88 Deception Quotes To Reflect

In a world where appearances can often be deceiving, uncovering the truth becomes an essential pursuit. Deception, whether subtle or blatant, weaves its way through human interactions, literature, and even within our own minds. As we navigate through life's complexities, reflecting on the nature of deception can provide invaluable insights and wisdom. In this collection, we've gathered 88 of the most poignant deception quotes to inspire contemplation, introspection, and perhaps even a touch of enlightenment. Dive in and discover the myriad perspectives on this elusive and intriguing aspect of the human experience.

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. “Oh, what a tangled web we weave...when first we practice to deceive.” - Walter Scott

3. “Nothing is easier than self-deceit.For what every man wishes,that he also believes to be true.” - Demosthenes

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. “Many things are not as they seem: The worst things in life never are.” - Jim Butcher

9. “Nothing could be taken for granted. Women who loved you tried to cut your throat, while women who didn't even know your name scrubbed your back. Witches could sound like Katharine Hepburn and your best friend could try to strangle you. Smack in the middle of an orchid there might be a blob of jello and inside a Mickey Mouse doll, a fixed and radiant star.” - Toni Morrison

10. “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

11. “There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.” - Arthur Conan Doyle

12. “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

13. “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

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

15. “I feel incendiary, a wildfire. My spirit licks at the gates of a very elaborate, customized, and distracting emotional Hades.” - Suzanne Finnamore

16. “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

17. “Although I notice there is never a truly good time to have a nice long chat with one´s mother-in-law, unless you are having an extraordinary life and marriage and your mother-in-law is, say, Maureen Dowd, or Indira Gandhi. Someone of that ilk.” - Suzanne Finnamore

18. “How can I grieve what is still in motion?" I ask her. "Shoes are still dropping all over the place. I´m not kidding," I say. "It´s Normandy out there.” - Suzanne Finnamore

19. “They feel life is for the taking, and that everyone deserves happiness no matter what the cost. I must remember these tricks if I ever decide to have my soul surgically removed.” - Suzanne Finnamore

20. “Someday I will have revenge. I know in advance to keep this to myself, and everyone will be happier. I do understand that I am expected to forgive N and his girlfriend in a timely fashion, and move on to a life of vegetarian cooking and difficult yoga positions and self-realization, and make this so much easier and more pleasant for all concerned.” - Suzanne Finnamore

21. “I review what I know once again, confronting the monolith now alien and almost unconnected to me: my marriage.” - Suzanne Finnamore

22. “I used to loathe ambivalence; now I adore it. Ambivalence is my new best friend.” - Suzanne Finnamore

23. “He announces that lately he keeps losing things. "Like your wife and child," I want to say, but don´t. At fourty, I´ve learned not to say everything clever, not to score every point.” - Suzanne Finnamore

24. “I´ve blown it, the whole grisly charade.” - Suzanne Finnamore

25. “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

26. “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

27. “The snag about marriage is, it isn´t worth the divorce.” - Suzanne Finnamore

28. “We talk. Darlene worries aloud that her husband works with a lot of attractive young women; she herself is fourty. I tell her it´s not about age. "Little thing called character," I say, thinking, Accepting marital advice from me: the height of lunacy.” - Suzanne Finnamore

29. “Surprises, I feel now, are primarily a form of violence.” - Suzanne Finnamore

30. “I am replete with stamina in finding out every single fact I can about this whole affair.Yet, I think, do I want to pull that thread? Do I want to unleash the truth, unravel deceit, and kill reality as I´ve known it? It is irreparable, if I do, from the moment we met until now. It is long. If I discover too much that is false about what I thought my past was, Time will be skewed even further. I already have a poor connection with the present. Example: I have no sense of what day it is. It´s better.” - Suzanne Finnamore

31. “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

32. “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

33. “To keep myself from harming or calling N and to stave off the rage and despair, I focus on my extraordinary son, drink midrange Chardonnay every night after he is asleep, and make a barrage of late-night mail-order retail purchases placed from the couch. The couch has officially become my second battle station. I am angry and I have credit And I´m all blackened inside; I should wear a pointy witch hat around Larkspur as I go to the bank and drop A off at day care. It would be more honest.” - Suzanne Finnamore

34. “This does not escape my notice, it is a context. I resent the fact of a context; my social status has shifted and no one is going to acknowldege it, that´s certain. I´m expected to be Brave and Rise Above. I dress for the role; I must look far better now that I did when I was married. I must look pulled together into a nice tight Hermès knot of self-containment. I don´t make the rules; I just do my best to follow them.” - Suzanne Finnamore

