John Updike Quotes

We wouldn’t want to live in a world where we couldn’t be conned. Because, in effect, we would then be living in a world where we mistrusted or refused to trust anyone.

The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool.

One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.

Who would not rather trust and be deceived?

I've always been struck by how unsuspicious people are in general, if you tell them what you're about.

I maybe trust too much.

As I say, it never ceases to amaze me how gullible some of our Church members are.

Our distrust of another justifies his deceit.

Oh, Cena. You must think that I was born yesterday.

There is none deceived but he that trusts.

I like being innocent, but know now when I am being taken for a ride.

People in great institutions are occasionally credulous.

Oh mortal man, is there anything you cannot be made to believe?

It's become hard for me to trust people and though I'm the type to go, 'everybody is born good,' you come to question that.

Those that trust no one, usually end up trusting the wrong person."-Umma to Midnight

For every hand extended another lies in wait. Keep your eye on that one girl...anticipate.

A peculiar side of credulity is that it is often joined with a proneness to imposture. The association of believing and lying is not characteristic solely of children. They inability or unwillingness to see things as they are promotes both gullibility and charlatanism.

And you know, I believed him. What girl wouldn't?

It takes two people to make a lie work: the person who tells it, and the one who believes it.

And oft, though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps At wisdom's gate, and to simplicity Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill Where no ill seems.

Whoever believes in a man is very foolish.

Never trust he who trusts everyone.

Credulity is the sister of innocence.

Suspicion has its dupes, as well as credulity.

How gullible are you? Is your gullibility located in some "gullibility center" in your brain? Could a neurosurgeon reach in and perform some delicate operation to lower your gullibility, otherwise leaving you alone? If you believe this, you are pretty gullible, and should perhaps consider such an operation.