Deception And Betrayal Quotes

Love is a verb, not a noun. It is active. Love is not just feelings of passion and romance. It is behavior. If a man lies to you, he is behaving badly and unlovingly toward you. He is disrespecting you and your relationship. The words “I love you” are not enough to make up for that. Don’t kid yourself that they are.

When your lover is a liar, you and he have a lot in common, you're both lying to you!

You are enough to drive a saint to madness or a king to his knees.

She was a ray of sunshine, a warm summer rain, a bright fire on a cold winter’s day, and now she could be dead because she had tried to save the man she loved.

Betrayal and dishonor is usually an inside job. Keep it 'sucka-free', loved one!

MAKING THE LIE MAKE SENSE: When denial (his or ours) can no longer hold and we finally have to admit to ourselves that we’ve been lied to, we search frantically for ways to keep it from disrupting our lives. So we rationalize. We find “good reasons” to justify his lying, just as he almost always accompanies his confessions with “good reasons” for his lies. He tells us he only lied because…. We tell ourselves he only lied because…. We make excuses for him: The lying wasn’t significant/Everybody lies/He’s only human/I have no right to judge him. Allowing the lies to register in our consciousness means having to make room for any number of frightening possibilities: • He’s not the man I thought he was. • The relationship has spun out of control and I don’t know what to do • The relationship may be over. Most women will do almost anything to avoid having to face these truths. Even if we yell and scream at him when we discover that he’s lied to us, once the dust settles, most of us will opt for the comforting territory of rationalization. In fact, many of us are willing to rewire our senses, short-circuit our instincts and intelligence, and accept the seductive comfort of self-delusion.

Because our hearts are unprepared for truth, we cling to the deception as a shipwreck victim on a storm-tossed sea will grab at anything that floats. But the splintered rubble of our broken trust - those temporary buoys of our shattered dreams - betray us, gouging rough gashes into our souls, drawing our blood and leaving us to sink.

Some have given up the expectation of meeting genuine, ‘heartfelt’ people and prefer to retire to a mute world, where fish, at least, give a feeling of recognition. In the wake of the unbearable sterile daily noise, their life has turned into a fluid universe of silence, dream, and stillness and their compass has come to be a space beyond fear, deception, and betrayal. Fish never disappoint. (Fish for silence)

Like a sheep invited to a banquet in his honor thrown by wolves.

Oh honey, someday a real man is going to make you see stars and you won't even be looking at the sky." Excerpt from Grace Willow's Last Minute Bride

I would never betray Venda.” “Sometimes we’re all pushed to do things we thought we could never do.

She loved him. But he didn’t know how to love. He could talk about love. He could see love and feel love. But he couldn’t give love. He could make love. But he couldn’t make promises. She had desperately wanted his promises. She wanted his heart, knew she couldn’t have it so she took what she could get. Temporary bliss. Passionate highs and lows. Withdrawal and manipulation. He only stayed long enough to take what he needed and keep moving. If he stopped moving, he would self-destruct. If he stopped wandering, he would have to face himself. He chose to stay in the dark where he couldn’t see. If he exposed himself and the sun came out, he’d see his shadow. He was deathly afraid of his shadow. She saw his shadow, loved it, understood it. Saw potential in it. She thought her love would change him. He pushed and he pulled, tested boundaries, thinking she would never leave. He knew he was hurting her, but didn’t know how to share anything but pain. He was only comfortable in chaos. Claiming souls before they could claim him. Her love, her body, she had given to him and he’d taken with such feigned sincerity, absorbing every drop of her. His dark heart concealed. She’d let him enter her spirit and stroke her soul where everything is love and sensation and surrender. Wide open, exposed to deception. It had never occurred to her that this desire was not love. It was blinding the way she wanted him. She couldn’t see what was really happening, only what she wanted to happen. She suspected that he would always seek to minimize the risk of being split open, his secrets revealed. He valued his soul’s privacy far more than he valued the intimacy of sincere connection so he kept his distance at any and all costs. Intimacy would lead to his undoing—in his mind, an irrational and indulgent mistake. When she discovered his indiscretions, she threw love in his face and beat him with it. Somewhere deep down, in her labyrinth, her intricacy, the darkest part of her soul, she relished the mayhem. She felt a sense of privilege for having such passion in her life. He stirred her core. The place she dared not enter. The place she could not stir for herself. But something wasn’t right. His eyes were cold and dark. His energy, unaffected. He laughed at her and her antics, told her she was a mess. Frantic, she looked for love hiding in his eyes, in his face, in his stance, and she found nothing but disdain. And her heart stopped.

