Deceit Quotes

“It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.”
― Noël Coward, Blithe Spirit

“Anything is better than lies and deceit!”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“Love is a verb, not a noun. It is active. Love is not just feelings of passion and romance. It is behavior. If a man lies to you, he is behaving badly and unlovingly toward you. He is disrespecting you and your relationship. The words “I love you” are not enough to make up for that. Don’t kid yourself that they are.”
― Susan Forward, When Your Lover Is a Liar: Healing the Wounds of Deception and Betrayal

“I am convinced that human life is filled with many pure, happy, serene examples of insincerity, truly splendid of their kind-of people deceiving one another without (strangely enough) any wounds being inflicted, of people who seem unaware even that they are deceiving one another.”
― Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human

“God hath given you one face, and you make yourself another.”
― Shakespeare, Hamlet

“The only thing more frustrating than slanderers is those foolish enough to listen to them.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“When one with honeyed words but evil mind
Persuades the mob, great woes befall the state.”
― Euripides, Orestes

“The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart.
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!”
― William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

“MAKING THE LIE MAKE SENSE:

When denial (his or ours) can no longer hold and we finally have to admit to ourselves that we’ve been lied to, we search frantically for ways to keep it from disrupting our lives. So we rationalize. We find “good reasons” to justify his lying, just as he almost always accompanies his confessions with “good reasons” for his lies. He tells us he only lied because…. We tell ourselves he only lied because…. We make excuses for him: The lying wasn’t significant/Everybody lies/He’s only human/I have no right to judge him.

Allowing the lies to register in our consciousness means having to make room for any number of frightening possibilities:

• He’s not the man I thought he was.
• The relationship has spun out of control and I don’t know
what to do
• The relationship may be over.

Most women will do almost anything to avoid having to face these truths. Even if we yell and scream at him when we discover that he’s lied to us, once the dust settles, most of us will opt for the comforting territory of rationalization. In fact, many of us are willing to rewire our senses, short-circuit our instincts and intelligence, and accept the seductive comfort of self-delusion.”
― Susan Forward, When Your Lover Is a Liar: Healing the Wounds of Deception and Betrayal

“Nothing is more deceitful," said Darcy, "than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“When your lover is a liar, you and he have a lot in common, you're both lying to you!”
― Susan Forward, When Your Lover Is a Liar: Healing the Wounds of Deception and Betrayal

“Do not be deceived: bad company corrupts good morals.”
― Anonymous, The Holy Bible: King James Version

“You must remember, my dear lady, the most important rule of any successful illusion: First, the people must want to believe in it.”
― Libba Bray, The Sweet Far Thing

“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”
― Desiderius Erasmus

“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, Love Quotes for the Ages. Specifically Ages 19-91.

“A rumor is a social cancer: it is difficult to contain and it rots the brains of the masses. However, the real danger is that so many people find rumors enjoyable. That part causes the infection. And in such cases when a rumor is only partially made of truth, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly where the information may have gone wrong. It is passed on and on until some brave soul questions its validity; that brave soul refuses to bite the apple and let the apple eat him. Forced to start from scratch for the sake of purity and truth, that brave soul, figuratively speaking, fully amputates the information in order to protect his personal judgment. In other words, his ignorance is to be valued more than the lie believed to be true.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Those who plead their cause in the absence of an opponent can invent to their heart's content, can pontificate without taking into account the opposite point of view and keep the best arguments for themselves, for aggressors are always quick to attack those who have no means of defence.”
― Christine de Pizan, Der Sendbrief vom Liebesgott / The Letter of the God of Love

“Never judge someone by their relatives.”
― Charles Martin, Chasing Fireflies

“What man ever openly apologizes for slander? It is not so much a feeling of slander as it is that of a massive lie, a misdeed not only to the slandered but also to those manipulated in the process. He has made them all, every one, his enemies, thereupon he is so overwhelmed with guilt that he will deny it until his grave.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.”
― Aristotle

“Love binds, and it binds forever. Good binds while evil unravels. Separation is another word for evil; it is also another word for deceit.”
― Michel Houellebecq, The Elementary Particles

“Reality Check
His lying is not contigent on who you are or what you do. His lying is not your fault. Lying is his choice and his problem, and if he makes that choice with you, he will make it with any other woman he’s with. That doesn’t mean you’re an angel and he’s the devil. It does mean that if he doesn’t like certain things about you, he has many ways to address them besides lying. If there are sexual problems between you, there are many resources available to help you. Nothing can change until you hold him responsible and accountable for lying and stop blaming yourself.

The lies we tell ourselves to keep from seeing the truth about our lovers don’t feel like lies. They feel comfortable, familiar, and true. We repeat them like a mantra and cling to them like security blankets, hoping to calm ourselves and regain our sense that the world works the way we believe it ought to.
Self-lies are false friends we look to for comfort and protection—and for a short time they may make us feel better. But we can only keep the truth at bay for so long. Our self-lies can’t erase his lies, and as we’ll see, the longer we try to pretend they can, the more we deepen the hurt.”
― Susan Forward

“She was a ray of sunshine, a warm summer rain, a bright fire on a cold winter’s day, and now she could be dead because she had tried to save the man she loved.”
― Grace Willows

“There is no deception on the part of the woman, where a man bewilders himself: if he deludes his own wits, I can certainly acquit the women. Whatever man allows his mind to dwell upon the imprint his imagination has foolishly taken of women, is fanning the flames within himself -- and, since the woman knows nothing about it, she is not to blame. For if a man incites himself to drown, and will not restrain himself, it is not the water's fault.”
― John Gower, Confessio Amantis, Volume 1

“Yet if women are so flighty, fickle, changeable, susceptible, and inconstant (as some clerks would have us believe), why is it that their suitors have to resort to such trickery to have their way with them? And why don't women quickly succumb to them, without the need for all this skill and ingenuity in conquering them? For there is no need to go to war for a castle that is already captured. (...)

Therefore, since it is necessary to call on such skill, ingenuity, and effort in order to seduce a woman, whether of high or humble birth, the logical conclusion to draw is that women are by no means as fickle as some men claim, or as easily influenced in their behaviour. And if anyone tells me that books are full of women like these, it is this very reply, frequently given, which causes me to complain. My response is that women did not write these books nor include the material which attacks them and their morals. Those who plead their cause in the absence of an opponent can invent to their heart's content, can pontificate without taking into account the opposite point of view and keep the best arguments for themselves, for aggressors are always quick to attack those who have no means of defence. But if women had written these books, I know full well the subject would have been handled differently. They know that they stand wrongfully accused, and that the cake has not been divided up equally, for the strongest take the lion's share, and the one who does the sharing out keeps the biggest portion for himself.”
― Christine de Pizan, Der Sendbrief vom Liebesgott / The Letter of the God of Love

“Religion is like a blind man looking in a black room for a black cat that isn't there, and finding it.”
― Anonymous

“One may outwit another, but not all the others.”
― François de La Rochefoucauld

“Some use "ambiguity" as their native language and prefer to hide behind a veil of para-social intrigue or deceit. They readily apply a strategy of a condescendingly friendly approach. Still, as we can capture arresting signals that urge us to defuse a dire threat of besiegement, we can decipher any shrouded or manipulative intentions and steer clear of unforeseen pitfalls. ("Finally things had lost their weightiness")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“I survive at the edge of friends circles.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!”
― Walter Scott, Marmion