DECEIT
Bailey, Gamaliel
The first and worst of all frauds is to cheat one's self.—All sin is easy after that.
Beecher, Henry Ward
When once a concealment or a deceit has been practiced in matters where all should be fair and open as day, confidence can never be restored, any more than you can restore the white bloom to the grape or plum that you once pressed in your hand.
Bovee, Christian Nestell
Many an honest man practices on himself an amount of deceit, sufficient, if practiced on another, and in a little different way, to send him to the State prison.
Bruyere, Jean de la
We never deceive for a good purpose; knavery adds malice to falsehood.
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward George
The surest way of making a dupe is to let your victim suppose you are his.
Chapin, Edwin Hubbell
There is less misery in being cheated than in that kind of wisdom which perceives, or thinks it perceives, that all mankind are cheats.
Colton, Caleb C.
He that has no real esteem for any of the virtues, can best assume the appearance of them all.
Crabbe, George
Deceivers are the most dangerous members of society.—They trifle with the best affections of our nature, and violate the most sacred obligations.
Dryden, John
Idiots only may be cozened twice.
Everton, John
Our double dealing generally comes down upon ourselves.—To speak or act a lie is alike contemptible in the sight of God and man.
Froude, James A.
Of all the evil spirits abroad in the world, insincerity is the most dangerous.
Greville, Lord
No man was ever so much deceived by another as by himself.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel
No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true.
Hill, Aaron
Deceit is the false road to happiness; and all the joys we travel through to vice, like fairy banquets, vanish when we touch them.
Mackenzie, Henry
Mankind, in the gross, is a gaping monster, that loves to be deceived, and has seldom been disappointed.
Pope, Alexander
Who dares think one thing and another tell, my heart detests him as the gates of hell.
Rochefoucauld, Francois, Duc de la
It is as easy to deceive one's self without perceiving it, as it is difficult to deceive others without their finding it out.
Were we to take as much pains to be what we ought, as we do to disguise what we are, we might appear like ourselves without being at the trouble of any disguise at all.
Scott, Sir Walter
O, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.
Sidney, Sir Philip
It many times falls out that we deem ourselves much deceived in others, because we first deceived ourselves.
South, Robert
All deception in the course of life is indeed nothing else but a lie reduced to practice, and falsehood passing from words into things.
Walpole, Horace
There are three persons you should never deceive: your physician, your confessor, and your lawyer.
