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I hate deception, even where the imagination only is concerned.
GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter to Dr. John Cochran, Aug. 16, 1779
- O, what a tangled web we weave;
- When first we practice to deceive!
SIR WALTER SCOTT, Marmion
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, leter to Peter Carr, Aug. 19, 1785
Your eyes can deceive you; don't trust them.
OBI-WAN KENOBI, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
The best way to deceive a knave is to tell him the truth.
There is no killing the suspicion that deceit has once begotten.
It is best, if possible, to deceive no one; for he that ... begins by deceiving others, will end ... by deceiving himself.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON, Lacon
We are oftener deceived by being told some truth than no truth.
FULKE GREVILLE, Maxims, Characters and Reflections
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, Experiences, and Observations of Agogos
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
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
Some people are so much afraid of being deceived, that they never venture to trust; like misers, their avarice destroys their gain.
NORMAN MACDONALD, Maxims and Moral Reflections
It is so much in the nature of men to overreach and deceive one another, that their very sports and plays are founded on that principle.
FULKE GREVILLE, Maxims, Characters, and Ref
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