Betrayal annihilates trust. The more trust there is to begin with, and the more deception is involved, the more damage is done.

Be careful of who becomes your friend and why. The person who will bite off your lips one day will have to first promise you a kiss today. Be careful of hypocrites.

Killing people is considered not just illegal Sally, it’s generally accepted as bad behavior.

Xie Lian had always believed in “forever”. For example, friends would always be friends forever; no betrayal, no deception, no breaking up.

The real promise in too many promises is a promise that I’m going to be disappointed.

Of what use was memory anyway than as a template for one's most reassuring self-deceptions!

You are enough to drive a saint to madness or a king to his knees Excerpt from To Kiss a King by Grace Willows Coming this summer to Amazon Kindle and paperback.

The heart will find solace after a lost love, but once the soul is betrayed and broken it will always bleed and the wounds will never really heal,,,,

But Hamas was not alone in its cover-up and self-serving deceptions. Despite what it displayed on its own news footage, Al-Jazeera continued to broadcast the lies.

Though the trials of life are never easy, someone to stand with you and help you with your burdens is one of the true essences of living. It is well that two should join together to face life as friends as well as lovers.

Far too often, the best thing I can have in my hand when someone makes a promise is a really big broom so that I can sweep up the broken pieces.

There is nothing more dangerous than an insidious enemy, but there is nothing more poisonous than a feigned friend.

smart cities, a deceptively innocent moniker for 24/7 surveillance areas

His mind betrayed him and now we were all victims of the horrible deception.

You slept with Tori Spelling?...Nobody sleeps with Tori Spelling-not by choice anyway.

In 1905, Freud wrote: “No mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips. Betrayal oozes out of him from every pore.

Here, then, was a truly bizarre situation: Philby was telling Moscow the truth, but was disbelieved, and allowed to go on thinking he was believed; he was deceiving the British in order to aid the Soviets, who suspected a deception, and were in turn deceiving him.

Her voice betrayed her. She could say so many things. She wanted to move to his side. To rub his weary forehead for him. To curl into him. To tell him about the dragon and how lonely thinking of it made her feel. She wanted to run her finger along the fullness of his lower lip. To feel his smile against her own. And that was dangerous.

The more lies you tell the more stories you have to remember.

Sometimes this was much harder than trying to get an alligator in a suitcase.

The mind of man can only teach what he has learned from others. It is how you use that knowledge that will decide who you are.

You already know what you know, after all—and, unless your life is perfect, what you know is not enough. You remain threatened by disease, and self-deception, and unhappiness, and malevolence, and betrayal, and corruption, and pain, and limitation. You are subject to all these things, in the final analysis, because you are just too ignorant to protect yourself. If you just knew enough, you could be healthier and more honest. You would suffer less. You could recognize, resist and even triumph over malevolence and evil. You would neither betray a friend, nor deal falsely and deceitfully in business, politics or love. However, your current knowledge has neither made you perfect nor kept you safe. So, it is insufficient, by definition—radically, fatally insufficient.

Other-blamers and abusers lie so frequently that their partners often do not know what to believe. How can a relationship of any kind withstand the betrayal of a constant barrage of deception, excuses, and denials?

and as they stood in silence before her, prayed again. "Nothing is altered and in spite of God's mercy I am still alone. Though my suffering seems senseless I am still in agony. There is no explanation of my life." Indeed there was not, nor was this what he'd meant to convey. "Please let Yvonne have her dream -- dream? -- of a new life with me -- please let me believe that all that is not an abominable self-deception," he tried... "Please let me make her happy, deliver me from this dreadful tyranny of self. I have sunk low. Let me sink lower still, that I may know the truth. Teach me to love again, to love life." That wouldn't do either... "Where is love? Let me truly suffer. Give me back my purity, the knowledge of the Mysteries, that I have betrayed and lost. -- Let me be truly lonely, that I may honestly pray. Let us be happy again somewhere, if it's only together, if it's only out of this terrible world. Destroy the world!" he cried in his heart.

The promise in far too many promises is the promise that it won’t be kept.

Deception was another phase of life, with betrayal at its heels; or sometimes, shining in its eyes.

He chuckled as he realized how he'd rationalized betrayal into gallantry. Damn, he was a good lawyer. But

They’re all examples of self-betrayal — times when I had a sense of something I should do for others but didn’t do it.

Trauma silences a person. It shatters your identity, and along with it, much of what you thought you knew.

Her heart didn’t have to be her prison or her betrayer. It could be the thing she offered to her Lord.

Somewhere between the corner of your eyes and the corner of your lips, my love for you was gone. Was I ready to tell you or was I to leave my deception by the chair for your to discover after I was gone?

