Quotes about Deception

Facts are ventriloquist's dummies. Sitting on a wise man's knee they may be made to utter words of wisdom; elsewhere, they say nothing, or talk nonsense, or indulge in sheer diabolism.

Mundus vult decipi'—the world wants to be deceived. To live without deception presupposes standards beyond the reach of most people whose existence is largely shaped by compromise, evasion and mutual accommodation. Could they face their weakness, their vanity and selfishness, without a mask?

What seems to be a stone is a drama.

This was a religious problem, my father felt; people can want to be deceived. Do not deceive, the Kotzker rebbe insisted, and that also means do not deceive oneself by being gullible.

Demagoguery is the ability to dress minor ideas with major words.

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.

Lincoln characterized Stephen Douglas's argument as a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a horse chestnut to be a chestnut horse.

Worse than traitors in arms are the men who, pretending loyalty to the flag, feast and fatten on the misfortunes of the nation.

An Ass put on a Lion's skin and went About the foreset with much merriment, Scaring the foolish beasts by brooks and rocks, Till at last he tried to scare the Fox. But Reynard, hearing from beneath the mane That Raucous voice so petulant and vain, Remarked. O' Ass, I too would run away, But that I know your old familiar bray'. That's just the way with asses, just the way.

Boasters brag most when they cannot be detected.

No gratitude from the wicked.