Quotes about Deception

Notice the first reason people reject the gospel is that "the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts" (v. 12). That's deception—the deceiving spirits and demons I mentioned earlier. The second reason is more complicated. Jesus described those who hear the good news and "receive the word with joy" (v. 13). These people are genuinely excited about Christianity.

There's nothing grimmer than the tragedy that wears a comic mask.

That very afternoon they had seemed full of brilliant qualities; now she saw that they were merely dull in a loud way.

Untrained human nature was not frank and innocent; it was full of the twists and defences of an instinctive guile. And he felt himself oppressed by this creation of factitious purity, so cunningly manufactured by a conspiracy of mothers and aunts and grandmothers and long-dead ancestresses, because it was supposed to be what he wanted, what he had a right to, in order that he might exercise his lordly pleasure in smashing it like an image made of snow.

He felt himself flung back on all the ugly uncertainties from which he thought he had cast loose forever. After all, what did he know of her life? Only as much as she had chosen to show him, and measured by the world's estimate, how little that was!

When they smile, I see blood trickling down their faces; I see their insidious purposes; I see that the object of all their cajoling is—blood! I now warn my countrymen to beware of these execrable philosophers, whose only object it is to destroy every thing that is good here, and to establish immorality and murder by precept and example—'Hic niger est hunc tu Romane caveto' ['Such a man is evil; beware of him, Roman'. Horace, Satires I. 4. 85.].

It is as if we want to believe the lie. Perhaps we blame ourselves because in a strange way it helps us feel as if we have more control. If we are responsible for whatever went wrong, for whatever hurt us, we might be able to figure out how to keep it from happening again.

The idea of sin being able to deceive us, suppressing truth so that we believe a lie, should send shivers down our spines. It is one thing to deceive other people. That is scary enough. It is even more frightening when we realize that each lie we tell leaves us more self-deceived. All practiced sin teaches us to believe lies. WE don't often consider the boomerang effect of our deception. In the end it will get us.

The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

Hell isn't merely paved with good intentions, it is walled and roofed with them.

An unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling lie.