“Mundus vult decipi: the world wants to be deceived. The truth is too complex and frightening; the taste for the truth is an acquired taste that few acquire….….The world winks at dishonesty. the world does not call it dishonesty”

“Not all deceptions are palatable. Untruths are too easy to come by, too quickly exploded, too cheap and ephemeral to give lasting comfort. Mundus vult decipi, but there is a hierarchy of deceptions.Near the bottom of the ladder is journalism: a steady stream of irresponsible distortions that most people find refreshing although on the morning after, or at least within a week, it will be stale and flat.On a higher level we find fictions that men eagerly believe, regardless of the evidence, because they gratify some wish.Near the top of the ladder we encounter curious mixtures of untruth and truth that exert a lasting fascination on the intellectual community.”

“Mundus vult decipi: the world wants to be deceived.”

“The good must be clearly good but not wholly clear. If it is wholly clear it is too easy to reject.What is wanted is an oversimplification, a reduction of a multitude of possibilities to only two. But if the recommended path were utterly devoid of mystery, it would cease to fascinate men….There would be nothing left to discuss and interpret, to lecture and write about, to admire and merely think about.The world exacts a price for calling teachers wise: it keeps discussing the paths they recommend, but few men follow them. The wise give men endless opportunities to discuss what is good.”

“Man’s world is manifold, and his attitudes are manifold. What is manifold is often frightening because it is not neat and simple. Men prefer to forget how many possibilities are open to them. They like to be told that there are two worlds and two ways. This is comforting because it is so tidy. Almost always one way turns out to be common and the other is celebrated as superior.Those who tell of two ways and praise one are recognised as prophets or great teachers. They save men from confusion and hard choices. They offer a single choice that is easy to make because those who do not take the path that is commended to them live a wretched life.To walk on this path may be difficult, but the choice is easy, and to hear the celebration of the path is pleasant. Wisdom offers simple schemes, but truth is not so simple.”

“Petronius says that ‘Mundus vult decipi - The world wants to be deceived.’ That is very true, otherwise there wouldn’t exist any religion!”

“Renouncing false beliefs will not usher in the millennium. Few things about the strategy of contemporary apologists are more repellent than their frequent recourse to spurious alternatives. The lesser lights inform us that the alternative to Christianity is materialism, thus showing how little they have read, while the greater lights talk as if the alternative were bound to be a shallow and inane optimism. I don't believe that man will turn this earth into a bed of roses either with the aid of God or without it. Nor does life among the roses strike me as a dream from which one would not care to wake up after a very short time.”