quotations about deception
God is not averse to deceit in a holy cause.
AESCHYLUS
fragment
Your eyes can deceive you; don't trust them.
OBI-WAN KENOBI
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
I hate deception, even where the imagination only is concerned.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to Dr. John Cochran, Aug. 16, 1779
We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
Sprüche in Prosa
He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
letter to Peter Carr, Aug. 19, 1785
There is no killing the suspicion that deceit has once begotten.
GEORGE ELIOT
Romola
O, what a tangled web we weave;
When first we practice to deceive!
SIR WALTER SCOTT
Marmion
And in the fields till I sing a prisoner's song
Well deception whistles right along
Right along
GRANT LEE BUFFALO
"Demon Called Deception"
The easiest person to deceive is one’s own self.
EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
The Disowned
It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE
Fables
Deceit comes in through the ears, but usually leaves through the eyes.
BALTASAR GRACIAN
The Art of Worldly Wisdom
Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
Culture and Value
Wisdom and truth, the offspring of the sky, are immortal; while cunning and deception, the meteors of the earth, after glittering for a moment, must pass away.
ROBERT HALL
Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers
'Tis as easy to deceive ourselves without our perceiving it, as 'tis difficult to deceive others without their perceiving it.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Moral Maxims
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.
OSAMU DAZAI
No Longer Human
Oh, that deceit should steal such gentle shapes,
And with a virtuous vizard hide foul guile.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Richard III
The phrase, the world wants to be deceived, has become truer than had ever been intended. People are not only, as the saying goes, falling for the swindle; if it guarantees them even the most fleeting gratification they desire a deception which is nonetheless transparent to them. They force their eyes shut and voice approval, in a kind of self-loathing, for what is meted out to them, knowing fully the purpose for which it is manufactured. Without admitting it they sense that their lives would be completely intolerable as soon as they no longer clung to satisfactions which are none at all.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Culture Industry Reconsidered
A life of deceit is one of unmitigated torture--a living hell, which should deserve our pity for the unhappy beings who submit to it. It is surprising to what shifts and excuses those who lead so slippery a course are driven, in the vain hope to hoodwink the shrewd, with the painful necessity of laughing off exposures too glaring to be concealed--yet, when all is done, but to place themselves in the position of the stag which, thrusting its head into a thicket, believed itself to be unseen. In fact, there is very little hidden from society; and, as people of the world are generally willing to overlook much, the greater part of this maneuvering, with its attendant misery, might be spared.
CHARLES WILLIAM DAY
The Maxims
If you are often deceived by those around you, you may be sure that you deserve to be deceived; and that instead of railing at the general falseness of mankind, you have first to pronounce judgment on your own jealous tyranny, or on your own weak credulity.
ARTHUR HELPS
Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
No one can save you, there's nothing to say
Deception's the name of the game
BON JOVI
"We Rule the Night", 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can't Be Wrong