71 Quotes On Deception

In a world where truth can sometimes seem elusive, the power of words to unveil or obscure reality has never been more pertinent. Whether it's through literature, philosophy, or everyday interactions, deception plays a significant role in the human experience. This collection of 71 quotes on deception delves into the many facets of this complex and often unsettling phenomenon. From the profound to the poignant, these carefully selected quotes will not only make you reflect on the nature of truth and falsehood but also offer a deeper understanding of the motives behind deception and its impact on our lives. Join us as we explore the wisdom and insights of notable thinkers, writers, and observers who have pondered the shadows that deception casts.

1. “Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken.” - Jane Austen

2. “And thus I clothe my naked villainyWith odd old ends stol'n out of holy writ;And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.” - William Shakespeare

3. “Her words were like tinfoil; they shone and they covered things up.” - Helen Cross

4. “Oh! that look of love!" continued he, between his teeth, as he bolted himself into his own private room. "And that cursed lie; which showed some terrible shame in the background, to be kept from the light in which I thought she lived perpetually! Oh, Margaret, Margaret! Mother, how you have tortured me! Oh! Margaret, could you not have loved me? I am but uncouth and hard, but I would never have led you into any falsehood for me.” - Elizabeth Gaskell

5. “I am not good at deception,' said Tuesday gloomily, flushing.Right, my boy, right,' said the President with a ponderous heartiness, 'You aren't good at anything.” - G.K. Chesterton

6. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!” - Noel Langley

7. “Writing fiction is the act of weaving a series of lies to arrive at a greater truth.” - Khaled Hosseini

8. “Almost all people are hypnotics. The proper authority saw to it that the proper belief should be induced, and the people believed properly.” - Charles Fort

9. “A lie that is half-truth is the darkest of all lies.” - Alfred Tennyson

10. “The keepers would give the gorillas an assortment of fruits and vegetables each afternoon, and on this particular occasion, Judy Sievert tossed Nina an apple, which rolled away. Instead of going to get it, Nina just 'sat there sadly,' in Judy's words. Judy continued her rounds, handing out yams and apples to the other gorillas, but Nina sat there looking appleless and downtrodden. Taking pity, Judy tossed her another apple. As soon as Nina had it, she got up and went over to where the first apple had rolled away, taking it too.” - Eugene Linden

11. “Who would appreciate such candor? No one. None of us really likes honesty. We prefer deception –but only when it is unabashedly flattering or artfully camouflaged. Groups seem to need to believe that they are superior to others and that they have a purpose greater than just passing along their genes to the next generation. Individuals seem to need similar delusions – about who they are and why they do what they do. They need heroes, however fraudulent… Studies show that people are more likely to accept the opinion of a confident con man than the cautious view of someone who actually knows what he is talking about. And professionals who form overconfident opinions on the basis of incorrect readings of the facts are more likely to succeed than their more competent peers who display greater doubt.What’s more, deception works best, according to studies by psychologists, when the person doing the deceiving is fool enough to be deceived, too; that is, when he believes his own lies. That is why incompetent leaders – who are naïve enough to fall for their own guff – are such a danger to civilized life. If they are modern leaders, they must also delude themselves into thinking they know how to make the world a better place. Invariably, the answers they propose to problems are ones that bubble up from their own vanity, the essence of which is to make the rest of the world look just like them!” - William Bonner

12. “Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.” - Oscar Wilde

13. “Thus we have on stage two men, each of whom knows nothing of what he believes the other knows, and to deceive each other reciprocally both speak in allusions, each of the two hoping (in vain) that the other holds the key to his puzzle.” - Umberto Eco

14. “Later, when she sees the photographs for the first time, she will be surprised at how calm her face looks - how steady her gaze, how erect her posture. In the picture her eyes will be slightly closed, and there will be a shadow on her neck. The shawl will be draped around her shoulders, and her hands will rest in her lap. In this deceptive photograph, she will look a young woman who is not at all disturbed or embarrassed, but instead appears to be rather serious. And she wonders if, in its ability to deceive, photography is not unlike the sea, which may offer a benign surface to the observe even as it conceals depths and current below.” - Anita Shreve

