Deceit Quotes - Page 16

• I am of this mind, that might and malice, deceit and treachery perjury and impiety may lawfully be committed in love; which is lawless.

  John Lyly

  Law, Mind, May

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• It is not uncommon to charge the difference between promise and performance, between profession and reality, upon deep design and studied deceit; but the truth is, that there is very little hypocrisy in the world.

  Samuel Johnson

  Reality, Differences, Hypocrisy

  Samuel Johnson (1968). “Essays from the Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler”, p.286, Yale University Press

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• The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments.

  Michael Parenti

  Peace, War, Thinking

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• We fed the public a line of deceit, dishonesty, a fabrication of statistics and figures.

  Bernard Nathanson

  Pro Life, Abortion, Statistics

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• If you only notice human proceedings, you may observe that all who attain great power and riches, make use of either force or fraud; and what they have acquired either by deceit or violence, in order to conceal the disgraceful methods of attainment, they endeavor to sanctify with the false title of honest gains.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Art, War, Order

  Niccolo Machiavelli (2018). “History of Florence and the Affairs of Italy”, p.115, Ozymandias Press

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• The doctrine that might makes right has covered the earth with misery. While it crushes the weak, it also destroys the strong. Every deceit, every cruelty, every wrong, reaches back sooner or later and crushes its author. Justice is moral health, bringing happiness, wrong is moral disease, bringing mortal death.

  John Peter Altgeld

  Crush, Strong, Justice

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• My fine visions are all very well, but I must not forget they are absolutely unreal. I have a rosy sky and a green flowery Eden in my brain; but without, I am perfectly aware, lies at my feet a rough tract to travel, and around me gather black tempests to encounter.

  Charlotte Bronte

  Lying, Sky, Eden

  Charlotte Bronte (2015). “Jane Eyre, an Autobiography: Top 100 Classic Novels”, p.393, 谷月社

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• All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies.

  John Arbuthnot

  Lying, Party, Political

  "Life of Emerson" by Richard Garnett, ch. 7, 1988.

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• The trouble with lying and deceiving is that their efficiency depends entirely upon a clear notion of the truth that the liar and deceiver wishes to hide.

  Hannah Arendt

  Liars, Lying, Wish

  Hannah Arendt (1972). “Crises of the Republic: Lying in Politics; Civil Disobedience; On Violence; Thoughts on Politics and Revolution”, p.41, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• People always have been and they always will be stupid victims of deceit and self-deception in politics.

  Vladimir Lenin

  Freedom, Stupid, Self

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• It is better to be defeated on principle than to win on lies.

  Arthur Calwell

  Success, Sports, Honesty

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• The theist can only find meaning by leaving this life for a transcendental world beyond the grave. The human world as he finds it is empty of 'ultimate purpose' and hence meaningless. Theism thus is an attempt to escape from the human condition; it is a pathetic deceit.

  Paul Kurtz

  Leaving, Atheism, Purpose

  Paul Kurtz “Toward a New Enlightenment: The Philosophy of Paul Kurtz”, Transaction Publishers

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• While we are indifferent to our good qualities, we keep on deceiving ourselves in regard to our faults, until we come to look on them as virtues.

  Heinrich Heine

  Self Esteem, Lying, Self Respect

  Heinrich Heine (1873). “Scintillations from the Prose Works of Heinrich Heine: I. Florentine Nights. II. Excerpts”, p.87

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• If the test of patriotism comes only by reflexively falling into lockstep behind the leader whenever the flag is waved, then what we have is a formula for dictatorship, not democracy... But the American way is to criticize and debate openly, not to accept unthinkingly the doings of government officials of this or any other country.

  Michael Parenti

  Country, Fall, Government

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• I always considered myself very successful even before the success of Secrets and Lies.

  Brenda Blethyn

  Success, Lying, Congratulations

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• If we go back to the beginning, we shall find that ignorance and fear created the gods; that fancy, enthusiasm, or deceit adorned them; that weakness worships them; that credulity preserves them and that custom, respect and tyranny support them in order to make the blindness of men serve their own interests. If the ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, the knowledge of nature is calculated to destroy them.

  Bill Maher

  Atheist, Ignorance, Men

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• Fraud and deceit are anxious for your money. Be informed and prudent.

  John Andreas Widtsoe

  Honesty, Prudent, Anxious

  John Andreas Widtsoe, Leah Dunford Widtsoe (1938). “The word of wisdom: a modern interpretation”

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• Then no rightful cause was left, and the pain of anger was turning into the shameful pain of submission. He had no right to condemn anyone - he thought - to denounce anything, to fight and die joyously, claiming the sanctity of virtue. The broken promises, the unconfessed desires, the betrayal, the deceit, the lies, the fraud - he was guilty of them all. What form of corruption could he scorn? Degrees do not matter, he thought; one does not bargain about inches of evil.

  Ayn Rand

  Betrayal, Pain, Lying

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• Truth hurts. But lies can kill.

  Karen Marie Moning

  Hurt, Lying, Truth Hurts

  Karen Marie Moning (2016). “The Fever Series 7-Book Bundle: Darkfever, Bloodfever, Faefever, Dreamfever, Shadowfever, Iced, Burned”, p.575, Dell

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• It's often only in the lies we refuse to speak that any truth can be heard at all.

  Karen Marie Moning

  Lying, Speak, Heard

  Karen Marie Moning (2006). “Darkfever: Fever Series”, p.167, Delacorte Press

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• Fraud and deceit abound in these days more than in former times.

  Edward Coke

  These Days, Fraud, Former

  Sir Edward Coke (1777). “The Reports of Sir Edward Coke, Knt. [1572-1617]: In English, in Thirteen Parts Complete; with References to All the Ancient and Modern Books of the Law”

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• Now that nation called Israel, never has had any peace in forty years and she will never have any peace because there can never be any peace structured on injustice, thievery, lying and deceit and using the name of God to shield your dirty religion under His holy and righteous name.

  Louis Farrakhan

  Lying, Dirty, Israel

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• Allow me now to return to the cottagers, whose story excited in me such various feelings of indignation, delight, and wonder, but which all terminated in additional love and reverence for my protectors (for so I loved, in an innocent, half painful self-deceit, to call them).

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

  Love, Self, Feelings

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1974). “Frankenstein, Or the Modern Prometheus: The 1818 Text”, p.117, University of Chicago Press

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• But, perhaps, the flatterer is not often detected; for an honest mind is not apt to suspect, and no one exerts the power of discernment with much vigour when selflove favors the deceit.

  Samuel Johnson

  Mind, Favors, Honest

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1857). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.122

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• A woman gets angry when a man denies his faults, because she knew them all along. His lying mocks her affection; it is the deceit that angers her more than the faults.

  Fulton J. Sheen

  Lying, Men, Faults

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