#deception

87.—Men would not live long in society were they not the dupes of each other. [A maxim, adds Aimé Martin, "Which may enter into the code of a vulgar rogue, but one is astonished to find it in a moral treatise." Yet we have scriptural authority for it: "Deceiving and being deceived."—2 TIM. iii. 13.] ↗

— François de La Rochefoucauld

#interconnection #men

I lie to myself all the time. But I never believe me. ↗

— S.E. Hinton

#lying #self-deception #truth #time

The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others. ↗

— Friedrich Nietzsche

#lying #self-deception #vision #visionaries #vision

There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. ↗

— Søren Kierkegaard

#fools #self-deception #truth #willful-blindness #willful-ignorance

Later, when she sees the photographs for the first time, she will be surprised at how calm her face looks - how steady her gaze, how erect her posture. In the picture her eyes will be slightly closed, and there will be a shadow on her neck. The shawl will be draped around her shoulders, and her hands will rest in her lap. In this deceptive photograph, she will look a young woman who is not at all disturbed or embarrassed, but instead appears to be rather serious. And she wonders if, in its ability to deceive, photography is not unlike the sea, which may offer a benign surface to the observe even as it conceals depths and current below. ↗

— Anita Shreve

#photographs #the-sea #photography

The best lies about me are the ones I told. ↗

— Patrick Rothfuss

#lying #self-deception #tricksters #wind

To understand yourself: Is that a discovery or a creation? ↗

— Pascal Mercier

#honesty #illusions #perception #personality #self-awareness

In the last few years, the very idea of telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is dredged up only as a final resort when the alternative options of deception, threat and bribery have all been exhausted. ↗

— Michael Musto

#been #bribery #deception #exhausted #few

Narcissism and self-deception are survival mechanisms without which many of us might just jump off a bridge. ↗

— Todd Solondz

#jump #just #many #mechanisms #might

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

#deception #else #falsehood #indeed #into