15. “Rise above the deceptions and temptations of the mind. This is your duty. You are born for this only; all other duties are self-created and self-imposed owing to ignorance.” - Sivananda

16. “Très, très, triste...” - Suzanne Finnamore

17. “Naturally, I do blame Françoise. I blame her for having N in the first place. She was young, she was beautiful, she was married to a doctor, and she was intelligent. She could have abstained from producing her first son. It was wrong on a variety of levels.” - Suzanne Finnamore

18. “Yes. THANK YOU. And say hello to Judas Iscariot.” - Suzanne Finnamore

19. “There is that, and there is also the Irreconcilable Differences line. It seems so catchall, so vague. You could say that about anyone, any man and woman at all. Jesus and Mary Magdalene: "Irreconcilable Differences." JFK and Jackie, anyone at all. It´s built into the man-woman thing. What kind of paltry reason is that? "Insanity" is another box to be checked on the divorce petition, the only alternative to "Irreconcilable Differences." I would like to check it.” - Suzanne Finnamore

20. “I remember one desolate Sunday night, wondering: Is this how I´m going to spend the rest of my life? Marrid to someone who is perpetually distracted and somewhat wistful, as though a marvelous party is going on in the next room, which but for me he could be attending?” - Suzanne Finnamore

21. “So many events and moments that seemed insignificant add up. I remember how for the last Valentine´s Day, N gave flowers but no card. In restaurants, he looked off into the middle distance while my hand would creep across the table to hold his. He would always let go first. I realize I can´t remember his last spontaneous gesture of affection.” - Suzanne Finnamore

22. “How do you know? How best to ensure his nervous breakdown?" I ask."Keep going," Christian says. "Just go on as if nothing has happened. We all hate that.” - Suzanne Finnamore

23. “The Betty Lady explains love and splitting up: "It´s like playing the shell game with Jesus. You can´t figure anything out; it´s best not to try. You´ll just humiliate yourself.” - Suzanne Finnamore

24. “For me, it´s sloth," I say. "Hedonistic sloth and escapism.” - Suzanne Finnamore

25. “I know my vision is impaired and cannot be trusted with even the simplest tasks, much less dating. Not that I´ve come within talon distance of a man.” - Suzanne Finnamore

26. “Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.” - Thomas Hobbes

27. “The final portrait is often furthest from the truth.” - Dave Cullen

28. “I'll say this, Arik: the old man's warning proved to be true - things are not always what they seem. She was no young lady -" "If it's the demon you speak of," interjected Rith, as she stepped back into the ruin, Lyssa following after, "she was not even a toothless old hag.” - Dennis L. McKiernan

29. “People are secretive when they have secrets.” - Deb Caletti

30. “It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived.” - René Descartes

31. “I do know that the slickest way to lie is to tell the right amount of truth--then shut up.” - Robert A. Heinlein

32. “Be careful who influence and inspire your life. Their ways seem like leading to life but the truth is, they lead to eternal death” - Ann Marie Aguilar

33. “Betrayal and dishonor is usually an inside job. Keep it 'sucka-free', loved one!” - T.F. Hodge

34. “Like antidepressants, a substantial part of the benefit of psychotherapy depends on a placebo effect, or as Moerman calls it, the meaning response. At least part of the improvement that is produced by these treatments is due to the relationship between the therapist and the client and to the client's expectancy of getting better. That is a problem for antidepressant treatment. It is a problem because drugs are supposed to work because of their chemistry, not because of the psychological factors. But it is not a problem for psychotherapy. Psychotherapists are trained to provide a warm and caring environment in which therapeutic change can take place. Their intention is to replace the hopelessness of depression with a sense of hope and faith in the future. These tasks are part of the essence of psychotherapy. The fact that psychotherapy can mobilize the meaning response - and that it can do so without deception - is one of its strengths, no one of its weaknesses. Because hopelessness is a fundamental characteristic of depression, instilling hope is a specific treatment for it it. Invoking the meaning response is essential for the effective treatment of depression, and the best treatments are those that can do this most effectively and that can do without deception.” - Irving Kirsch

