetence,
-We need more challenges,
to make attempts,
-We need more talents,
to create the extraordinary,
-We need more helping hands,
not stingy folks,
-We need more efforts,
not laziness,
-We need more jokes, to forget our worries, -We need more spirituali ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

At a period when Literature was wont to attribute the grief of living exclusively to the mischances of disappointed love or the jealousy of adulterous deceptions, he had said not a word of these childish maladies, but had sounded those more incurable, more poignant and more profound: wounds that are inflicted by satiety, disillusion and contempt in ruined souls tortured by the present, disgusted with the past, terrified and desperate of the future. ~ Joris-Karl Huysmans

If you'd rather I didn't stay - " I began.
"I invited you."
"After sustaining a head injury. Which means you aren't responsible for anything you said last night . . . except for the part where you forgave me for wrecking your car."
"You were run off the road."
"I still feel bad. It was a nice car." I paused. "I'm also sorry about almost getting you killed."
"She says, as an afterthought."
"It was a really nice car. ~ Kelley Armstrong

Men are inconsolable concerning the treachery of their friends or the deceptions of their enemies; and yet they are often very highly satisfied to be both deceived and betrayed by their own selves. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

If we pass now from physical nature to the moral world, we still find ourselves subject to the same deceptions of appearance, to the same influences of spontaneity and habit. But the distinguishing feature of this second division of our knowledge is, on the one hand, the good or the evil which we derive from our opinions; and, on the other, the obstinacy with which we defend the prejudice which is tormenting and killing us. ~ Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

The philosophy of praxis does not aim at the peaceful resolution of existing contradictions in history and society, but is the very theory of these contradictions. It is not the instrument of government of the dominant groups in order to gain the consent and exercise hegemony over the subaltern classes. It is the expression of subaltern classes who want to educate themselves in the art of government and who have an interest in knowing all truths, even the unpleasant ones, and in avoiding the impossible deceptions of the upper class, and even more their own. ~ Antonio Gramsci

The suspicion that something is structurally wrong with the vision of homo faber is common to a growing minority in capitalist, communist, and "underdeveloped" countries alike. This suspicion is the shared characteristic of a new elite. To it belong people of all classes, incomes, faiths, and civilizations. They have become wary of the myths of the majority: of scientific utopias, of ideological diabolism, and of the expectation of the distribution of goods and services with some degree of equality. They share with the majority the awareness that most new policies adopted by broad consensus consistently lead to results which are glaringly opposed to their stated aims. Yet whereas the Promethean majority of would-be spacemen still evades the structural issue, the emergent minority is critical of the scientific deus ex machina, the ideological panacea, and the hunt for devils and witches. This minority begins to formulate its suspicion that our constant deceptions tie us to contemporary institutions as the chains bound Prometheus to his rock. Hopeful trust and classical irony must conspire to expose the Promethean fallacy. ~ Ivan Illich

One of the hallmarks of evangelicalism, and by extension ex-gay ministry, is the vigilance with which it guards its own internal content as both normative and binding. One could say that a lot of energy is spent on boundary maintenance - discerning who is inside and who is outside of the boundaries of shared commitments. ... Anything that seemed to deviate from the commonly held beliefs and understandings about homosexuality and healing were considered invalid and potential deceptions from the enemy. To investigate or inquire beyond these commonly held assumptions was dangerous territory, where one would be vulnerable to error. ~ Wendy Vanderwal-Gritter

Apparently, Stoneville meant to gain his amusement solely from watching Jackson bait Celia.
Jackson wasn't entirely sure why, but neither did he care. He cared only about making sure he shot well enough to beat Celia's three suitors, to prevent them from gaining the kiss.
So you can gain it yourself.
He scowled as they halted in their new spot to reload. Nonsense. But if he did happen to win it, he would treat her like the lady she was. Devonmont was just the kind of joking fellow to be impudent with her in front of everyone. Lyons had already had a taste of her lips, so he might very well think to make his second taste more intimate. And Basto, who already had a fondness for holding her hand, confound the insolent devil-
Jackson swore under his breath. He was acting like some jealous idiot. All right, so he was jealous, but this wasn't about that. He merely wanted to keep Celia from making an enormous mistake.
When she'd tried to get out of shooting, Jackson had realized she was serious about choosing one of these idiots as a husband. Clearly, she thought if she pretended to be some milk-and-water miss, it would help her chances.
So he'd made sure she didn't do any such thing. If they were worthy of her, they had to be worthy of the real her, not the pretend one she presented. Personally, he thought them all fools for not seeing she was putting on an act.
And couldn't she see that a marriage built on such deceptions would fail?
No, she ~ Sabrina Jeffries

Prospects: a prickly word, a sour betrayer. It was supposed to fill your thoughts with gold, or with clear air and great and lovely distances. Well, the metal came quickly enough to mind, but beards followed shortly, dirt and the deceptions of the desert, biscuits like powdered pumice, tin spoons, stinking mules, clattering cups, stinking water, deceiving air.
...
Prospects. They made him think dirt. They made him think rags, snakes, picks, and the murder of companions. ~ William H Gass

Conversation! Supple sentences, with first and second meanings and overtones beyond, outrageous challenges with cleverly planned slip-points, rebuttals of elegant brevity; deceptions and guiles, patient explanations of the obvious, fleeting allusions to the unthinkable. As a preliminary, the conversationalist must gauge the mood, the intelligence and the verbal facility of the company. To this end, a few words of pedantic exposition often prove invaluable. ~ Jack Vance

My mother, in the style of the times, told me I could do anything I set my sights on. She said I could be the president, an astronaut, or the next Charles Schulz. I believed her because at that point in my life I hadn't yet noticed the pattern of her deceptions. ~ Scott Adams

deceivers shall always be at the junction of double mindedness ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Michael Varus drew his sword. 'My father is Janus, the god of two faces. I am used to seeing through masks and deceptions. ~ Rick Riordan

A man may ask anything of a woman, but unless he wishes to behave like a brute, he must make it possible for her to act in harmony with her deepest self-deceptions. ~ Milan Kundera