35. “How could you do that to me?" I repeat. I don´t have to itemize. He knows what I speak of.Eventually N produces three answers, in this order:1. "Because I am a complete rotter." I silently agree, but it´s a cop-out: I have maggots, therefore I am dead.2. "I was stressed at work and unhappy and we were always fighting...and you know I was just crazy..."I cut him off, saying, "You don´t get to be crazy. You did exactly what you chose to do."Which is true, he did. It is what he has always done. He therefore seems slightly puzzled at the need for further diagnosis, which may explain his third response:3. "I don´t know."This, I feel instinctively, is the correct answer. How can I stay angry with him for being what he is? I was, after all, his wife, and I chose him. No coincidences, that´s what Freud said. None. Ever.I wipe my eyes on my sleeve and walk toward the truck, saying to his general direction, "Fine. At least now I know: You don´t know."I stop and turn around and fire one more question: a bullet demanding attention in the moment it enters the skin and spreads outward, an important bullet that must be acknowledged."What did you feel?"After a lengthy pause, he answers. "I felt nothing."And that, I realize too late, was not the whole truth, but was a valid part of the truth.Oh, and welcome to the Serengeti. That too.” - Suzanne Finnamore

36. “An Idea is nothing but Information, It won't do us any harm until we accept it as perception of truth in our mind, which in time will potentially evolve and construct major events in history.” - Djayawarman Alamprabu

37. “Some things just couldn't be protectd from storms. Some things simply needed to be broken off...Once old thing were broken off, amazingly beautiful thing could grow in their place.” - Denise Hildreth

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

39. “A man when he is making up to anybody can be cordial and gallant and full of little attentions and altogether charming. But when a man is really in love he can't help looking like a sheep.” - Agatha Christie

40. “In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the People.” - Eugene Victor Debs

41. “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

42. “Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.” - Sun Tzu

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

44. “Obama's rhetorical overtures to democracy, it turned out, were just a decoy to conceal his unwavering determination to govern from the far left.” - Sean Hannity

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

46. “The truest way to be deceived is to think oneself more knowing than others.” - Francois de La Rochefoucauld

47. “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

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

49. “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

50. “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

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

52. “We are all tricked. We think that religion tells us what to believe; but it doesn't, it is telling us what not to believe. Atheism is not the absence of religion; atheism is the most undiluted form of religion: it tells us not to believe in anything at all. Atheists hate the religious and the religious hate atheists, but this is only a deception! We are all deceived! There is only one boat and we are all in it! All at the same time!” - C. JoyBell C.

53. “You just sit there and tolerate it, the same way everything in this country is tolerated. Every deception, every lie, every bullet in the brains. Just as you are already tolerating bullets in the brains that will be implemented only after the bullet is put in your brains.” - Imre Kertesz

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

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

56. “Guard yourself from lying; there is he who deceives and there is he who is deceived.” - Sextus

57. “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

58. “The power to lead is the power to mislead, and the power to mislead is the power to destroy.” - Thomas S. Monson

59. “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

60. “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

61. “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

62. “And we all know love is a glass which makes even a monster appear fascinating.” - Alberto Moravia

63. “Do actions agree with words? There's your measure of reliability. Never confine yourself to the words.” - Frank Herbert

64. “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

65. “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

66. “The fact that he does not tell me the truth all the time makes me not sure of his truth at certain times, and then I work to figure out for myself if what he is telling me is the truth or not, and sometimes I can figure out that it's not the truth and sometimes I don't know and never know, and sometimes just because he says it to me over and over again I am convinced it is the truth because I don't believe he would repeat a lie so often. Maybe the truth does not matter, but I want to know it if only so that I can come to some conclusions about such questions as: whether he is angry at me or not; if he is, then how angry; whether he still loves her or not; if he does, then how much; whether he loves me or not; how much; how capable he is of deceiving me in the act and after the act in the telling.” - Lydia Davis

67. “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 Shelley

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

69. “Half-truths are worth more than outright lies.” - George R.R. Martin

70. “The film is the first art form capable of demonstrating how matter plays tricks on man.” - Walter Benjamin

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

72. “Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.” - Niccolo Machiavelli

73. “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

74. “Some people in your lifeTouch you so very deeplyThat you drown totally in that depth.” - Amit Abraham

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

76. “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

77. “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

78. “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

79. “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

80. “We cannot separate doubt from deception. Doubt robs a man of his confidence; it is a fearful thing. Offer him deception to restore that confidence and he will embrace the falsehood for the comfort it brings. If you would deceive, begin with doubt.” - D.A. Blankinship

81. “This monograph by Special Agent Ken Lanning (1992) is merely a guide for those who may investigate this phenomenon, as the title indicates, and not a study. The author is a well known skeptic regarding cult and ritual abuse allegations and has consulted on a number of cases but to our knowledge has not personally investigated the majority of these cases, some of which have produced convictions. p179[refers to Lanning, K. V. (1992)Investigator's guide to allegations of "ritual" child abuse. Quantico, VA: National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime.]” - Pamela Sue Perskin

82. “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

83. “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

84. “Beware when wrong-doing is called good and right-doing is called evil.” - R. Alan Woods

85. “I have led you down a road of deception just to correct you and make you look like an uneducated ass” - Ashley Newell

86. “There is more beauty than our eyes can bear, precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm.” - Marilynne Robinson

87. “Questions are only offensive to those who have something to hide” - Gary Hopkins

88. “Mundus vult decipi'—the world wants to be deceived. To live without deception presupposes standards beyond the reach of most people whose existence is largely shaped by compromise, evasion and mutual accommodation. Could they face their weakness, their vanity and selfishness, without a mask?” - Abraham Joshua Heschel