35. “Where utopianism is advanced through gradualism rather than revolution, albeit steady and persistent as in democratic societies, it can deceive and disarm an unsuspecting population, which is largely content and passive. It is sold as reforming and improving the existing society's imperfections and weaknesses without imperiling its basic nature. Under these conditions, it is mostly ignored, dismissed, or tolerated by much of the citizenry and celebrated by some. Transformation is deemed innocuous, well-intentioned, and perhaps constructive but not a dangerous trespass on fundamental liberties.” - Mark R. Levin

36. “We must be careful more than ever what we let our hearts believe in.” - Solange nicole

37. “Just because something isn't a lie does not mean that it isn't deceptive. A liar knows that he is a liar, but one who speaks mere portions of truth in order to deceive is a craftsman of destruction.” - Criss Jami

38. “Every picture tells a story. But sometimes it's hard to know what story is actually being told.” - Anastasia Hollings

39. “Kurti had believed in politics, and politics had deceived him, the way politics deceives everyone.” - Imre Kertesz

40. “We’re a different sort of thief here, Lamora. Deception and misdirection are our tools. We don’t believe in hard work when a false face and a good line of bullshit can do so much more.” - Scott Lynch

41. “If the map doesn't agree with the ground the map is wrong” - Gordon Livingston

42. “Frankie raised an eyebrow. Look at you getting all sentimental. You know where to find me.Delaney nodded. That doesn’t mean you want to be found. Come on. One drink.” - Holly Hood

43. “Love is beautiful,A beautiful deception.One falls in itTo deceive the other” - Amit Abraham

44. “At first I did not love you, Jude; that I own. When I first knew you I merely wanted you to love me. I did not exactly flirt with you; but that inborn craving which undermines some women's morals almost more than unbridled passion--the craving to attract and captivate, regardless of the injury it may do the man--was in me; and when I found I had caught you, I was frightened. And then--I don't know how it was-- I couldn't bear to let you go--possibly to Arabella again--and so I got to love you, Jude. But you see, however fondly it ended, it began in the selfish and cruel wish to make your heart ache for me without letting mine ache for you.” - Thomas Hardy

45. “The setting sun burned the sky pink and orange in the same bright hues as surfers' bathing suits. It was beautiful deception, Bosch thought, as he drove north on the Hollywood Freeway to home. Sunsets did that here. Made you forget it was the smog that made their colors so brilliant, that behind every pretty picture there could be an ugly story.” - Michael Connelly

46. “When one with honeyed words but evil mindPersuades the mob, great woes befall the state.” - Euripides

47. “People trust their eyes above all else - but most people see what they wish to see, or what they believe they should see; not what is really there” - Zoë Marriott

48. “Mindfulness helps us get better at seeing the difference between what’s happening and the stories we tell ourselves about what’s happening, stories that get in the way of direct experience. Often such stories treat a fleeting state of mind as if it were our entire and permanent self.” - Sharon Salzberg