Self-betrayal” 1. An act contrary to what I feel I should do for another is called an act of “self-betrayal.” 2. When I betray myself, I begin to see the world in a way that justifies my self-betrayal. 3. When I see the world in a self-justifying way, my view of reality becomes distorted. 4. So — when I betray myself, I enter the box.

For example, if (as Dawkins argues) deceit is fundamental in animal communication, then there must be strong selection to spot deception and this ought, in turn, to select for a degree of self-deception, rendering some facts and motives unconscious so as not to betray—by the subtle signs of self-knowledge—the deception being practiced.

What they want seems so simple-time together, a lifetime together, or what is left of a lifetime together-and yet that small goal, he knows, is fraught with endless complications: a maze of responsibilities and commitments, deceptions and betrayals. Why, why, why he asks himself silently for the hundredth time, couldn't they have remained somehow connected-in touch , with all that phrase implies-until they were old enough to find each other again?

We must know something about malevolence, about how to recognize it, and about how not to make excuses for it. We must know that we cannot expect fair play. That is, perhaps, most crucial of all. Those of us who practice in this field must face the implications of the fact that we are dealing with sexual abuse. Child sex offenders-people who exploit children’s bodies and betray their trust-are not going to hesitate to lie outright. This is obvious but nonetheless frequently seems to catch people by surprise. Confessions of a Whistle-Blower: Lessons Learned Author: Anna C. Salter. Ethics & Behavior, Volume 8, Issue 2 June 1998

Paid product endorsements, especially by real or purported experts, constitute a steady rainfall of deception. They betray contempt for the intelligence of their customers. They introduce an insidious corruption of popular attitudes about scientific objectivity.

If anything, the people who moved to Jonestown should be remembered as noble idealists. They wanted to create a better, more equitable, society. They wanted their kids to be free of violence and racism. They rejected sexist gender roles. They believed in a dream. How terribly they were betrayed.

What she felt for Jena hadn’t been love. She knew that now, but it had been something that had felt bewilderingly, beautifully, deceptively like it. And though it had ended in horror and betrayal, she had learned something from Jena, too. Loving someone didn’t mean you could save them, and you didn’t save yourself simply by the act of loving.

Does trying to understand the universe at all betray a lack of humility? I believe it is true that humility is the only just response in a confrontation with the universe, but not a humility that prevents us from seeking the nature of the universe we are admiring. If we seek that nature, then love can be informed by truth instead of being based on ignorance or self-deception. If a Creator God exists, would He or She or It or whatever the appropriate pronoun is, prefer a kind of sodden blockhead who worships while understanding nothing? Or would He prefer His votaries to admire the real universe in all its intricacy? I would suggest that science is, at least in part, informed worship.

If in telling the truth a person has been accused of betraying their country, I would assert that their country has, in fact, betrayed them.

When a friend lets us down we feel as if we were being punched in the stomach, but where it will hurt the most is in the heart. Because it is in the heart that this friend is.

What is the archetypal Bible story? A story of betrayal. Of treachery. It’s just one deception after another.

Paid product endorsements, especially by real or purported experts, constitute a steady rainfall of deception. They betray contempt for the intelligence of their customers

For Walther. For Greta. For all the dreams that were gone. The stealer of dreams would steal no more, even if it meant killing the Komizar myself. My own mother may have betrayed me by suppressing my gift, but she was right about one thing. I am a soldier in my father’s army. I glanced up at Kaden riding beside me. Maybe now it was I who would become the assassin.

Does trying to understand the universe at all betray a lack of humility ? I believe it is true that humility is the only just response in a confrontation with the universe, but not a humility that prevents us from seeking the nature of the universe we are admiring. If we seek that nature, then love can be informed by truth instead of being based on ignorance and self-deception. If a Creator God exists, would He or She or It or whatever the appropriate pronoun is, prefer a kind of sodden blockhead who worships while understanding nothing ? Or would He prefer His votaries to admire the real universe in all its intricacy ? I would suggest that science is, at least in part, informed worship. My deeply held belief is that if a god of anything like the traditional sort exists, then our curiosity and intelligence are provided by such a god. We would be unappreciative of those gifts if we suppressed our passion to explore the universe and ourselves. On the other hand, if such a traditional god does not exist, then our curiosity and our intelligence are the essential tools for managing our survival in an extremely dangerous time. In either case the enterprise of knowledge is consistent surely with science; it should be with religion, and it is essential for the welfare of the human species.

Self-betrayal” 1. An act contrary to what I feel I should do for another is called an act of “self-betrayal.” 2. When I betray myself, I begin to see the world in a way that justifies my self-betrayal.

