"Since, of desires some are natural and necessary; others natural, but not necessary; and others neither natural nor necessary, but the offspring of false judgment; it must be the office of temperance to gratify the first class, as far as nature requires: to restrain the second within the bounds of moderation; and, as to the third, resolutely to oppose, and, if possible, entirely repress them."

"The covetous are never satisfied with money, nor lovers of wealth with their gain; so this too is vanity."

"I tell you naught for your comfort, Yea, naught for your desire, Save that the sky grows darker yet And the sea rises higher."

"This absoluteness of desire uninhibited by thoughts of virtue … represents the turn in philosophy away from trying to tame or perfect desire by virtue, and toward finding out what one’s desire is and living according to it. This is largely accomplished by criticizing virtue, which covers and corrupts desire. Our desire becomes a kind of oracle we consult; it is now the last word, while in the past it was the questionable and dangerous part of us."

"There is no fear for one whose mind is not filled with desires."

"Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained."

"There are two futures, the future of desire and the future of fate, and man's reason has never learnt to separate them. Desire, the strongest thing in the world, is itself all future, and it is not for nothing that in all the religions the motive is always forwards to an endless futurity of bliss or annihilation. Now that religion gives place to science the paradisical future of the soul fades before the Utopian future of the species, and still the future rules. But always there is, on the other side, destiny, that which inevitably will happen, a future here concerned not as the other was with man and his desires, but blindly and inexorably with the whole universe of space and time. The Buddhist seeks to escape from the Wheel of Life and Death, the Christian passes through them in the faith of another world to come, the modern reformer, as unrealistic but less imaginative, demands his chosen future in this world of men. Can we in any better way reconcile desire and fate?"

"The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise."

"Through patience, [one’s legitimate] desires are realized."

"The heart that is attached to lustful desires is unable to benefit from sincere exhortations."

"Lustful desires are fatal illnesses, and the best cure for them is acquiring patience against them."

"Do not desire for everything that you hear, for this suffices as gullibility (or foolishness)."

"Improbi hominis est mendacio fallere."

"I have seldom known any one who deserted truth in trifles that could be trusted in matters of importance."

"Dishonor waits on perfidy. A man should blush to think a falsehood; it is the crime of cowards."

"Lie not, neither to thyself nor men nor God. Let mouth and heart be one — beat and speak together, and make both felt in action. It is for cowards to lie."

"Wisdom and truth, the offspring of the sky, are immortal; while cunning and deception, the meteors of the earth, after glittering for a moment, must pass away."

"Dissimulation in youth is the forerunner of perfidy in old age; its first appearance is the fatal omen of growing depravity and future shame."

"Or shipwrecked, kindles on the coast False fires, that others may be lost."

"Deceit and treachery skulk with hatred, but an honest spirit flieth with anger."

"Hinc nunc præmium est, qui recta prava faciunt."

"Orlando's helmet in Augustine's cowl."

"Wir betrügen und schmeicheln niemanden durch so feine Kunstgriffe als uns selbst."

"Savoir dissimuler est le savoir des rois."

"Singuli enim decipere et decipi possunt: nemo omnes, neminem omnes fefellunt."

"Altera manu fert lapidem, altera panem ostentat."

"Habent insidias hominis blanditiæ mali."

"Fronte politus Astutam vapido servas sub pectore vulpem."

"Furtum ingeniosus ad omne, Qui facere assueret, patriæ non degener artis, Candida de nigris, et de candentibus atra."

"Pia fraus."

"Impia sub dulci melle venena latent."

"On est aisément dupé par ce qu'on aime."

"He seemed For dignity compos'd and high exploit: But all was false and hollow."

"Where the lion's skin falls short it must be eked out with the fox's."

"It is vain to find fault with those arts of deceiving, wherein men find pleasure to be deceived."

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time."

"On pout être plus fin qu'un autre, mais non pas plus fin que tous les autres."

"Le bruit est pour le fat, la plainte pour le sot; L'honnête homme trompé s'éloigne et ne dit mot."

"Car c'est double plaisir de tromper le trompeur."

"On ne trompe point en bien; la fourberie ajoute la malice au mensonge."

"Vous le croyez votre dupe: s'il feint de l'être, qui est plus dupe, de lui ou de vous?"

"Hateful to me as are the gates of hell, Is he who, hiding one thing in his heart, Utters another."

"The angel answer'd, "Nay, sad soul; go higher! To be deceived in your true heart's desire Was bitterer than a thousand years of fire!""

"Which I wish to remark— And my language is plain,— That for ways that are dark And for tricks that are vain, The heathen Chinee is peculiar."

"Non mancano pretesti quando si vuole."

"Man wird betrogen, man betrügt sich selbst."

"But Esau's hands suit ill with Jacob's voice."

"A delusion, a mockery, and a snare."

"Populus vult decipi; decipiatur."