49. “Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.” - Andre Malraux

50. “Deception is mostly a game we play with ourselves.” - Terry Brooks

51. “Je découvris qu'en bluffant les psychiatres on pouvait tirer des trésors inépuisables de divertissement gratifiants: vous les menez habilement en bateau, leur cachez soigneusement que vous connaissez toutes les ficelles du métier; vous inventez à leur intention des rêves élaborés, de purs classiques du genre qui provoquent chez eux, ces extorqueurs de rêves, de tels cauchemars qu'ils se réveillent en hurlant; vous les affriolez avec des "scènes primitives" apocryphes; le tout sans jamais leur permettre d'entrevoir si peu que ce soit le véritable état de votre sexualité. En soudoyant une infirmière, j'eus accès à quelques dossiers et découvris, avec jubilation, des fiches me qualifiant d' "homosexuel en puissance" et d' "impuissant invétéré". Ce sport était si merveilleux, et ses résultats - dans mon cas - si mirifiques, que je restai un bon mois supplémentaire après ma guérison complète (dormant admirablement et mangeant comme une écolière). Puis j'ajoutai encore une semaine rien que pour le plaisir de me mesurer à un nouveau venu redoutable, une célébrité déplacée (et manifestement égarée) comme pour son habileté à persuader ses patients qu'ils avaient été témoins de leur propre conception.” - Vladimir Nabokov

52. “Sometimes terror and pain are not the best levers; deception, when it works, is the most elegant and the least expensive manipulation of all.” - Vernor Vinge

53. “Trust the story ... the storyteller may dissemble and deceive, the story can't: the story can only ever be itself.” - James Robertson

54. “People wear masks in the light because true happiness are the agents of deception and delusion.” - Lionel Suggs

55. “Well, well -- the prizes all go to the women who 'play their cards well' -- but if they can only be won in that way, I would rather lose the game ... [C]lever [women] bide their time -- make themselves indispensable first, and then se font prier [=play hard to get]. Clever -- but I can't do it.” - Dorothy L. Sayers

56. “I can't count the men who have tried to seduce me away from my virtue by teaching me how to defend it.” - Patrick Rothfuss

57. “A true master will not deceive an able disciple. You are hampered by the limits you set and no limit can be set on skill.” - Wayne Gerard Trotman

58. “Deception sneaks in through the window of pride.” - Evinda Lepins

59. “Injured SoulFainted EyesReturningfrom where?Weary feetWeak armsTreadingtoward where?Struggledin vain battlesFightingdelusive enemiesErred bya deceptionThe ancient deception” - Rixa White

60. “No denial of the truth will ever invalidate it.” - Nikki Rosen

61. “To deceive oneself is worse than to deceive others." These harsh words pierced me to the core.” - Shinichi Suzuki

62. “To find out if she really loved me, I hooked her up to a lie detector. And just as I suspected, my machine was broken.
” - Dark Jar Tin Zoo

63. “I love that she loves me a 10, on a 5-point scale. Well, I know it’s a 5-point scale, though I asked her on a 1-100 scale.

” - Dark Jar Tin Zoo

64. “Orange Juice? Sure. Toast? Sure. One last time on the couch? Sure. Phone number? Sure. See you again? Oooh, absolutely. That was the lie I told. Probably not, that was the truth, that was that which went unspoken.” - T. Scott McLeod

65. “A truth is what it is. A lie, a thought out deception more brutal than a truth could ever be.” - Charlotte Armstrong

66. “To the man of science, on his unassuming and laborious travels, which must often enough be journeys through the desert, there appear those glittering mirages called 'philosophical systems'; with bewitching deceptive power they show the solution of all enigmas and the freshest draught of the true water of life to be near at hand; his heart rejoices, and it seems to the weary traveller that his lips already touch the goal of all the perseverance and sorrows of the scientific life... Other natures again, may well grow exceedingly ill-humoured and curse the salty taste which these apparitions leave behind in the mouth and from which arises a raging thirst – without one having been brought so much as a step nearer to any kind of spring.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

67. “The objection to propaganda is not only its appeal to unreason, but still more the unfair advantage which it gives to the rich and powerful.” - Bertrand Russell

68. “Kitsch is the most pernicious of all prisons. The bars are covered with the gold of simplistic, unreal feelings, so that you take them for the pillars of a palace.” - Pascal Mercier

69. “…If one who slays one is a murderer then he who slays a thousand is not a hero,' said Lalu.” - Mulk Raj Anand

70. “The most common sort of lie is that by which a man deceives himself: the deception of others is a relatively rare offense.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

71. “Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep;And in his simple show he harbours treason.” - William Shakespeare