Deception

The world is governed more by appearances than realities, so that it is fully as necessary to seem to know something as to know it.

—Daniel Webster

Human beings have a demonstrated talent for self-deception when their emotions are stirred.

—Carl Sagan in Cosmos

When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.

—Mark Twain

If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.

—Virginia Woolf

If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?

—Abraham Lincoln

The man who sees two or three generations is like one who sits in the conjuror's booth at a fair and sees the tricks two or three times. They are meant to be seen only once.

—Arthur Schopenhauer

Despair is a greater deceiver than hope.

—Marqui de Vauvenargues

Fake food—I mean those patented substances chemically flavored and mechanically bulked out to kill the appetite and deceive the gut—is unnatural, almost immoral, a bane to good eating and good cooking.

—Julia Child

It may be that the deep necessity of art is the examination of self-deception.

—Robert Motherwell

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

—André Gide

You would be surprised at the lengths you will go to believe the best about someone if you truly love him.

—Jodi Picoult in The Storyteller

It was the men I deceived the most that I loved the most.

—Marguerite Duras

The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived.

—Oscar Wilde