I preyed on this sort of thing, discontentment, a clash of passions among the rivals, and the zealots. Open sores opened secrets. That’s how I roll.” Jackson Guild, The Trinity Conspiracy, Betrayal at Black Mesa

As one door closes another one opens. Life is full of twists and turns, and during the most pivotal events that take place in life, you are unable to see them clearly, until you are given the benefit of hindsight.

What I warn you to remember is that I am a detective. Our relationship with truth is fundamental but cracked, refracting confusingly like fragmented glass. It is the core of our careers, the endgame of every move we make, and we pursue it with strategies painstakingly constructed of lies and concealment and every variation on deception. The truth is the most desirable woman in the world and we are the most jealous lovers, reflexively denying anyone else the slightest glimpse of her. We betray her routinely, spending hours and days stupor-deep in lies, and then turn back to her holding out the lover’s ultimate Möbius strip: But I only did it because I love you so much.

I know betrayal can unravel a man. I learned early on from watching my parents that men are capable of doing terrible things to women when they feel deceived. When the bubble of trust and honesty bursts, nothing is off-limits.

When I was a teen, I liked to hang out around popular girls, I thought they had some magic, secrets that only they knew and I wanted to learn it... Though pretty soon I realized... popular girls were just like spam... they promised a lot, but only thing they had and could use were their well-built bodies and ability to apply make-up here and there. Mostly they were deceptive and had no senses... they had no idea about friendship, kindness and beauty as it is. Friendship for them was not something more than poor relations, sort of like in "God Father". Love for them was not something bigger than sex. Kindness for them was to have a kitty or a dog (which was already very rare case)... And beauty for them was... well, you can imagine. Concentrated selfishness

I know what you're thinking,' Xaden says in that deceptively soft voice of his, and there's a flicker of fear in those onyx depths. 'You have no idea what I'm thinking.' Fucking. Traitor. 'You're thinking I betrayed our kingdom.' 'Logical guess. Good for you.

The central theme of this book is that America’s present dilemma resulted substantially and directly from choices made by the Baby Boomers. Their collective, pathological self-interest derailed a long train of progress, while exacerbating and ignoring existential threats like climate change. The Boomers’ sociopathic need for instant gratification pushed them to equally sociopathic policies, causing them to fritter away an enormous inheritance, and when that was exhausted, to mortgage the future. When the consequences became troubling, Boomer leadership engaged in concealment and deception in a desperate effort to hold the system together just long enough for their generational constituencies to pass from the scene. The story of the Boomers is, in other words, the story of a generation of sociopaths running amok.

In the labyrinth of love and lies, even the perfect can falter. It's our courage, resilience, and the extraordinary lengths we go for love that define us. For in the face of deception, betrayal, and danger, it's not the games we play but the hearts we heal that truly matter.

That’s right. The truth is, her faults seemed relevant to whether I should help her only after I failed to help her. I focused on and inflated her faults when I needed to feel justified for mine. After I betrayed myself, the truth was just the opposite of what I thought it was.

hey, kevin. hear that? someone really misses you.” “the erc shouldn’t have approved.” “you said he would come for you.” “i didn’t know it would be like this.” “liar,” andrew said, and kevin flinched. “you did know about this. how long? one day, two days, three four five?” “coach told me when it was approved in may.” “may. may, day. mayday. a little curious, kevin day. when were you going to tell me?” “i told him not to,” wymack said. “you picked coach over me? ohhh, my. favoritism, deception, betrayal. how familiar. after all i’ve done for you.” - andrew, kevin & wymack

Self-betrayal” 1. An act contrary to what I feel I should do for another is called an act of “self-betrayal.” 2. When I betray myself, I begin to see the world in a way that justifies my self-betrayal. 3. When I see the world in a self-justifying way, my view of reality becomes distorted.

Self-betrayal” 1. An act contrary to what I feel I should do for another is called an act of “self-betrayal.” 2. When I betray myself, I begin to see the world in a way that justifies my self-betrayal. 3. When I see the world in a self-justifying way, my view of reality becomes distorted. 4. So—when I betray myself, I enter the box. 5. Over time, certain boxes become characteristic of me, and I carry them with me. 6. By being in the box, I provoke others to be in the box. 7. In the box, we invite mutual mistreatment and obtain mutual justification. We collude in giving each other reason to stay in the box.

A broken mirror couldn't be put back together, spilled water couldn't be unspilled. Betrayal and deception were laid on the stage in their most direct attitudes. [...] The iron-hearted Feilong Guard had at last torn off his immovable mask, for the first time in his life exposing his ambitions and desires beneath the bright light of day.

