Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield Quotes

I don't like people who speak or think in terms of gaining anybody's confidence. If one's actions are honest, one does not need the predated confidence of others, only their rational perception. The person who craves a moral blank check of that kind, has dishonest intentions, whether he admits it to himself or not.

The nicer I am, the more people think I'm lying.

Mine eyes Were not in fault, for she was beautiful; Mine ears, that heard her flattery; nor my heart, That thought her like her seeming. It had been vicious To have mistrusted her.

Everybody thinks I'm this delicate little girl. But you can't tell a book by it's cover.' To which she added a momentary smile.

It amused me to think that one can tell the truth when one is drunk and nobody will believe it.

Honesty is often the best policy, but sometimes the appearance of it is worth six of it.

[He] may talk like an idiot, and look like an idiot, but don't let that fool you: he really is an idiot.

You know who makes a great first impression? Liars.

The English think that incompetence is the same thing as sincerity.

What a fool honesty is.

His voice was soft and sweet as molasses; but my mother once told me that you had to trust that the first thing out of a person's mouth was truth. After they have a chance to think about it, they'll change what they say to be more socially acceptable, something they think you'll be happier with, something that will get the results they want.

He did seem like a nice boy. Seeming and being are two different things.

A man who lies, thinking it is the truth, is an honest man, and a man who tells the truth, believing it to be a lie, is a liar.

The man grinned back at me with that perfect sincerity we fear and call simple-minded.

Everyone can lie, young Roger, given cause enough. Even me. It's only that it's harder for those of us who live in glass faces; we have to think up our lies ahead of time.

I think Abraham Lincoln said believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see.

Wes Clark is a man of whom you can ask a question, and he will look you directly in the eye, and give you the most truthful and complete answer you can imagine. You will know the absolute truth of the statement as well as the thought process behind the answer. You will have no doubt as to the intellect of the speaker and meaning of the answer to this question....So you can see, as a politician, he has a lot to learn.

You can be so dignified that you obscure the reality of what is going on.

All men are liars, said Roberta Muldoon, who knew this was true because she had once been a man.

Colon thought Carrot was simple. Carrot often struck people as simple. And he was. Where people went wrong was thinking that simple meant the same thing as stupid.

I deliberately state my age because it keeps me honest. I think lying is a bad idea. Sooner or later, someone's going to catch you.

Everything was so designed by Hannibal to break down Will in the first season, until Will's sanity became questionable. It's so much easier to believe that somebody losing their mind is capable of terrible things than it is to consider Frasier Crane, a charming, fun doctor who invites you to dinner. If you put those two in a police lineup, you're going to pick the guy who's melting down.

And oft, though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps At wisdom's gate, and to simplicity Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill Where no ill seems.

When he wanted, he could radiate charm and sincerity, but I often wonder in these later days if anything about him was as it seemed. I think now he was a man fighting constantly to escape the bars of an invisible cage.

Lindsay calls them the Pugs: pretty from far away, ugly up close.