“Nothing is easier than self-deceit.”

Nothing is so easy as to deceive one’s self; for what we wish, that we readily believe; but such expectations are often inconsistent with the real state of things.

The man who is in the highest state of prosperity, and who thinks his fortune is most secure, knows not if it will remain unchanged till the evening.

Great and unexpected successes are often the cause of foolish rushing into acts of extravagance.

We believe whatever we want to believe.

The man who flies shall fight again.

Every dictator is an enemy of freedom, an opponent of law.

The man who has received a benefit ought always to remember it, but he who has granted it ought to forget the fact at once.

The end of wisdom is consultation and deliberation.

We need money, for sure, Athenians, and without money nothing can be done that ought to be done.

It is not possible to found a lasting power upon injustice, perjury, and treachery.

The sower of the seed is assuredly the author of the whole harvest of mischief.

I decline to buy repentance at the cost of ten thousand drachmas.

What we have in us of the image of God is the love of truth and justice.

A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.

There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies as against despots – suspicion.

Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.

Men who can succeed in deceiving no one else, will succeed at last in deceiving themselves.

You can’t know your real mind as long as you deceive yourself.

Those who try to achieve success without hard work ultimately deceive themselves-or worse-deceive others.

What was the point of spending your life with someone you were always looking for ways to decieve?

And yet, unless my senses deceive me, the old centuries had, and have, powers of their own which mere ‘modernity’ cannot kill.

They say that it is the practiced liar who can deceive. But so often the practiced and chronic liar deceives only himself; it is the man who all his life has been selfconvicted of veracity whose lies find quickest credence.

It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.

One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.