Deception Quotes - Page 16

• Better to be occasionally cheated than perpetually suspicious.

  B. C. Forbes

  Cheating, Cheated On, Suspicion

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  A promise made is a debt unpaid.

  Robert W. Service

  Trust, Truth, Honesty

  Songs of a Sourdough (1907) "Cremation of Sam McGee"

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• Strange bonds of trust and self-deception tend to grow between journalists and their subjects.

  Sam Harris

  Self, Strange, Journalist

  Sam Harris (2013). “Lying”, p.80, Four Elephants Press

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• Many of my fellow atheists consider all talk of 'spirituality' or 'mysticism' to be synonymous with mental illness, conscious fraud, or self-deception. I have argued elsewhere that this is a problem - because millions of people have had experiences for which 'spiritual' and 'mystical' seem the only terms available.

  Sam Harris

  Spiritual, Atheist, Self

  "On Spiritual Truths" by Sam Harris, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 16, 2011.

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• Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses.

  William Hazlitt

  Art, Knowledge, People

  William Hazlitt (1837). “Characteristics: in the manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims [by W. Hazlitt].”, p.42

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• Everybody lies...every day, every hour, awake, asleep, in his dreams, in his joy, in his mourning. If he keeps his tongue still his hands, his feet, his eyes, his attitude will convey deception.

  Mark Twain

  Dream, Attitude, Lying

  Mark Twain, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Mark Twain: All 13 Novels, Short Stories, Poetry and Essays”, p.2131, GENERAL PRESS

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• the constant shower of the sun's mane erases the footprints on thin ice do not fear deception for the world lies atop deception ~Toushiro Hitsugaya

  Tite Kubo

  Lying, Ice, World

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• Here was a torture that Greek inventors of the Feast and the Stone had omitted from their Hades: the Blanket of Self-Deception. A lovely warm blanket as far as it covered the soul in torment, but it never quite covered everything.

  Jonathan Franzen

  Self, Greek, Soul

  Jonathan Franzen (2001). “The Corrections: A Novel”, p.312, Macmillan

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• What else exhausts like sustained deception?

  Leif Enger

  Leif Enger (2001). “Peace Like a River”, p.248, Atlantic Monthly Press

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• Every one of the world's "great" religions utterly trivializes the immensity and beauty of the cosmos. Books like the Bible and the Koran get almost every significant fact about us and our world wrong. Every scientific domain -- from cosmology to psychology to economics -- has superseded and surpassed the wisdom of Scripture. Everything of value that people get from religion can be had more honestly, without presuming anything on insufficient evidence. The rest is self-deception, set to music.

  Sam Harris

  Book, Our World, Self

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• The monster likes to talk; he jumps into your head and opens your mouth, making it spout your deepest darkest deceptions. Making you say all the things you'd rather not say, at least not in mixed company." (Ellen Hopkins)

  Ellen Hopkins

  Monsters, Mouths, Likes

  Ellen Hopkins (2012). “Ellen Hopkins: Crank Trilogy”, p.87, Simon and Schuster

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• I think people deceive themselves about themselves, particularly as they get older.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Thinking, Hype, People

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• A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human.

  Alan Turing

  Believe, Intelligent, Hype

  "Computing Machinery and Intelligence". Book by Alan Turing, 1950.

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  Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away.

  Elvis Presley

  Positive, Trust, Wisdom

  Elvis Presley (2007). “Elvis: Inspirations”, p.16, Andrews McMeel Publishing

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• One of Satan's most frequently used deceptions is the notion that the commandments of God are meant to restrict freedom and limit happiness.

  Ezra Taft Benson

  Limits, Satan, Used

  Ezra Taft Benson (1988). “The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson”, Bookcraft Pubs

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• We are never more true to ourselves than when we are inconsistent.

  Oscar Wilde

  Trust, Betrayal, Integrity

  Oscar Wilde (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Illustrated)”, p.1491, Delphi Classics

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• After years of denial and deception, the Philip Morris company has admitted that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer and other diseases. This formal acknowledgment comes far too late but still we must all welcome it. It can be the beginning of clearing the air.

  William J. Clinton

  Cancer, Air, Years

  Clinton, William J. (2000). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton, 1999”, p.1762, Best Books on

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• You say, "Well, I am not going to be anyone's 'yes man.' If I see something wrong in a person, I'm going to warn others about it." Fine. But beware that what you are calling "courage to speak out" is not more truly a deception masking a rebellious, dishonouring attitude.

  Francis Frangipane

  Attitude, Men, Speaks Out

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• But by far the greatest hindrance and aberration of the human understanding proceeds from the dullness, incompetency, and deceptions of the senses; in that things which strike the sense outweigh things which do not immediately strike it, though they be more important. Hence it is that speculation commonly ceases where sight ceases; insomuch that of things invisible there is little or no observation.

  Francis Bacon

  Science, Sight, Understanding

  Francis Bacon (2012). “The Great Instauration”, p.36, Simon and Schuster

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• Even good people are obliged to deceive.

  Greg LeMond

  People, Deceiving, Obliged

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

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Spiritual, Strong, Weapons

  Mahatma Gandhi (2012). “The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of His Writings on His Life, Work, and Ideas”, p.134, Vintage

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• There are genuine mysteries in the world that mark the limits of human knowing and thinking. Wisdom is fortified, not destroyed, by understanding its limitations. Ignorance does not make a fool as surely as self-deception.

  Mortimer Adler

  Wisdom, Ignorance, Thinking

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• Men impose deception on women and punish them for being deceived, force them down to the lowest level and punish them for falling so low, bind them in marriage and then chastise them with menial service for life, or insults, or blows.

  Nawal El Saadawi

  Fall, Blow, Men

  Nawal El Saadawi (2007). “Woman at Point Zero: Second Edition”, p.94, Zed Books

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• 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.

  Baruch Spinoza

  Fighting, Men, Titles

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• The pleasure of despair. But then, it is in despair that we find the most acute pleasure, especially when we are aware of the hopelessness of the situation... ...everything is a mess in which it is impossible to tell what's what, but that despite this impossibility and deception it still hurts you, and the less you can understand, the more it hurts.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Hurt, Despair, Impossible

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