Betrayal can only happen if you love.
— John Le Carre (David Cornwall), British author (b. 1931), from The Perfect Spy
It is more shameful to distrust ones friends than to be deceived by them.
— François duc de la Rochefoucauld, French epigrammatist (1613-1680)
Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them.
— François duc de la Rochefoucauld, French epigrammatist (1613-1680)
Nature never deceives us; it is always we who deceive ourselves.
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, French philosopher (1712-1778)
More dangers have deceived men than forced them.
— Francis Bacon, English philosopher and essayist (1561-1626)
Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people's vanity, ignorance or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse.
— Janet Malcolm, American journalist and author (b. 1934), in The Journalist and the Murderer
How many times do you get to lie before you are a liar?
— Michael Josephson, American ethicist (b. 1942)