All practical jokes, friendly, harmless or malevolent, involve deception, but not all deceptions are practical jokes. The two men digging up the street, for example, might have been two burglars who wished to recover some swag which they knew to be buried there. But, in that case, having found what they were looking for, they would have departed quietly and never been heard of again, whereas, if they are practical jokers, they must reveal afterwards what they have done or the joke will be lost. The practical joker must not only deceive but also, when he has succeeded, unmask and reveal the truth to his victims. The satisfaction of the practical joker is the look of astonishment on the faces of others when they learn that all the time they were convinced that they were thinking and acting on their own initiative, they were actually the puppets of another’s will. Thus, though his jokes may be harmless in themselves and extremely funny, there is something slightly sinister about every practical joker, for they betray him as someone who likes to play God behind the scenes. […] The success of a practical joker depends upon his accurate estimate of the weaknesses of others, their ignorances, their social reflexes, their unquestioned presuppositions, their obsessive desires, and even the most harmless practical joke is an expression of the joker’s contempt for those he deceives.

Hypocrisy may be the acknowledgement of how one is falling short of one's objectives and ideal behavior but at other times hypocrisy may be the acknowledgement that one is not meeting the external standards of the systems and the society where they are trying to belong, to "fit in" and so may choose to hide aspects of their truest self. Different kind of hypocrisy. Can you recognize the difference? Can you feel the difference?

When deception cuts this deep someone has to pay. My father's chance to bring justice to the truly guilty was stolen from him. His only option was to forgive. I have others. They say vengence is a dish best served cold but, sometimes it's as warm as a bowl of soup. My father died an innocent man, betrayed by the woman he loved. When everything you love has been stolen from you. Sometimes all you have left is revenge. Like I said this is not a story about forgiveness.

Did you like my novel?" she couldn't resist asking. "Yes, I did. At first I thought it would be typical silver-fork fare. But I liked the way your well-bred characters began to unravel. I liked the portrayal of decent people moved to deception, violence, betrayal... you don't seem to shrink from anything in your writing." "Critics say my work is lacking in decency." "That's because your underlying theme- that ordinary people are capable of extraordinary things in their private lives- makes them uncomfortable.

The man who desires women only to deceive them, who loves them only to possess them, who takes them only to betray them, and who scorns them when they no longer please him...the man for whom nothing is sacred when it comes to seducing them, and who triumphs only in order to disgrace them—will such a man, I say, ever feel the happiness of finding a virtuous woman, someone who could repair the disorder of his desires, and replace that shameful frivolity with the sweetness of those ties that bind when woven by marriage?

Suicide prohibitions have not succeeded in preventing suicides but have succeeded in preventing people from having an honest, private conversation about life and death. Those persons who trust mental health professionals with their innermost thoughts may quickly find themselves punished with a “seventy-two-hour hold” or worse. Suicidal persons and their would-be helpers alike are paralyzed by prohibitionist censorship, deception, and legislation requiring the betrayal of trust. The first and major victim of the war on suicide, as in all wars, is loss of liberty.

It was only during an uncharacteristic period of introspection, brought on by his forced retirement from the service, that Shamron had settled on the causes of his chronic sleeplessness. He had told so many lies, spun so many deceptions, that sometimes he could no longer tell fact from fiction, truth from untruth. And then there was the killing. He had killed with his own hands, and he had ordered other men, younger men, to kill for him. A life of betrayal and violence had taken its toll. Some men go crazy, some burn out. Ari Shamron had been sentenced to remain forever awake.

Socrates is a shining example of a man who bravely lived up to his ideals, and, in the end, bravely died for them. Throughout his life, he never lost faith in the mind’s ability to discern and decide, and so to apprehend and master reality. Nor did he ever betray truth and integrity for a pitiable life of self-deception and semi-consciousness. In seeking relentlessly to align mind with matter and thought with fact, he remained faithful both to himself and to the world, with the result that he is still alive in this sentence and millions of others that have been written about him. More than a great philosopher, Socrates was the living embodiment of the dream that philosophy might one day set us free.

