Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield Quotes

The practice of politics in the East may be defined by one word: dissimulation

Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable, the art of the next best.

It is necessary that the prince should know how to color his nature well, and how to be a great hypocrite and dissembler. For men are so simple, and yield so much to immediate necessity, that the deceiver will never lack dupes.

Sitting in marble corridors waiting for important people to lie to you.

In my lifetime I have never seen such a volume of deceiving and dissembling.

She tells a lot of lies, this daughter of mine ... She talks a lot about democracy, but she's become a little dictator.

I always felt like, when you're lying, you're kind of pretending to be something you're not.

Politicians aren't special. They lie the same way we all do, revealing their true nature under pressure.

Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying!

Isn't it too bad that the great truths are all such lies.

There is none who does not lie hourly in the respect he pays to false appearance.

I don't lie," I lied.

Donald Trump both disbelieves and believes in falsehoods, so that when he did thrive on his longstanding - the claim that Obama was not born in the United States - he's crazy like a fox in manipulating it because it gave him his political entrée onto the national stage. In order to make your falsehoods powerful, you have to believe in them in some extent. And that's why we simplify things if we say that Trump either believes nothing in his falsehoods and is just manipulating us like a fox or he completely believes them.

Cheats easily believe others as bad as themselves; there is no deceiving them, nor do they long deceive.

In war, practice dissimulation and you will succeed.

I suggest that US foreign policy can still be defined as "kiss my ass or I'll kick your head in." But of course it doesn't put it like that. It talks of "low intensity conflict..." What all this adds up to is a disease at the very centre of language, so that language becomes a permanent masquerade, a tapestry of lies.

Half of the people lie with their lips; the other half with their tears

Lying is a most disgraceful vice; it first despises God, and then fears men.

Is not cant the materia prima of the devil, from which all falsehoods, imbecilities, abominations, body themselves, from which no true thing can come? For cant is itself the properly a double-distilled lie, the second power of a lie.

Of course, the liar often imagines that he does no harm as long as his lies go undetected.

Men lie, and they lie to theirselves worst of all.

A lot of times in politics you have people look you in the eye and tell you what's not on their mind.

Man is ice to truth and fire to falsehood.

The 'fires'n that produce thick, rarely innocent, often strategic smoke should therefore be scrutinized. they should be known and identified; and when they involve dishonesty, lies, or manipulation, they they should be ignored.

What have I eaten? Lies and smiles.