Stephen F. Austin Quotes

You will be amused when you see that I have more than once deceived without the slightest qualm of conscience, both knaves and fools.

All deception in the course of life is indeed nothing else but a lie reduced to practice, and falsehood passing from words into things.

Knavery and flattery are blood relations.

The diplomat holds all acts honorable which bring him success, all things are righteous which serve his ends. If cheating is necessary, he will cheat; if lying is useful, he will lie; if bribery helps, he will bribe; if murder serves, he will order murder; if burglary, seduction, arson or forgery brings success nearer, all and each of these will be done.

Talleyrand is a silk stocking filled with mud.

Bad faith likes discourse on friendship and loyalty.

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

Arafat contradicts himself every five minutes. He always plays the double-cross, lies even if you ask him what time it is.

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.

Politics is when you say you are going to do one thing while intending to do another. Then you do neither what you said nor what you intended.

Ambition drove many men to become false; to have one thought locked in the breast, another ready on the tongue.

A technical objection is the first refuge of a scoundrel.

Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool.

The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.

In Hollywood, they put the knife in your front; in D.C., they put it in your back. I found far fewer duplicitous people in Hollywood.

Cunning leads to knavery. It is but a step from one to the other, and that very slippery. Only lying makes the difference; add that to cunning, and it is knavery.

There's good and bad everywhere in any aspect in life. The only people who we can't really trust are politicians. Because those guys lie to everybody and constantly.

Lying just for the fun of it is either art or pathology.

It is fitting that a liar should be a man of good memory.

Many kiss the hand they wish cut off.

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

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

A pupil of diplomacy has to learn three things: to speak French, to speak nothing, and to speak falsehood.

Diplomacy is the art of saying “Nice Doggie!” till you can find a rock.

All a man can betray is his conscience.