It’s my proof that others are as blameworthy as I’ve claimed them to be — and that I’m as innocent as I claim myself to be. The behavior I complain about is the very behavior that justifies me.” Bud placed both hands on the table and leaned toward me. “So simply by being in the box,” he said slowly and earnestly, “I provoke in others the very behavior I say I hate in them. And they then provoke in me the very behavior they say they hate in me.” Bud turned and added another sentence to the principles about self-betrayal: “Self-betrayal” 1. An act contrary to what I feel I should do for another is called an act of “self-betrayal.” 2. When I betray myself, I begin to see the world in a way that justifies my self-betrayal. 3. When I see the world in a self-justifying way, my view of reality becomes distorted. 4. So—when I betray myself, I enter the box. 5. Over time, certain boxes become characteristic of me, and I carry them with me. 6. By being in the box, I provoke others to be in the box. 7. In the box, we invite mutual mistreatment and obtain mutual justification. We collude in giving each other reason to stay in the box.

And the social response to people who have suffered such life-transforming disclosures, well meaning as it is intended to be, is often less than supportive. Our culture may embrace the redeemed sinner, but the person victimized — not so much. Lack of control over their destiny makes people queasy. Friends often unconsciously blame the victim, asking whether the betrayed person really “knew at some level” what was going on and had just been “in denial” about it. But the betrayed are usually as savvy as the rest of us...But it’s not so easy to move on when there’s no solid narrative ground to stand on...it’s not the actions or betrayal that they most resent, it’s the lies. ...it’s often a painstaking process to reconstruct a coherent personal history piece by piece — one that acknowledges the deception while reaffirming the actual life experience. Yet it’s work that needs to be done. Moving forward in life is hard or even, at times, impossible, without owning a narrative of one’s past. Isak Dinesen has been quoted as saying “all sorrows can be borne if you put them in a story or tell a story about them.” Perhaps robbing someone of his or her story is the greatest betrayal of all.

You do know that Cranford is getting more and more difficult, don’t you?” Robert shook his head as he crossed over to where Cassidy was seated by the fire. “Told you to shove off?” “No. Just that you were not here.” Cassidy laughed. “The man must like you. Sees most of my friends as ne’er-do-wells and slams the door in their faces.” “After telling them to shove off?” “Exactly.” Pointing to the seat opposite, Cassidy yawned. “So why, pray tell, did I have to rise so early?” “It’s almost eleven.” “Yes, but in order to be ready, I had to be up by the ungodly hour of nine.” “Unforgivable.” “I think so.” “Well, I have a favor to ask of you.” “You got me up early to ask a favor. I know I owe you—but, really, I would have been in a much more receptive mood had you waited until … say seven this evening.” “Perhaps, but this favor involves intrigue, betrayal, feminine wiles, and a healthy dose of acting the man-about-town.” “I am a man-about-town; acting would not be required there.” “Good to know.… And so, the favor.” “You have my interest. Tell me more.” Robert smiled and shifted forward on his seat. Cassidy did the same. “Let me give you a little background first.” Cassidy smiled. “As you wish.

Most forms of private vice and public evil are kindled by sustained lies. Acts of adultery and other personal betrayals, financial fraud, government corruption--even murder and genocide--generally require an additional moral defect: a willingness to lie. Lying is, almost by definition, a refusal to cooperate with others. It condenses a lack of trust and trustworthiness into a single act. It is both a failure of understanding and an unwillingness to be understood. To lie is to recoil from relationship. By lying, we deny others our view of the world. And our dishonesty not only influences the choices they make, it often determines the choices they *can* make--in ways we cannot always predict. Every lie is an assault on the autonomy of those we lie to. By lying to one person, we potentially spread falsehoods to many others--even to whole societies. We also force upon ourselves subsequent choices--to maintain the deception or not--than can complicate our lives. In this way, every lie haunts our future. We can't tell when or how it might collide with reality, requiring further maintenance. The truth never needs to be tended like this. It can simply be reiterated. The lies of the powerful lead us to distrust governments and corporations. The lies of the weak make us callous toward the suffering of others. The lies of conspiracy theorists raise doubts about the honesty of whistle-blowers, even when they are telling the truth. Lies are the social equivalent of toxic waste: Everyone is potentially harmed by their spread.

