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

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

Deception is everywhere.

There's a degree of deception in silence.

I know how easy it is for one to stay well within moral, ethical, and legal bounds through the skillful use of words - and to thereby spin, sidestep, circumvent, or bend a truth completely out of shape. To that extent, we are all liars on numerous occasions.

Our aversion to lying is commonly a secret ambition to make what we say considerable, and have every word received with a religious respect.

There are some things that we know are just not as pleasant as the lies that we tell ourselves, and in that sense in order to endure existence everyone endures a certain amount of dishonesty in their everyday lives.

For us to maintain our way of living, we must tell lies to each other and especially to ourselves. The lies are necessary because, without them, many deplorable acts would become impossibilities.

The power of lying is much less than the power of what is not to be discussed.