Quotessence
Home / Topics / Deception Quotes

Deception Quotes

Browse 1380 quotes about Deception.

Related topics

SelfSelf DeceptionIfsLyingPeopleMenDeceivingDeceivedHypeArtDeceitThinkingMayWayTrustBelieveWarBetrayalTruthKnowsMindMeanWorldHas BeensHonestyHumansLittlesTryingFormSeemsWantEyeRealityStillsGivingDoeIllusionLifeIgnoranceKindPersonsTruth IsActionBeing DeceivedDeceiverDesireEnemyFraudHypocrisyInspirationalIntegrityMadeMatterOneselfPracticeWellsAbleFactsGovernmentManipulationMightNeedsPoliticalRealSaidShouldSpiritualBeliefCapacityChristianFacesFoundHeartLiarsLife IsLongLooksPoliticsPromiseSpeakUnderstandingUseArt IsAtheismCheatingCountryDoneEvilFallFirstsIdentityLiteratureLove IsMilitaryReligionSocialSometimesStatesCunningDeceiving Othersmore

Deception Quotes

“You must keep your honor! You can't speak for the country; you can do little about the national economy or actions of moral weaklings who excuse themselves with the expression, "That is politics; nor can you be responsible for deception in others. But you are responsible for yourself! There are no collective panaceas - only individual ones."”

LittlesCountryActionIndividualSpeakCan DoMoralEconomyExpressionHonorResponsibleIndividualityExcuseDeceptionCollectivesBeing ResponsiblePanaceaYour HonorNational Economy
Author:Ezra Taft Benson
Create image

“The web of hypocrisy of today hangs on the frontiers of two domains, between which our time swings back and forth, attaching its fine threads of deception and self-deception. No longer vigorous enough to serve morality without doubt or weakening, not yet reckless enough to live wholly to egoism, it trembles now toward the one and now toward the other in the spider-web of hypocrisy, and, crippled by the curse of halfness, catches only miserable, stupid flies.”

TwoSelfEnoughTodayDoubtStupidFineMoralityMiserableDeceptionCurseOur TimeHypocrisySwingsThreadSpidersDomainFrontiersRecklessBack And ForthSelf DeceptionVigorousEgoismCrippledWeakeningSpider Web
Book:Stirner: The Ego and Its Own
Create image

“In all of history, we have found just one cure for error—a partial antidote against making and repeating grand, foolish mistakes, a remedy against self-deception. That antidote is criticism.”

SelfFoundMistakeCriticismErrorsFoolishCuresDeceptionJust OneRemedyAntidoteSelf DeceptionFoolish Mistakes
Book:The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?
Create image

“I expected so much from life and if I had not seen it so close, I would to this day be expecting something. What treasures I discovered in my own soul - where are they all? I have exchanged them for the world's coin, given my frankness, my first passion - and for what? For bitter disillusionment, for the knowledge that all is deception, all is brittle, that one can place trust neither in oneself nor in others - and I have come to fear both others and myself. I have not been able, along with this analysis, to accept the trifles of life and be content with them, as many others do.”

IfsWorldFirstsSoulAblePassionGivenMy OwnAcceptingOneselfExpectedTreasureBitterDeceptionAnalysisThis DayExpectingCoinsTriflesDisillusionmentFranknessExpecting Something
Author:Ivan Goncharov
Create image

“Washington has become our Versailles. We are ruled, entertained, and informed by courtiers -- and the media has evolved into a class of courtiers. The Democrats, like the Republicans, are mostly courtiers. Our pundits and experts, at least those with prominent public platforms, are courtiers. We are captivated by the hollow stagecraft of political theater as we are ruthlessly stripped of power. It is smoke and mirrors, tricks and con games, and the purpose behind it is deception.”

PoliticalPurposeGamesBehindsClassMediaRepublicanTheaterMirrorsDemocratTricksSmokeDeceptionExpertsPlatformsHollowProminentPunditsCaptivatedCourtiersSmoke And MirrorsVersaillesStagecraft
Author:Chris Hedges
Create image

“People always have been the foolish victims of deception and self-deception in politics, and they always will be, until they have learned to seek out the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises.”

PeopleHas BeensSelfPoliticalSocialInterestReligiousBehindsMoralClassPromiseVictimFoolishDeceptionPhrasesDeclarationSelf Deception
Book:Izbrannye Proizvedenii͡a V Trekh Tomakh
Create image

“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.”

