#pretext

All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself. Surely a curious thing. That I should innocently take a bad half-crown of somebody else's manufacture, is reasonable enough; but that I should knowingly reckon the spurious coin of my own make, as good money! ↗

— Charles Dickens

#pretext #self-delusion #money

Words are a pretext. It is the inner bond that draws one person to another, not words. ↗

— Rumi

#celaleddin #inadequacy-of-words #inner #language #mawlana

Antiwhite racism is developing in sections of our cities where individuals - some of whom have French nationality - contemptuously designate French people as gaulois on the pretext they don't share the same religion, color or origins. ↗

— Jean-Francois Cope

#color #designate #developing #french #french people

What we believe to be the motives of our conduct are usually but the pretexts for it. ↗

— Miguel de Unamuno

#conduct #motives #our #pretexts #usually

Tyrants seldom want pretexts. ↗

— Edmund Burke

#seldom #tyrants #want

Disturbances in society are never more fearful than when those who are stirring up the trouble can use the pretext of religion to mask their true designs. ↗

— Denis Diderot

#disturbances #fearful #mask #more #never

To the wicked, everything serves as pretext. ↗

— Voltaire

#pretext #serves #wicked

'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded. ↗

— Friedrich August von Hayek

#been #emergencies #eroded #individual #individual liberty

If this phrase of the 'balance of power' is to be always an argument for war, the pretext for war will never be wanting, and peace can never be secure. ↗

— John Bright

#argument #balance #balance of power #never #peace

We have it. The smoking gun. The evidence. The potential weapon of mass destruction we have been looking for as our pretext of invading Iraq. There's just one problem - it's in North Korea. ↗

— Jon Stewart

#destruction #evidence #gun #invading #iraq