Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Deceit
God is not averse to deceit in a holy cause.
Æschylus—Frag. Incert. II.
There is a cunning which we in England call the turning of the cat in the pan.
Bacon—Essays. Of Cunning.
Think’st thou there are no serpents in the world
But those who slide along the grassy sod,
And sting the luckless foot that presses them?
There are who in the path of social life
Do bask their spotted skins in Fortune’s sun,
And sting the soul.
Joanna Baillie—De Montfort. Act I. Sc. 2.
What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women.
Sir Thomas Browne—Urn-Burial. Ch. V.
If the world will be gulled, let it be gulled.
Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy. Pt. III. Sec. IV. Memb. 1. Subsect. 2.
Populus vult decipi; decipiatur.
The people wish to be deceived; let them be deceived.
Cardinal Carafa, Legate of Paul IV., is said to have used this expression in reference to the devout Parisians. Origin in De Thou. I. XVII. See Jackson’s Works. Bk. III. Ch. XXXII. Note 9.
Improbi hominis est mendacio fallere.
It is the act of a bad man to deceive by falsehood.
Cicero—Oratio Pro Murena. XXX.
A delusion, a mockery, and a snare.
Lord Denman—O’Connell vs. The Queen. Clark and Finnelly Reports.
But Esau’s hands suit ill with Jacob’s voice.
Dryden—Absalom and Achitopel. Pt. I. L. 982.
Man wird betrogen, man betrügt sich selbst.
We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.
Goethe—Sprüche in Prosa. III.
Non mancano pretesti quando si vuole.
Pretexts are not wanting when one wishes to use them.
Goldoni—La Villeggiatura. I. 12.
Which I wish to remark—
And my language is plain,—
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar.
Bret Harte—Plain Language from Truthful James. (Heathen Chinee.)
The angel answer’d, “Nay, sad soul; go higher!
To be deceived in your true heart’s desire
Was bitterer than a thousand years of fire!”
John Hay—A Woman’s Love.
Hateful to me as are the gates of hell,
Is he who, hiding one thing in his heart,
Utters another.
Homer—Iliad. Bk. IX. L. 386. Bryant’s trans.
Vous le croyez votre dupe: s’il feint de l’être, qui est plus dupe, de lui ou de vous?
You think him to be your dupe; if he feigns to be so who is the greater dupe, he or you?
La Bruyère—Les Caractères. V.
On ne trompe point en bien; la fourberie ajoute la malice au mensonge.
We never deceive for a good purpose: knavery adds malice to falsehood.
La Bruyère—Les Caractères. XI.
Car c’est double plaisir de tromper le trompeur.
It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.
La Fontaine—Fables. II. 15.
Le bruit est pour le fat, la plainte pour le sot;
L’honnête homme trompé s’éloigne et ne dit mot.
The silly when deceived exclaim loudly; the fool complains; the honest man walks away and is silent.
La Noue—La Coquette Corrigée. I. 3.
On pout être plus fin qu’un autre, mais non pas plus fin que tous les autres.
One may outwit another, but not all the others.
La Rochefoucauld—Maxim. 394.
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time.
Attributed to Lincoln but denied by Spofford. P. T. Barnum is accepted as the author. Said to have been quoted by Lincoln in a speech at Clifton, Ill., Sept. 8, 1858. Found in Bassett’s scrap-book, June, 1905. P. 134.
It is vain to find fault with those arts of deceiving, wherein men find pleasure to be deceived.
Locke—Human Understanding. Bk. III. Ch. X. 34.
Where the lion’s skin falls short it must be eked out with the fox’s.
Lysander. Remark upon being told that he resorted too much to craft. Plutarch—Life of Lysander.
He seemed
For dignity compos’d and high exploit:
But all was false and hollow.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. II. L. 110.
On est aisément dupé par ce qu’on aime.
One is easily fooled by that which one loves.
Molière—Le Tartuffe. IV. 3.
Impia sub dulci melle venena latent.
Deadly poisons are concealed under sweet honey.
Ovid—Amorum. I. 8. 104.
Pia fraus.
A pious fraud.
Ovid—Metamorphoses. IX. 711.
Furtum ingeniosus ad omne,
Qui facere assueret, patriæ non degener artis,
Candida de nigris, et de candentibus atra.
Skilled in every trick, a worthy heir of his paternal craft, he would make black look white, and white look black.
Ovid—Metamorphoses. XI. 313.
Fronte politus
Astutam vapido servas sub pectore vulpem.
Though thy face is glossed with specious art thou retainest the cunning fox beneath thy vapid breast.
Persius—Satires. V. 116.
Habent insidias hominis blanditiæ mali.
The smooth speeches of the wicked are full of treachery.
Phædrus—Fables. I. 19. 1.
Altera manu fert lapidem, altera panem ostentat.
He carries a stone in one hand, and offers bread with the other.
Plautus—Aulularia. II. 2. 18.
Singuli enim decipere et decipi possunt: nemo omnes, neminem omnes fefellunt.
Individuals indeed may deceive and be deceived; but no one has ever deceived all men, nor have all men ever deceived any one.
Pliny the Younger—Panegyr. Traj. 62.
Engin mieulx vault que force.
Machination is worth more than force.
Rabelais—Pantagruel. Ch. XXVII.
Wir betrügen und schmeicheln niemanden durch so feine Kunstgriffe als uns selbst.
We deceive and flatter no one by such delicate artifices as we do our own selves.
Schopenhauer—Die Welt als Wille. I. 350.
With an auspicious and a dropping eye,
With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole.
Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 12.
They fool me to the top of my bent. I will come by and by.
Hamlet. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 401.
But when the fox hath once got in his nose,
He’ll soon find means to make the body follow.
Henry VI. Pt. III. Act IV. Sc. 7. L. 25.
A quicksand of deceit.
Henry VI. Pt. III. Act V. Sc. 4. L. 26.
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray us
In deepest consequence.
Macbeth. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 124.
The world is still deceiv’d with ornament,
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,
But, being season’d with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil? In religion,
What damned error, but some sober brow
Will bless it and approve it with a text,
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?
Merchant of Venice. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 74.
Make the Moor thank me, love me and reward me,
For making him egregiously an ass.
Othello. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 317.
Who makes the fairest show means most deceit.
Pericles. Act I. Sc. 4. L. 75.
Oh, that deceit should steal such gentle shapes,
And with a virtuous vizard hide foul guile.
Richard III. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 27.
O, that deceit should dwell
In such a gorgeous palace!
Romeo and Juliet. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 84.
Orlando’s helmet in Augustine’s cowl.
Horace and James Smith—Rejected Addresses. Cui Bono. Imitation of Byron.
Hinc nunc præmium est, qui recta prava faciunt.
There is a demand in these days for men who can make wrong conduct appear right.
Terence—Phormio. VIII. 2. 6.
Deceit and treachery skulk with hatred, but an honest spirit flieth with anger.
Tupper—Of Hatred and Anger.
Or shipwrecked, kindles on the coast
False fires, that others may be lost.
Wordsworth—To the Lady Fleming.