Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes

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

Who would not rather trust and be deceived?

Nothing is more common on earth than to deceive and be deceived.

The world loves to be deceived.

Anyone can lie. One need only have the requisite intention - in other words, to say something with the intention to deceive. Faking, by contrast, is an achievement. To fake things you have to take people in, yourself included.

There is none deceived but he that trusts.

My opinion is that he's a swindler and you're a sucker.

I've been fooling the public for years and I'm really good at it.

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

The world wants to be deceived.

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.

I think, basically, if you talk to anybody, you can gauge an idea of what it's like to feel deceived. You don't have to have run into a con artist to feel like you've been deceived by someone.

It is not difficult to deceive the first time, for the deceived possesses no antibodies; unvaccinated by suspicion, she overlooks lateness, accepts absurd excuses, permits the flimsiest patching to repair great rents in the quotidian.

Truth is often the favorite tool of those who deceive.

You can't trust water: Even a straight stick turns crooked in it.

Liars share with those they deceive the desire not to be deceived.

The essence of lying is in deception, not in words.

Deception is everywhere.

There are some frauds so well conducted that it would be stupidity not to be deceived by them.

People always overdo the matter when they attempt deception.

Fake is as old as the Eden tree.

All confrontation is based on deception.

O, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive!

Trust makes way for treachery.

One to mislead the public, another to mislead the Cabinet, and the third to mislead itself.