Deception Quotes

Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don't have brains enough to be honest.

Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.

A deception that elevates us is dearer than a host of low truths.

Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.

It is the cult of self that is killing the United States. This cult has within it the classic traits of psychopaths: superficial charm, grandiosity and self-importance ; a need for constant stimulation; a penchant for lying, deception and manipulation; and the incapacity for remorse or guilt.

Terrorism and deception are weapons not of the strong, but of the weak.

All warfare is based on deception. Therefore, when capable, feign incapacity; when active, inactivity. When near, make it appear that you are far away; when far away, that you are to lure him; feign disorder and strike him. When he concentrates, prepare against him; where he is strong, avoid him. Anger his general and confuse him. Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance.

I am convinced that human life is filled with many pure, happy, serene examples of insincerity, truly splendid of their kind-of people deceiving one another without (strangely enough) any wounds being inflicted, of people who seem unaware even that they are deceiving one another.

Rationalization may be defined as self-deception by reasoning.

The supreme mystery of despotism, its prop and stay, is to keep men in a state of deception, and with the specious title of religion to cloak the fear by which they must be held in check, so that they will fight for their servitude as if for salvation.

A dolphin's smile is the greatest deception. It creates the illusion that they're always happy.

The two principles of truth, reason and senses, are not only both not genuine, but are engaged in mutual deception. The senses deceive reason through false appearances, and the senses are disturbed by passions, which produce false impressions.

Governments are based pincipally on force and deception. Democratic governments are based chiefly on deception, other governments on force. And democratic governments, if you get too uppity, give up on the deception and resort to brute force, as a lot of us found out in the sixites. Those who didn't find out in the sixites will find out in the near future because we're going to have a rerun.

Deceivers are the most dangerous members of society. They trifle with the best affections of our nature, and violate the most sacred obligations.

He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it the second time.

An offended heart is the breeding ground of deception.

The craftiest trickery are too short and ragged a cloak to cover a bad heart.

The worst of all deceptions is self-deception.

The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means.

No one was ever injured by the truth; but he who persists in self-deception and ignorance is injured.

Among other common lies, we have the silent lie - the deception which one conveys by simply keeping still and concealing the truth. Many obstinate truth-mongers indulge in this dissipation, imagining that if they speak no lie, they lie not at all.

It is a self-deception of philosophers and moralists to imagine that they escape decadence by opposing it. That is beyond their will; and, however little they acknowledge it, one later discovers that they were among the most powerful promoters of decadence.

The truth cannot be deceptive, and one who sees it cannot be deceived.

There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.

We must trust to nothing but facts: These are presented to us by Nature, and cannot deceive. We ought, in every instance, to submit our reasoning to the test of experiment, and never to search for truth but by the natural road of experiment and observation.

You just sit there and tolerate it, the same way everything in this country is tolerated. Every deception, every lie, every bullet in the brains. Just as you are already tolerating bullets in the brains that will be implemented only after the bullet is put in your brains.

In the last few years, the very idea of telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is dredged up only as a final resort when the alternative options of deception, threat and bribery have all been exhausted.

Social engineering is using deception, manipulation and influence to convince a human who has access to a computer system to do something, like click on an attachment in an e-mail.

For as long as I care to remember, religion, like the striptease, has always been a display of the power of suggestion. Like the Virgin Birth, it has all too often supported an immaculate deception.

Melodies are just honest. They can only be what they are. Words have the capacity for deception. Theyre all full of subtext, and some of them are cliche and overused and vernacular. Theyre tricky. All I can say is, words are tricky.

I have often heard, "I love God but just don't like His people." This may sound glib, but as John explained, this is a basic deception as we do not really love God unless we also love His people. The Scriptures also go to great lengths to explain that love is not to be based on whether people are lovable or not.

Coquetry is the art of successful deception.

If you alter or obscure the Biblical portrait of God in order to attract converts, you don't get converts to God, you get converts to an illusion. This is not evangelism, but deception.

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.

Smuggle out the truth, pass it through all the obstacles that its enemies fabricate; multiply, spread by all means possible her message so that she may triumph; through zeal and civic action counterbalance the influence of money and the machinations lavished on the propagation of deception. That, in my opinion, is the most useful activity and the most sacred duty of pure patriotism.

I would gladly chastise those who represent things as different from what they are. Those who steal property or make counterfeit money are punished, and those ought to be still more severely dealt with who steal away or falsify the good name of a prince.

While all deception requires secrecy, all secrecy is not meant to deceive.

Fortune is a great deceiver. She sells very dear the things she seems to give us.

Social engineering is using manipulation, influence and deception to get a person, a trusted insider within an organization, to comply with a request, and the request is usually to release information or to perform some sort of action item that benefits that attacker.

Liars share with those they deceive the desire not to be deceived.

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.

The word bipartisan usually means some larger-than-usual deception is being carried out.

Food, clothing and shelter — these are the basic needs. Beyond that, if you want anything, it is the beginning of self-deception.

The fundamental factor of self-deception is this constant desire to be something in this world and in the world hereafter.

It is twice the pleasure to deceive the deceiver.

If, however, a government refrains from regulations and allows matters to take their course, essential commodities soon attain a level of price out of the reach of all but the rich, the worthlessness of the money becomes apparent, and the fraud upon the public can be concealed no longer.

All warfare is based on deception. There is no place where espionage is not used. Offer the enemy bait to lure him.

Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.

Human beings are under the control of a strange force that bends them in absurd ways, forcing them to play a role in a bizarre game of deception.

Deception is the knowledge of kings.