You already know what you know, after all—and, unless your life is perfect, what you know is not enough. You remain threatened by disease, and self-deception, and unhappiness, and malevolence, and betrayal, and corruption, and pain, and limitation. You are subject to all these things, in the final analysis, because you are just too ignorant to protect yourself. If you just knew enough, you could be healthier and more honest. You would suffer less. You could recognize, resist and even triumph over malevolence and evil. You would neither betray a friend, nor deal falsely and deceitfully in business, politics or love. However, your current knowledge has neither made you perfect nor kept you safe. So, it is insufficient, by definition—radically, fatally insufficient. You must accept this before you can converse philosophically, instead of convincing, oppressing, dominating or even amusing. You must accept this before you can tolerate a conversation where the Word that eternally mediates between order and chaos is operating, psychologically speaking. To have this kind of conversation, it is necessary to respect the personal experience of your conversational partners. You must assume that they have reached careful, thoughtful, genuine conclusions (and, perhaps, they must have done the work tha justifies this assumption). You must believe that if they shared their conclusions with you, you could bypass at least some of the pain of personally learning the same things (as learning from the experience of others can be quicker and much less dangerous). You must meditate, too, instead of strategizing towards victory. If you fail, or refuse, to do so, then you merely and automatically repeat what you already believe, seeking its validation and insisting on its rightness. But if you are meditating as you converse, then you listen to the other person, and say the new and original things that can rise from deep within of their own accord. It’s as if you are listening to yourself during such a conversation, just as you are listening to the other person. You are describing how you are responding to the new information imparted by the speaker. You are reporting what that information has done to you—what new things it made appear within you, how it has changed your presuppositions, how it has made you think of new questions. You tell the speaker these things, directly. Then they have the same effect on him. In this manner, you both move towards somewhere newer and broader and better. You both change, as you let your old presuppositions die—as you shed your skins and emerge renewed. A conversation such as this is one where it is the desire for truth itself—on the part of both participants—that is truly listening and speaking. That’s why it’s engaging, vital, interesting and meaningful. That sense of meaning is a signal from the deep, ancient parts of your Being. You’re where you should be, with one foot in order, and the other tentatively extended into chaos and the unknown. You’re immersed in the Tao, following the great Way of Life. There, you’re stable enough to be secure, but flexible enough to transform. There, you’re allowing new information to inform you—to permeate your stability, to repair and improve its structure, and expand its domain. There the constituent elements of your Being can find their more elegant formation. A conversation like that places you in the same place that listening to great music places you, and for much the same reason. A conversation like that puts you in the realm where souls connect, and that’s a real place. It leaves you thinking, “That was really worthwhile. We really got to know each other.” The masks came off, and the searchers were revealed. So, listen, to yourself and to those with whom you are speaking. Your wisdom then consists not of the knowledge you already have, but the continual search for knowledge, which is the highest form of wisdom.

There is an uncommonly harsh beauty to the Tibetan landscape. Its nakedness makes it seem incapable of deception, but under its calm deportment it conceals winds so brutal that yaks are known to die while their jaws are in masticating bliss. On hot summer days the sun licks up the rain within minutes. No puddles are formed; no moisture lingers in the air. It is only the droplets on tiny leaves of the baby turnip plant that betray rain.

Did I not risk incurring the severest of penalties if I insisted on breaking that taboo? But my fear also helped me to understand a lot of things, one of them being that Freud betrayed his own insights for that very reason. Should I follow in his footsteps and revoke the insights I had gained on the frequency and the consequences of cruelty to children, so as to not be attacked and rejected? Could I really have seen something that so many people who unconditionally adulated Freud had not seen: his self-deception? I can remember that whenever I started negotiating with myself trying to find a compromise, or asking myself whether I should not perhaps divulge only part of the truth, physical symptoms were invariably the response. I had digestive problems, I could not sleep, and I suffered from bouts of depression. Once I had realized that there were no more compromises for me, those symptoms disappeared.

Juniper clenched her fists. It wasn't fair. Why should deception and betrayal and scheming machinations win the day? Why not truth loyalty and hard work?

days I will report back to you that I have accomplished what I set out to do. Now I must go. My plane is on time, a miracle in Rome.” I sat waiting for his approval and dismissal. He studied me as if he were a human lie detector. Satisfied, he let me rise and walk toward the door unimpeded. Finally, a clean escape was in sight. As he escorted me down the long marble hall floor to the door he said, “Enzo is waiting in the car and will accompany you. It’s not that I don’t trust you, he is there to keep you focused and aid your plan.

Also by L.T. Ryan The Jack Noble Series The Recruit (free) The First Deception (Prequel 1) Noble Beginnings (Jack Noble #1) A Deadly Distance (Jack Noble #2) Ripple Effect (Bear Logan) Thin Line (Jack Noble #3) Noble Intentions (Jack Noble #4) When Dead in Greece (Jack Noble #5) Noble Retribution (Jack Noble #6) Noble Betrayal (Jack Noble #7) Never Go Home (Jack Noble #8) Beyond Betrayal (Clarissa Abbot) Noble Judgment (Jack Noble #9) Never Cry Mercy (Jack Noble #10) Deadline (Jack Noble #11) End Game (Jack Noble #12) Mitch Tanner Series The Depth of Darkness Into The Darkness Deliver Us From Darkness - coming soon Affliction Z Series Affliction Z: Patient Zero Affliction Z: Abandoned Hope Affliction Z: Descended in Blood Affliction Z: Fractured (Part 1)

