Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

S. Austin Allibone, comp. Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay. 1880.

Deception

Dissimulation was his masterpiece; in which he so much excelled that men were not ashamed of being deceived but twice by him.

Another account of the shortness of our reason, and easiness of deception, is the forwardness of our understanding’s assent to slightly examined conclusions.

It many times falls out that we deem ourselves much deceived in others, because we first deceived ourselves.

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

Whosoever deceives a man makes him ruin himself; and by causing an error in the great guide of his actions, his judgment, he causes an error in his choice, the misguidance of which must naturally engage him to his destruction.

All deception is a misapplying of those signs which, by compact or institution, were made the means of men’s signifying or conveying their thoughts.

Let those consider this who look upon it as a piece of art, and the masterpiece of conversation, to deceive and make a prey of a credulous and well-meaning honesty.

There can he no greater labour than to be always dissembling; there being so many ways by which a smothered truth is apt to blaze and break out.

There is no quality so contrary to any nature which one cannot affect, and put on upon occasion, in order to serve an interest.

Let the measure of your affirmation or denial be the understanding of your contractor; for he that deceives the buyer or the seller by speaking what is true in a sense not understood by the other, is a thief.

Indirect dealing will be discovered one time or other, and then he loses his reputation.

Even the world, that despises simplicity, does not profess to approve of duplicity, or double-foldedness.