#falsehood

So may the outward shows be least themselves: The world is still deceived with ornament. In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt, But, being seasoned with a gracious voice, Obscures the show of evil? In religion, What damned error, but some sober brow Will bless it and approve it with a text, Hiding the grossness with fair ornament? There is no vice so simple but assumes Some mark of virtue on his outward parts. ↗

— William Shakespeare

#falsehood #law #ornament #pretense #religion

To attempt seeing Truth without knowing Falsehood. It is the attempt to see the Light without knowing the Darkness. It cannot be. ↗

— Frank Herbert

#cannot #darkness #falsehood #knowing #light

The very hirelings of the press, whose trade it is to buoy up the spirits of the people. have uttered falsehoods so long, they have played off so many tricks, that their budget seems, at last, to be quite empty. ↗

— William Cobbett

#buoy #empty #falsehoods #last #long

We are only falsehood, duplicity, contradiction; we both conceal and disguise ourselves from ourselves. ↗

— Blaise Pascal

#conceal #contradiction #disguise #duplicity #falsehood

Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise. ↗

— Samuel Johnson

#between #cannot #difference #falsehood #gold

It's a great mistake, I think, to put children off with falsehoods and nonsense, when their growing powers of observation and discrimination excite in them a desire to know about things. ↗

— Anne Sullivan

#about #children #desire #discrimination #excite

I find it most offensive that the character of Reason, whom [Jean den Meun (author of the Romance of the Rose)] himself calls the daughter of God, should put forth such a statement as ... where she says by way of a proverb that "in the war of Love it is better to deceive than be deceived." And indeed I dare say that in making that statement Jean den Meun's Reason denied her Father, for the doctrine He gave was altogether different. ↗

— Christine de Pizan

#deceit #dishonesty #falsehood #love #reason

When the dead departed, they took away any falsehoods that they might have allowed us to believe while alive; we who are left behind have to embark on a different life, since the dead are no longer here to help us deceive ourselves. ↗

— Yiyun Li

#dead #death #deception #falsehoods #lies

Everyone, when there's war in the air, learns to live in a new element: falsehood. ↗

— Jean Giraudoux

#element #everyone #falsehood #learns #live

Even if there are instances in which it can be mistook by onlookers, never fool yourself into using misunderstood genius as an excuse to be a fool. ↗

— Criss Jami

#falsehood #fool #foolish #genius #honesty