If I betray myself,” Bud said as he backed away from the board, “my thoughts and feelings will begin to tell me that I’m justified in whatever I’m doing or failing to do.” He

Furthermore, she poured tea on a regular basis. Madeline didn't care to, while Eleanor found comfort in the scent, the warmth, the routine. But right now, with all of Mr. Knight's attention focused on her, the task became an ordeal. The pot seemed to weigh too much. The cup rattled in the saucer as she picked it up. She tilted the pot, aimed the spout toward the cup- And in that same, smiling, deceptively pleasant voice, Mr. Knight said, "I like having a duchess wait on me." Both of Eleanor's hands shook. The hot liquid splashed on her fingers. She dropped the cup. As she reached for it, it shattered against the table. A shard jabbed into her palm. She yanked her hand back and closed her fingers. In a rush, he came and knelt beside her. "Are you hurt? Did you burn yourself?" "No, no, I'm fine." She wasn't fine. She was embarrassed. She cultivated the graceful moves of a lady for a reason. She hated making a spectacle of herself- and now her nerves had betrayed her. "Please, Mr. Knight, stand up." For all the notice he took of her, she might not have spoken. Turning her hand to the light, he at once detected the slight cut beneath her little finger, oozing a sullen drop of scarlet blood. "You've cut yourself." "Only a little." She tried to tug her hand back. "I was clumsy. I broke your beautiful cup." "To hell with the cup." He pressed his finger lightly on the cut. She winced. "You're lucky. There's nothing in there." Lifting her hand to his mouth, he sucked the small wound. Shocked, she stared at him. His head bent over her hand, his chiseled features were intent, serious. His mouth was warm, wet, and the suction he used made her feel... odd. More animal than human, pain and intimacy mixing... never, ever had a man's mouth touched her on any part, in any way.

Michelle, since the first day I met you I knew you were the one for me. I knew that I would make you my wife. I love waking up to your beautiful face every morning and seeing you before I close my eyes each night. I love you with everything in me, and I promise to be the man that you need for the rest of our lifetime together. Would you do me the honor of being my wife?

opposed to behind closed doors. Their psychology. The way they both believed that as long as they told a lie long enough, to as

The way they both believed that as long as they told a lie long enough, to as many people as possible, that it should be believed because they said it. Community

This was not deception or betrayal. It was a scheduletrick

YOU deserve friends that are so good, so amazing, so incredible that if they ever betrayed you, it would make you question EVERYTHING.

Fear is a response to external danger; anxiety to dangers emanating from the internal world.

question: “What is one negative belief about yourself in light of what has happened to you?” I’m crazy.—Kylie I don’t matter.—Denise I am unlovable.—Madelyn I’m sloppy seconds.—Alexis I’m damaged goods.—Lynette I’m not sexy enough.—Quanesha I am tired of being his porn substitute.—Lucy I’m willing to humiliate myself to keep my commitment.—Benya Overweight and out of shape, I will never please a man.—Melissa I am invisible—not a soul knows what I am dealing with.—Sarenna I’m on husband number two. I can’t compete—not then and not now.—Paige It’s my fault; he had an affair because I’m too controlling.—Jeri Lyn I deserve what happened to me. I am paying for sins in my past.—Gloria I’m too old and can never measure up to what my husband has seen.—Rose I am not a good enough housekeeper. I am not good enough in bed.—Dorothy Anne I’m a horrible person. I can’t tell anyone what I’ve done to keep him happy.—Eliana I’m too critical and angry. She must be sweet. No wonder he doesn’t want me.—Andrea I can’t trust anyone. The person I trusted the most . . . lied over and over and over again.—Jillian

I’ve walked down the path of emotional intimacy, and been led unexpectedly into the dark, nightmarish world of betrayal and deception. Love is a thief, and trust is its right-hand man, aiming a trigger at your heart.

Tamlin. His actions would cover Jurian’s betrayal. I had no doubt Tamlin hadn’t gone back to Hybern’s army after the meeting to betray us—but to play spy. Though after last night … it was unlikely he’d get close to Hybern again. Not when the king himself had witnessed everything. I didn’t know what to make of it. That he’d saved me—that he’d given up his deception to do so. Where had he gone to when he’d winnowed? We hadn’t heard anything about the Spring Court forces. And that wind he’d sent … I’d never seen him use such a power. The Nephelle Philosophy indeed. The weakness that had transformed into a strength hadn’t been my wings, my flying. But Tamlin. If he hadn’t interfered … I didn’t let myself consider.