Top 483 Deception Quotes & Sayings

A woman wanted to know how to deal with anger. I asked when anger arose whose anger it was. She said it was hers. Well, if it really was her anger, then she should be able to tell it to go away, shouldnt she? But it really isn't hers to command. Holding on to anger as a personal possession will cause suffering. If anger really belonged to us, it would have to obey us. If it doesn't obey us, that means it's only a deception. Don't fall for it. Whenever the mind is happy or sad, don't fall for it. Its all a deception.

Deception is everywhere.

Of all forms of deception self-deception is the most deadly, and of all deceived persons the self-deceived are the least likely to discover the fraud.

All warfare is based on deception.

The web of hypocrisy of today hangs on the frontiers of two domains, between which our time swings back and forth, attaching its fine threads of deception and self-deception. No longer vigorous enough to serve morality without doubt or weakening, not yet reckless enough to live wholly to egoism, it trembles now toward the one and now toward the other in the spider-web of hypocrisy, and, crippled by the curse of halfness, catches only miserable, stupid flies.

Only one deception is possible in the infinite sense, self-deception.

There's a degree of deception in silence.

Understand now what lying is. Any species of designed deception. If the deception is not designed it is not lying. But if you design to make an impression contrary to the naked truth, you lie.

Compromise is the welcome mat to deception.

Belief is a deception you play upon yourself.

Unfortunately, with addiction, there's manipulation and deception.

If... deceit is fundamental to animal communication, then there must be strong selection to spot deception and this ought, in turn, to select for a degree of self-deception, rendering some facts and motives unconscious so as not to betray - by the subtle signs of self-knowledge - the deception being practiced.' Thus, 'the conventional view that natural selection favors nervous systems which produce ever more accurate images of the world must be a very naive view of mental evolution.

Profit is sweet, even if it comes from deception.

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

Spiritual deception is dangerous -and damning.

Like Karl Kraus [Wittgenstein], was seldom pleased by what he saw of the institutions of men, and the idiom of the passerby mostly offended his ear - particularly when they happened to speak philosophically; and like Karl Kraus, he suspected that the institutions could not but be corrupt if the idiom of the race was confused, presumptuous, and vacuous, a fabric of nonsense, untruth, deception, and self-deception.

Lucifer is a master at gradual deception.

The ingenuity of self-deception is inexhaustible.

No satisfaction based upon self-deception is solid.

People always have been the foolish victims of deception and self-deception in politics, and they always will be, until they have learned to seek out the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises.

Beauty is a mute deception.

It wasn't a deception: all lovers live on partial knowledge.

Art is the most beautiful deception of all! And although people try to incorporate the everyday events of life in it, we must hope that it will remain a deception lest it become a utilitarian thing, sad as a factory.

The English language has 112 words for deception, according to one count, each with a different shade of meaning: collusion, fakery, malingering, self-deception, confabulation, prevarication, exaggeration, denial.

Art is the most beautiful deception of all. And although people try to incorporate the everyday events of life in it, we must hope that it will remain a deception lest it become a utilitarian thing, sad as a factory.

If you asked me what makes the world go round, I would say self-deception. Self-deception allows us to create a consistent narrative for ourselves that we actually believe. I’m not saying that the truth doesn’t matter. It does. But self-deception is how we survive.

Deception is the knowledge of kings.

When "news stories" are broken, do we not expect a certain amount of fact-checking or source-checking? One has to ask if this falls under the guise of sloppy reporting or deception as a source of spin. We seem to accept a certain amount of deception and we seem to be helpless to doing anything about it, as illustrated so clearly by where we are right now in this moment in history.

It is probably true that almost all atheists stand for the values of reason and freethought. I will attempt to put these values in more substantial terms. There is the belief that inquiry and doubt are essential checks against deception, self deception, and error. There is the belief that logic and the scientific method is the only way the world can arrive at an agreement on the truth about anything.

An offended heart is the breeding ground of deception.

That's the old AA maxim, "Always have a drink in your hand and you'll never want a drink." That's one of the most classic deceptions in the literature: "I'll take a drink tomorrow." I actually don't think that's necessarily a very helpful maxim in AA, but it's a very good maxim in showing how strategic self-deception can be employed, even self-consciously. That's the amazing thing, to me, about self-deception.

All war is deception.

Truth lives on in the midst of deception.

All confrontation is based on deception.

Drawing is deception.

Deception by an omission of the truth is as bad as a lie.

The essence of lying is in deception, not in words.

Coquetry is the art of successful deception.

Politeness is deception in pretty packaging.

Politicians are masters of the art of deception.

What else exhausts like sustained deception?

Deception is mostly a game we play with ourselves.

Self-deception is nature; hypocrisy is art.

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

deception and 'con games' are a way of life in all species and throughout nature. Organisms that do not improve their ability to deceive - and to detect deception - are less apt to survive.

Art is a deception that creates real emotions - a lie that creates a truth. And when you give yourself over to that deception, it becomes magic.

All war is based on deception.

The worst of all deceptions is self-deception.

Art is the most beautiful deception of all!

Why do most great pictures look uncontrived? Why do photographers bother with the deception, especially since it so often requires the hardest work of all? The answer is, I think, that the deception is necessary if the goal of art is to be reached: only pictures that look as if they had been easily made can convincingly suggest that beauty is commonplace.

Love cannot reconcile with deception

There is as much deception in noise as there is in silence

Neuroscientists are novices at deception.

Patience protects you from deception

Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.

What is the most fascinating kind of self-deception to me, and a kind that isn't necessarily unhealthy, is what Friedrich Nietzsche called "strategic self-deception." The kind of self-deception that you can engage in with your eyes wide open. You do it because you say, "There's things that I couldn't accomplish without this kind of self-deception."

Governments are based pincipally on force and deception. Democratic governments are based chiefly on deception, other governments on force. And democratic governments, if you get too uppity, give up on the deception and resort to brute force, as a lot of us found out in the sixites. Those who didn't find out in the sixites will find out in the near future because we're going to have a rerun.

The point of painting is not really deception or imitation.

Most of our platitudes notwithstanding, self-deception remains the most difficult deception. The tricks that work on others count for nothing in that very well-lit back alley where one keeps assignation with oneself: no winning smiles will do here, no prettily drawn lists of good intentions. One shuffles flashily but in vain through one's marked cards- the kindness done for the wrong reason, the apparent triumph which involved no real effort, the seemingly heroic act into which one had been shamed.

Men still have to be governed by deception.