Deceit Quotes

We must be ready to employ trickery, deceit, law-breaking, withholding and concealing truth. We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, scorn, and the like, toward those who disagree with us.

Above all, avoid lies, all lies, especially the lie to yourself. Keep watch on your own lie and examine it every hour, every minute. And avoid contempt, both of others and of yourself: what seems bad to you in yourself is purified by the very fact that you have noticed it in yourself. And avoid fear, though fear is simply the consequence of every lie. Never be frightened at your own faintheartedness in attaining love, and meanwhile do not even be very frightened by your own bad acts.

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that would tell one anything.

You are a den of vipers and thieves ... by the eternal God, I will rout you out.

No matter how smart or well-educated you are, you can be deceived.

I don't know what a scoundrel is like, but I know what a respectable man is like, and it's enough to make one's flesh creep.

O, you anarchic scum, you cowardly murderers, you leeches upon honest labor, you midnight assassins!

When I reflect on the pompous titles bestowed on unworthy men, I feel an indignity that instructs me to despise the absurdity. The Honourable plunderer of his country, or the Right Honourable murderer of mankind, create such a contrast of ideas as exhibit a monster rather than a man. Virtue is inflamed at the violation, and sober reason calls it nonsense.

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

He [Henry Clay] is certainly the basest, meanest scoundrel that ever disgraces the image of God—nothing too mean or low for him to condescend to.

You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the grace of the Eternal God, will rout you out.

A lie told often enough becomes the truth.

Be a hypocrite if you like, but don't talk like one.

A fool always finds a greater fool to admire him

Patriotism is seen not only the last refuge of the scoundrel bus as the first bolt-hole of the hypocrite.

The first and fiercest punishment ought to fall first on the traitor, second on the enemy. If I had but one bullet and I were faced by both an enemy and a traitor, I would let the traitor have it.

Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.

A half truth is a whole lie.

If you only notice human proceedings, you may observe that all who attain great power and riches, make use of either force or fraud; and what they have acquired either by deceit or violence, in order to conceal the disgraceful methods of attainment, they endeavor to sanctify with the false title of honest gains.

I love the treason but hate the traitor.

Truth has anciently been called the first casualty of war. Money may, in fact, have priority.

[Political] offices are as acceptable here as elsewhere, and whenever a man cast a longing eye on them, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

The very name of a politician, a statesman, is sure to cause terror and hatred; it has always connected with it the ideas of treachery, cruelty, fraud, and tyranny…