Michel de Montaigne Quotes

We're like the wicked witch. We promise gingerbread, then eat the little brats alive.

Those that vow the most are the least sincere.

It's always good to remind yourself of how awful people can be, even when they seem to be projecting kindness.

Many undoubtedly owe their good fortune to the circumstance that they possess a pleasing smile with which they win hearts. Yet these hearts would do better to beware and to learn from Hamlet's tables that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.

All men's faces are true, whatsome'er their hands are.

You don’t return people’s smiles—it’s perfectly clear to you that people can smile and smile and still be villains.

I've always said it's interesting to watch devils cry when angels want to stab you in the back. I like that mixture.

Who would not rather trust and be deceived?

Bad faith likes discourse on friendship and loyalty.

He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander.

Me, I'm dishonest, and you can always trust a dishonest man to be dishonest. Honestly, it's the honest ones you have to watch out for.

It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.

When a sinister person means to be your enemy, they always start by trying to become your friend.

Simplicity is the most deceitful mistress that ever betrayed man.

Sincerity: if you can fake it, you've got it made.

'Twas but my tongue, 'twas not my soul that swore.

Flatterers look like friends, as wolves like dogs.

All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse.

The thing I'm having a hard time with are the Christians who will stab you in the back in a wink.

The man who cannot laugh is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils, but his whole life is already a treason and a stratagem.

As of right now, I have two votes, mine and Jimmy's. I'm sure of Jimmy because he said he is gonna vote for me and Jimmy never tells a lie.

The silence of a treacherous man is to be feared even more than his words.

They have two tongues in one mouth, and two faces on one head so they can speak everybody’s language; they use everybody, deceive everybody. They deceive the Arabs under the guise of Islamic nuclear power, saying that they are defending Islam and Islamic countries. They milk America and Europe in the alliance against terrorism, and they have been deceiving … Muslims around the world in the name of Kashmiri jihad. But behind the curtain, they have been betraying everyone.

Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others.

The world is all alike. Those that seem better than their neighbours are only more artful. They mean the same thing, though they take a different road.