FirstsEndsChallengesCompanyConversationProvePatientObviousSentencesMoodDeceptionExplanationSlipsElegantFleetingFacilityOutrageousUnthinkableBrevityFew WordsInvaluableGaugesAllusionSuppleGuilePedanticRebuttal
Author:Jack Vance
Create image

“The demagogue is usually sly, a detractor of others, a professor of humility and disinterestedness, a great stickler for equality as respects all above him, a man who acts in corners, and avoids open and manly expositions of his course, calls blackguards gentlemen, and gentlemen folks, appeals to passions and prejudices rather than to reason, and is in all respects, a man of intrigue and deception, of sly cunning and management.”

MenReasonPassionCoursesHumilityPrejudiceManagementFolksCornersAppealsDeceptionGentlemanProfessorsIntrigueCunningManlySly
Author:James F. Cooper
Create image

“It is a fair adornment of a man and a great convenience both to himself and to all those with whom he converses and deals, to act uprightly, uniformly, and consistently. The practice of piety frees a man from interior distraction and from irresolution in his mind, from duplicity or inconstancy in his character, and from confusion in his proceedings, and consequently securing for others freedom from deception and disappointment in their transactions with him.”

MenMindCharacterDealsPracticeFairsDisappointmentConfusionDeceptionDistractionConsistentlyInteriorsConveniencePietyTransactionsConversesProceedingDuplicityInconstancyAdornment
Author:Isaac Barrow
Create image

“No one from the intelligence community, anyplace else ever came in and said, ‘What if Saddam is doing all this deception because he actually got rid of the WMD and he doesn't want the Iranians to know?' Now somebody should have asked that question. I should have asked that question. Nobody did. Turns out that was the most important question in terms of the intelligence failure that never got asked.”

IfsKnowsWantShouldSaidImportantTurnsTermCommunityShould HaveDeceptionWhat IfSaddamImportant QuestionsWmdIntelligence Community
Author:Stephen Hadley
Create image

“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.”

SaidSoulPastLiteratureGriefPeriodsProfoundWoundsDeceptionDesperateDisappointedContemptAttributesTerrifiedRuinedPoignantDisgustedMaladyDisillusionSatietyMischanceDisappointed Love
Book:Against the Grain: (À rebours)
Create image

“It should be obvious that this pattern of systematic holes and gaps in Iraq's declaration is not the result of accidents, editing oversights or technical mistakes. These are material omissions that - in our view - constitute another material breach. It is up to Iraq to prove that there is some other explanation besides the obvious one, that this declaration is just one more act of deception in a history of lies from a defiant dictator.”

ShouldLyingResultsViewsMistakeMaterialsProveIraqPatternsObviousAccidentsHolesDeceptionExplanationJust OneDeceitGapsDictatorEditingDeclarationSystematicBreachOmissionOversight
Author:John Negroponte
Create image

“It is Toussaint's supreme merit that while he saw European civilisation as a valuable and necessary thing, and strove to lay its foundations among his people, he never had the illusion that it conferred any moral superiority. He knew French, British, and Spanish imperialists for the insatiable gangsters that they were, that there is no oath too sacred for them to break, no crime, deception, treachery, cruelty, destruction of human life and property which they would not commit against those who could not defend themselves.”

PeopleHumansMoralBreakSawsCrimeIllusionDestructionFoundationSacredLaysPropertyValuableBritishSupremeCommitCrueltyDeceptionHuman LifeMeritSuperiorityOathCivilisationGangstersInsatiableTreacheryNecessary ThingsMoral Superiority
Author:C. L. R. James
Create image

“A woman wanted to know how to deal with anger. I asked when anger arose whose anger it was. She said it was hers. Well, if it really was her anger, then she should be able to tell it to go away, shouldnt she? But it really isn't hers to command. Holding on to anger as a personal possession will cause suffering. If anger really belonged to us, it would have to obey us. If it doesn't obey us, that means it's only a deception. Don't fall for it. Whenever the mind is happy or sad, don't fall for it. Its all a deception.”

IfsKnowsShouldMindWellsMeanSaidAbleWantedSufferingFallCausesDealsKnow HowPossessionCommandDeceptionGoing AwayHolding OnWomen Want
Author:Ajahn Chah
Create image