James Randi Quotes

You just keep feeding hogwash to people, and pretty soon they'll eat it.

Partial truths or half-truths are often more insidious than total falsehoods.

In politics, not all lies are all lies. And not all truths are complete.

I perpetuate rumors that I've dated people that I've never actually dated.

You can fool some of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time. That’s usually enough.

Carefully take notice of witches, charmers, and all such abusers of the people.

… nearly any invented quotation, played with confidence, stands a good chance to deceive.

When it comes to snowing people, one effective technique is to get a whole bunch of verifiable facts right and then add one or two that are untrue.

A lie has no legs, and cannot stand; but it has wings, and can fly far and wide.

Like the juggler, deceiving by his tricks, one is deluded by egotism, falsehood and illusion.

The world is nothing but a big gimmick.

Falsehood, like the dry-rot, flourishes the more in proportion as air and light are excluded.

When you give false information you tend to restrict the freedom of choice to others.

They've lied about everything.-about the fence, and the existence of Invalids, about a million other things besides. They told us the raids were carried out for our own protection. They told us the regulators were only interested in keeping the peace. They told us love was a disease. They told us it would kill us in the end. For the very first time I realize, that this, too, maight also be a lie.

Satan delights equally in statistics and in quoting scripture.

We are oftener deceived by being told some truth than no truth.

Everything that deceives may be said to enchant.

Americans need bullshit the way koala bears need eucalyptus leaves. They've become totally addicted to it. They get so much of it back home that they can't survive without it.

Pretences go a great way with men that take fair words and magisterial looks for current payment.

The thing is too that when you sell people a false reality and they take that to be the norm, when that false reality is light-years from what’s really happening, that in itself is a tremendous defense mechanism because when you start talking about what is actually happening, it is so different from what people perceive to be happening. They just can’t make that jump; it’s too insane for them.

Where there's smoke, there's bound to be mirrors.

If there was a trick, there must be a trickster.

Playing with appearances and mastering the arts of deception are among the aesthetic pleasures of life. They are also key components in the acquisition of power.

The seeming truth which cunning times put on to entrap the wisest.

Truth does not do as much good in the world as its imitations do harm.