Owning and maintaining a fraud had a way of gradually demoralizing one.
~
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
by
Philip K. Dick
The armour of falsehood is subtly wrought out of darkness, and hides a man not only from others, but from his own soul.
~
A Room With A View
by
E. M. Forster
"Money, you think, is the sole motive to pains and hazard, deception and deviltry, in this world. How much money did the devil make by gulling Eve?"
~
The Confidence-Man
by
Herman Melville
As hollow vessels produce a far more musical sound in falling than those which are substantial, so it will oftentimes be found that sentiments which have nothing in them make the loudest ringing in the world, and are the most relished.
~
Barnaby Rudge
by
Charles Dickens
"There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies—which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world—what I want to forget."
~
Heart of Darkness
by
Joseph Conrad
He was among men who cloaked their lives with religion in order to follow their real purposes unseen of men.
~
Secret Worship
by
Algernon Blackwood
Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.
~
The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table
by
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
"It is no use lying to one's self."
~
A Doll's House
by
Henrik Ibsen
"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact."
~
The Boscombe Valley Mystery
by
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
"Don't you think that any secret course is an unworthy one?"
~
David Copperfield
by
Charles Dickens