If you find excrement somewhere in the village, the chief was the one who put it there.

Men were born to lie, and women to believe them.

It was the men I deceived the most that I loved the most.

You can put wings on a pig, but you don’t make it an eagle.

The poor man is ruined as soon as he begins to ape the rich.

Children and fools cannot lie. 

And, after all, what is a lie? ’Tis but the truth in masquerade.

Honesty, for me, is usually the worst policy imaginable.

Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth.

Alongside all swindlers the state now stands there as swindler-in-chief.

In most cases men willingly believe what they wish.

Life is the art of being well deceived.

We have to distrust each other. It is our only defense against betrayal.