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Deception Quotes

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Deception Quotes

“It's difficult for women to be honest and direct because for centuries we were burned at the stake, or persecuted, or exiled, or rejected, or excommunicated, or divorced, or shamed, or socially excluded, for saying what we truly thought and felt. Now, we know how to act like we're being direct and forthright, when we're not, and we know how to seem uninhibited and free, when we're not, and we know how to appear helpless and damaged, when we're not. Deception is more ingrained in us than honesty.”

“The problem with holiness is that once we look into the face of it we are no longer capable of taking that which is odious and filthy and somehow pretending that it’s translucent and clean. In other words, we have to do one of the most revolting things possible; we have to face ourselves.”

“For every group, malevolence is always somewhere else. Maybe we understand at this point in history that it can occur at night in darkened rooms where small children sleep. However, surely not in academia. Surely lying and deception do not occur among people who go to conferences, who write books, who testify in court, and who have PhDs. At one point I complained to a Florida judge that I was astonished to an expert witness lying on the stand [about child sexual abuse research]. I thought one had to tell the truth in court. I thought if someone didn't, she didn't get her milk and cookies. I thought God came down and plucked someone right out of the witness stand if he lied in court. I thought a lying expert witness would step out of court and get hit by a bus. A wiser woman than I, the judge's answer was, “Silly you." Confessions of a Whistle-Blower: Lessons Learned Author: Anna C. Salter. Ethics & Behavior, Volume 8, Issue 2 June 1998”

“Maintain your integrity! Live life in such a way that when another person tells his or her truth, you'll not be committed for blame.”

“Telling the truth to yourself is Integrity; Telling the truth to others is Honesty; Telling the truth with no fear or intimidation is Bravity and being free from falsehood is Purity!”

“Well, well -- the prizes all go to the women who 'play their cards well' -- but if they can only be won in that way, I would rather lose the game ... [C]lever [women] bide their time -- make themselves indispensable first, and then se font prier [=play hard to get]. Clever -- but I can't do it.”

“...the best conclusion I was able to reach was that what we instinctively call imagination is in reality nothing less than the symbolic knowledge of that secret thread which weaves itself through our life knotted fast in all its windings, and without which we would surely be lost. But with this knowledge I realised too that this secret power also rules over us, for these same threads can be forcibly torn apart and leave us at the mercy of the dark fiend who is always ready to claim us as his own.”

“Without imagination, things were only as they appeared - and that was blindness. Things were more than they appeared, so much more. When he considered an oak tree, it was not just a tree. To someone small, like an ant, it was a whole landscape of rugged barky cliffs and big green leaf-plains that quaked when the sky was restless, a place of many strange creatures where fearsome winged beasts could pluck and devour someone in a blink.”

“Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the worlds to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving.”

“Truth is not convenient. It is not lenient nor passive. It is not kind to the selfish. It will never bend to the forgery of propaganda. It is not predisposed to the pacifism of truth compromised. It will wreck political platforms that pen truth out of their policies. And with the invincible morality that is the essence of truth itself, it will see to it that the consequence of any lie is on its way before the lie is on its. Such is the nature of truth for the fool who would embrace the lie that he is sufficiently wise to betray it.”

“Liars gain a huge advantage over truth-tellers, you know. Truth has been found to be a terrible weakness, an evolutionary catastrophe. The society that coated itself with lies was found to be a better survival machine. The man who told the truth was extraordinarily naive and stupid. Now the expectation is always of being lied to. Nowadays when one man is talking to another, he knows instinctively he is being lied to and his mind automatically overlays that set of lies with a neutralizing set of lies, leaving behind a kind of truth. But what sort of truth is it that arises exclusively from lies?”