80 Deception Quotes To Help You Navigate The Lies of Life

Deception is one word that can have a big difference in life.

As you’ll see from these deception quotes, lies are powerful and can have a long-lasting impact.

Deception is really just a fancy word for lying.

There are a lot of other words that we use in place of “lie” such as “fib” or “misleading”.

Those words seem to be a little softer and gentler than just calling it what it is—a lie.

While we tend to think of deception as something we do to other people, there are plenty of times when people struggle with deceiving themselves as well.

The lies you tell yourself or others are powerful and can have a long-lasting impact on life.

Don’t forget to also check out these liar quotes for when you’ve been deceived.

Check out our most popular quote article, a list of short inspirational quotes for daily inspiration. 

Our inspirational quote category page has even more inspirational and educational quotes.

Deception quotes about lying

1. “It is in the ability to deceive oneself that the greatest talent is shown.” ― Anatole France

2. “I’m not upset that you lied to me. I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”- Friedrich Nietzsche

3. “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” – Mark Twain

You will also enjoy our article on Russ quotes.

4. “Anything is better than lies and deceit!” – Leo Tolstoy

5. “A lie that is half-truth is the darkest of all lies.” – Alfred Tennyson

6. “No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.” – Abraham Lincoln

7. “No one believes a liar. Even when she’s telling the truth.” – Sara Shepard

8. “Hard truths can be dealt with, triumphed over, but lies will destroy your soul.” – Patricia Briggs

9. “For every good reason there is to lie, there is a better reason to tell the truth.” – Bo Bennett

10. “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” – Winston Churchill

If you’re enjoying these quotes, you’ll love our collection of lies quotes for healing and moving on.

Self-deception quotes

11. “The worst of all deceptions is self-deception.” – Plato

12. “We lie best when we lie to ourselves.” – Stephen King

13. “Avoidance of self-deception is a matter of integrity not comfort.” – Orrin Woodward

14. “When we successfully deceive others, they are not aware of it; the same is true with self-deception.” – Mardy Grothe

15. “Cheating in school is a form of self-deception. We go to school to learn. We cheat ourselves when we coast on the efforts and scholarship of someone else.” — James E. Faust

If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to read our collection of cheating quotes that will empower you during this difficult time.

16. “If it is necessary sometimes to lie to others, it is always despicable to lie to oneself.” – W. Somerset Maugham

17. “Self-deception helps us deceive.” – David Livingstone

18. “Self-deception can be more comforting than self-knowledge. We like to fool ourselves.” – Russ Roberts

19. “Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein

20. “Self-deception is nature; hypocrisy is art.” – Mason Cooley

Deception quotes to help you understand it

21. “I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man’s virtues the means of deceiving him.” – Samuel Johnson

22. “The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.” – Leonardo da Vinci

23. “An offended heart is the breeding ground of deception.” – John Bevere

24. “The essence of lying is in deception, not in words.” – John Ruskin

25. “Politicians are masters of the art of deception.” – Martin L. Gross

26. “While all deception requires secrecy, all secrecy is not meant to deceive.” – Sissela Bok

27. “People always overdo the matter when they attempt deception.” – Charles Dudley Warner

28. “It’s a sad day when the leaders of the free world engage in such deception and trickery. I voted against this unnecessary war and will continue to argue that the best way to support our troops is to bring them home.” – Major Owens

29. “The point of painting is not really deception or imitation.” – A.S. Byatt

30. “It’s the great deception in modern culture: Bad things call for noble names to cloak their evil outcomes.” – Greg Gutfeld

Thought-provoking deception quotes

31. “Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.” – Oscar Wilde

32. “Deception may give us what we want for the present, but it will always take it away in the end.” – Rachel Hawthrone

33. “Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools that don’t have brains enough to be honest.” – Benjamin Franklin

34. “Deceivers are the most dangerous members of society. They trifle with the best affections of our nature and violate the most sacred obligations.” – George Crabble

35. “The reason we bitterly hate those who deceive us is that they think they are cleverer than we are.” – François de La Rochefoucauld

36. “It is discouraging how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.” – Noel Coward

37. “People always overdo the matter when they attempt deception.” – Charles Dudley Warner

38. “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

39. “Reality is easy. It’s deception that’s the hard work.” – Lauryn Hill

40. “We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

More deception quotes

41. “All war is based on deception.” – Sun Tzu

If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to read our collection of Sun Tzu quotes from the iconic warrior and philospher.

