79+ Best Deceit Quotes: Exclusive Selection

Deceit is the act of causing someone to accept as true or valid what is false or invalid. Inspirational deceit quotes will challenge the way you think, and help guide you through any life experience.

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Famous Deceit Quotes

Deception may give us what we want for the present, but it will always take it away in the end. Rachel Hawthrone

It’s discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit. Noël Coward

Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools that don’t have brains enough to be honest. Benjamin Franklin

Anything is better than lies and deceit! Leo Tolstoy

Deceivers are the most dangerous members of society. They trifle with the best affections of our nature and violate the most sacred obligations. George Crabble

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

The reason we bitterly hate those who deceive us is that they think they are cleverer than we are. François de La Rochefoucauld

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

It is discouraging how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit. Noel Coward

The only thing more frustrating than slanderers is those foolish enough to listen to them. Criss Jami

People always overdo the matter when they attempt deception. Charles Dudley Warner

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

All deception in the course of life is indeed nothing else but a lie reduced to practice, and falsehood passing from words into things. Robert Southey

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. William Shakespeare

Reality is easy. It’s deception that’s the hard work. Lauryn Hill

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

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

When your lover is a liar, you and he have a lot in common, you’re both lying to you! Susan Forward

All war is based on deception. Sun Tzu

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

Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self deception. George Orwell

In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king. Desiderius Erasmus

Deception is the knowledge of kings. Cardinal Richelieu

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

Men still have to be governed by deception. Georg C. Lichtenberg

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

Nothing is so boring as having to keep up a deception. E. V. Lucas

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

Deceit is the false road to happiness; and all the joys we travel through to vice, like fairy banquets, vanish when we touch them. Aaron Hill

Never judge someone by their relatives. Charles Martin

A man is sometimes better off deceived about the one he loves, than undeceived. François de La Rochefoucauld

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

Self deceit is a most damaging trait. Scott Kahn

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

We learn to deceive ourselves while we are trying to deceive others. Sidney Jourard

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 nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact. Arthur Conan Doyle

A liar is always lavish of oaths. Pierre Corneille

Just because something isn’t a lie does not mean that it isn’t deceptive. A liar knows that he is a liar, but one who speaks mere portions of truth in order to deceive is a craftsman of destruction. Criss Jami

I survive at the edge of friends circles. Holly Black

Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak. Sun Tzu

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

Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides. André Malraux

A smile is the best way to deal with difficult situations. Even if it’s a fake one. Used properly, you can fool anyone with them. Sai

Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken. Jane Austen

Betrayal and dishonor is usually an inside job. Keep it sucka free, loved one! T.F. Hodge

Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. Walter Scott

Mindfulness helps us get better at seeing the difference between what’s happening and the stories we tell ourselves about what’s happening, stories that get in the way of direct experience. Often such stories treat a fleeting state of mind as if it were our entire and permanent self. Sharon Salzberg

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

Why am I letting you comfort me? He stared over her head. Because I’ve made sure you have no one else to turn to. Kresley Cole

In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or

Over time, hidden truths morph in the dark soil of deceit into something much worse. Patti Callahan Henry

Writing fiction is the act of weaving a series of lies to arrive at a greater truth. Khaled Hosseini

Whatever others may say, they say it to deceive and comfort themselves, not help you. Dejan Stojanovic

Never try to do anything that is outside of who you are. A forced smile is a sign of what feels wrong in your heart, so recognize it when it happens. Living a lie will reduce you to one. Ashly Lorenzana

Trustful people are the pure at heart, as they are moved by the zeal of their own trustworthiness. Criss Jami

Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions. Niccolo Machiavelli

Facts are threatening to those invested in fraud. DaShanne Stokes

Deception is a developed art of civilization and the most potent weapon in the game of power. Robert Greene

Cunning grows in deceit at seeing itself discovered, and tries to deceive with truth itself. Balthasar Gracian

Deceivers are the most dangerous members of society. They trifle with the best affections of our nature, and violate the most sacred obligations. George Crabbe

Even if there are instances in which it can be mistook by onlookers, never fool yourself into using misunderstood genius as an excuse to be a fool. Criss Jami

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it. Thomas Jefferson

Mirrors are perpetually deceitful. They lie and steal your true self. They reveal only what your mind believes it sees. Dee Remy

Spin is a polite word for deception. Spinners mislead by means that range from subtle omissions to outright lies. Spin paints a false picture of reality by bending facts, mischaracterizing the words of others, ignoring or denying crucial evidence, or just spinning a yarn  by making things up. Kathleen Hall Jamieson

People love answers, but only as long as they are the ones who came up with them. Criss Jami

The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity. Andre Gide

The angel destroyed me! He seduced me with a pure voice, spoke kind words, and stroked my hair to lower my guard, to make me trust him, to trick me! He sullied my body, my voice, my heart; remade me as a terrifying monster; turned me into his companion! The angel was a disfigured phantom wearing a mask! Mizuki Nomura

To cheat oneself out of love is the most terrible deception; it is an eternal loss for which there is no reparation, either in time or in eternity. Soren Kierkegaard

There is no other way to determine the difference between the will of God and the crafts of satan. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. The Holy Spirit of God is the Comforter. Israelmore Ayivor

False face must hide what the false heart doth know. William Shakespeare

Selling eternal life is an unbeatable business, with no customers ever asking for their money back after the goods are not delivered. Victor J. Stenger

If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change. I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone the harm is to persist in one’s own self  deception and ignorance. Marcus Aurelius

My mother is a firm believer in the long pause, useful in interrogations, proclamations of truth, and the occasional cutting dead of someone without their knowing it. Suzanne Finnamore

Deceiving yourself is a gateway to harming your future self. Angel Moreira

Keep the enemy in the dark about where and when our forces will attack. Mao Tse tung

My life has taught me not to trust happiness because it hurts when it deceives. Saida Hoshi