Quotations: Trust, deception, betrayal


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)

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