42. “Nationalism is power-hunger tempered by self-deception.” – George Orwell

43. “Deception is the knowledge of kings.” – Cardinal Richelieu

44. “Men still have to be governed by deception.” – Georg C. Lichtenberg

45. “Nothing is so boring as having to keep up a deception.” – E. V. Lucas

46. “Only one deception is possible in the infinite sense, self-deception.” – Soren Kierkegaard

47. “Deceit is the false road to happiness; and all the joys we travel through to vice, like fairy banquets, vanish when we touch them.” – Aaron Hill

48. “A man is sometimes better off deceived about the one he loves, than undeceived.” – François de La Rochefoucauld

49. “Self-deceit is a most damaging trait.” – Scott Kahn

50. “We learn to deceive ourselves while we are trying to deceive others.” – Sidney Jourard

Insightful deception quotes

51. “There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.” ― Arthur Conan Doyle

52. “Just because something isn’t a lie does not mean that it isn’t deceptive. A liar knows that he is a liar, but one who speaks mere portions of truth in order to deceive is a craftsman of destruction.” ― Criss Jami

53. “Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.” ― Sun Tzu

54. “Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.” ― André Malraux

55. “Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken.” ― Jane Austen

56. “Oh, what a tangled web we weave…when first we practice to deceive.” ― Walter Scott

57. “Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.” ― Niccolò Machiavelli

58. “In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the People.” ― Eugene Victor Debs

59. “Writing fiction is the act of weaving a series of lies to arrive at a greater truth.” ― Khaled Hosseini

60. “Never try to do anything that is outside of who you are. A forced smile is a sign of what feels wrong in your heart, so recognize it when it happens. Living a lie will reduce you to one.” ― Ashly Lorenzana

Deception quotes that are full of wisdom

61. “Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions.” ― Niccolo Machiavelli

62. “Deception is a developed art of civilization and the most potent weapon in the game of power.” ― Robert Greene

63. “Deceivers are the most dangerous members of society. They trifle with the best affections of our nature, and violate the most sacred obligations.” ― George Crabbe

64. Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.” ― Thomas Jefferson

65. “Spin’ is a polite word for deception. Spinners mislead by means that range from subtle omissions to outright lies. Spin paints a false picture of reality by bending facts, mischaracterizing the words of others, ignoring or denying crucial evidence, or just ‘spinning a yarn’ – by making things up.” ― Kathleen Hall Jamieson

66. “The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity.” ― Andre Gide

67. “To cheat oneself out of love is the most terrible deception; it is an eternal loss for which there is no reparation, either in time or in eternity.” ― Soren Kierkegaard

68. “False face must hide what the false heart doth know.” ― William Shakespeare

69. “If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change. I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone: the harm is to persist in one’s own self-deception and ignorance.” ― Marcus Aurelius

70. “Don’t tell me of deception; a lie is a lie, whether it be a lie to the eye or a lie to the ear.” ― Samuel Johnson

Deception Quotes To Help You Navigate In Life

71. “Deceiving yourself is a gateway to harming your future self.” ― Angel Moreira

72. “My life has taught me not to trust happiness because it hurts when it deceives.” ― Saida Hoshi

73. “We live in the deception generation right now, where everyone is trying to figure out how mind reading works.” ― Mwanandeke Kindembo

74. “Deception is a tactic: use it. Do whatever it takes to win.” ― Janet Morris

75. “Unfinished promises are the one thing we’ll always have to live with.” ― Emiliano Campuzano

76. “We live in imaginary, virtual worlds created by corporations that profit from our deception.” ― Chris Hedges

77. “I’m really interested in self-deception. Really interested in how people live in bubble universes. How people can fail to see the seemingly obvious.” ― Errol Morris

78. “If your aim in life is pursuing truth, one of the things you might want to study is why deception is so common in life.” ― Eugene Burger

79. “Fake it may be, lies and deceptions, but this is the world in which we find ourselves, and here we must make our little lives.” ― Ian McDonald

80. “Lying is one of the quickest ways to ruin a beautiful relationship.” – Anonymous

What did you learn from these deception quotes?

Which side of the coin do you tend to fall on?

Are you the deceiver or the deceived?

It’s very well possible that you’ve been on both sides.

There is no place for deception in relationships.

And if you’re deceiving yourself in some areas of your life, it’s in your best benefit to face them head-on and start correcting them instead of continuing on the path you’re on.

If you struggle to make a change, keep these deception quotes in mind and use them as an encouragement to rid deception from your life once and for all.

You might also enjoy reading these playing dumb quotes.

What’s your biggest takeaway from these deception quotes and sayings?

Do you have any other inspirational quotes to add?

Let us know in the comment section below.