William J. Bernstein Quotes

I've come to learn that the determined and gifted and genuine sociopath has far more power to deceive than we realize.

A Jamaican Negro of unmixed stock, squat, stocky, fat and sleek, with protruding jaws, and heavy jowls, small bright pig-like eyes and rather bull-dog like face. Boastful, egotistic, tyrannical, intolerant, cunning, shifty, smooth and suave, avaricious; as adroit as a fencer in changing front, as adept as a cuttle-fish in beclouding an issue he cannot meet, prolix to the nth degree in devising new schemes to gain the money of poor ignorant Negroes; gifted at self-advertisement, without shame in self laudation, promising ever, but never fulfilling, without regard for veracity, a lover of pomp and tawdry finery and garish display, a bully with his own folk but servile in the presence of the Man, a sheer opportunist and a demagogic charlatan.

… he must deceive, misrepresent, leave false impressions … and trust to charm, loyalty and the result to make up for it…. A great man cannot be a good man.

Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership.

But, indeed, words are very rascals, since bonds [vows] disgraced them." Viola: "Thy reason, man?" Feste: "Troth [Truthfully], sir, I can yield you none without words, and words are grown so false, I am loathe to prove reason with them.

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.

Materialism and spirituality are two pretty racquets with which charlatans in cap and gown make the same ball fly.

Many have made a trade of delusions and false miracles, deceiving the stupid multitudes.

I have been saying for many years that we are using the word 'guru' only because 'charlatan' is too long to fit into a headline.

Heroes have gone out; quacks have come in; the reign of quacks has not ended with the nineteenth century. The sceptre is held with a firmer grasp; the empire has a wider boundary. We are all the slaves of quackery in one shape or another. Indeed, one portion of our being is always playing the successful quack to the other.

I think people are always looking for gurus. It's the easiest thing in the world to become a guru. It's quite terrifying. I once saw something fascinating here in New York. It must have been in the early seventies--guru time. A man used to go and sit in Central Park, wearing elaborate golden robes. He never once opened his mouth, he just sat. He'd appear at lunchtime. People appeared from everywhere, because he was obviously a holy man, and this went on for months. They just sat around him in reverent silence. Eventually he got fed up with it and left. Yes. It's as easy as that.

A general must be a charlatan.

His lies were so exquisite I almost wept.

The silent colossal National Lie that is the support and confederate of all the tyrannies and shams and inequalities and unfairnesses that afflict the peoples — that is the one to throw bricks and sermons at.

No matter how smart or well-educated you are, you can be deceived.

Suspicion has its dupes, as well as credulity.

Everyone wants to put people on, I think. And get away with it! That's the thing: put people on and get away with it! That's a science in itself.

It is best, if possible, to deceive no one; for he that ... begins by deceiving others, will end ... by deceiving himself.

And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths, Win us with honest trifles, to betray's In deepest consequence

Quacks pretend to cure other men's disorders, but fail to find a remedy for their own.

There are so many fools in the world for the devil to operate upon, it gives him the advantage oftentimes.

The few took advantage of the ignorant many. They pretended to have received messages from the Unknown. They stood between the helpless multitude and the gods. They were the carriers of flags of truce. At the court of heaven they presented the cause of man, and upon the labor of the deceived they lived.

You know That I do fawn on men, and hug them hard, And after scandal them.

Satan can make men dance upon the brink of hell as though they were on the verge of heaven.

[Psychics] use exactly the same gimmicks that we magicians do - the same physical methods, the same psychological methods - and they effectively and profoundly deceive millions of people around the earth, to their detriment.