Mislead Quotes

• There are few things more dishonorable than misleading the young.

  Thomas Sowell

  Young, Dishonorable

  Thomas Sowell (2013). “Controversial Essays”, p.89, Hoover Press

  57 Copy quote

  Show source

• An educated person is one who has learned that information almost always turns out to be at best incomplete and very often false, misleading, fictitious, mendacious - just dead wrong.

  Russell Baker

  Education, Learned Person, Information

  72 Copy quote

• Emotions can certainly be misleading: they can fool you into believing stuff that is definitely, demonstrably untrue.

  Francis Spufford

  Believe, Stuff, Fool

  Francis Spufford (2012). “Unapologetic: Why, despite everything, Christianity can still make surprising emotional sense”, p.19, Faber & Faber

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Ignorance, Eye, Mislead Us

  20 Copy quote

• Ours is a problem in which deception has become organized and strong; where truth is poisoned at its source; one in which the skill of the shrewdest brains is devoted to misleading a bewildered people.

  Walter Lippmann

  Strong, Skills, People

  Walter Lippmann (1914). “A Preface to Politics”

  90 Copy quote

  Show source

• How often misused words generate misleading thoughts.

  Herbert Spencer

  Ideas, Misuse, Misused Words

  'Principles of Ethics' bk. 1 (1879) pt. 2, ch. 8, 152

  63 Copy quote

  Show source

• Whatever you do, do it to the purpose; do it thoroughly, not superficially. Go to the bottom of things. Any thing half done, or half known, is in my mind, neither done nor known at all. Nay, worse, for it often misleads.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Mind, Purpose, Done

  Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope Earl of Chesterfield (1855). “The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author”, p.174

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Fallacious and misleading arguments are most easily detected if set out in correct syllogistic form.

  Immanuel Kant

  Argument, Form, Ifs

  Immanuel Kant (1965). “Critique of pure reason”

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Spin' is a polite word for deception. Spinners mislead by means that range from subtle omissions to outright lies. Spin paints a false picture of reality by bending facts, mischaracterizing the words of others, ignoring or denying crucial evidence, or just 'spinning a yarn' - by making things up.

  Kathleen Hall Jamieson

  Lying, Mean, Reality

  Brooks Jackson, Kathleen Hall Jamieson (2007). “unSpun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation”, p.7, Random House

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Science, Power, Errors

  "Counsels and Maxims". Book by Arthur Schopenhauer, Vol. 2, Ch. 1, § 17, 2007.

  77 Copy quote

  Show source

• The fast-food industry is in very good company with the lead industry and the tobacco industry in how it tries to mislead the public, and how aggressively it goes after anybody who criticizes its business practices.

  Eric Schlosser

  Food, Practice, Trying

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. November 14, 2006.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• You can never get to a person's mind. You cannot know the different deeds and missions of happiness; you can't tell a screm of pleasure from one of pain. Sometimes, we can barely read pain. Neither a barometer nor a guide, pain can mislead us. Even in the body, the laws of chain reactions can be false. This is why people always want a second opinion.

  Ibi Kaslik

  Pain, Law, Mislead Us

  4 Copy quote

• It's very easy for trusted companies to mislead naive customers, and life insurance companies are trusted.

  Daniel Kahneman

  Easy, Insurance Companies, Company

  9 Copy quote

• I am one who believes that one of the greatest dangers of advertising is not that of misleading people, but that of boring them to death.

  Leo Burnett

  Business, Believe, People

  Leo Burnett (1961). “Communications of an Advertising Man: Selections from the Speeches, Articles, Memoranda, and Miscellaneous Writings of Leo Burnett”

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• There's a gullible side to the American people. They can be easily misled. Religion is the best device used to mislead them.

  Michael Moore

  People, Sides, Gullible

  Michael Moore (2004). “Dude, Where's My Country?”, ePenguin

  37 Copy quote

  Show source

• Falsehood is never so successful as when she baits her hook with truth, and no opinions so fatally mislead us as those that are not wholly wrong, as no watches so effectively deceive the wearer as those that are sometimes right.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Successful, Mislead Us, Bait

  9 Copy quote

• There is a misleading, unwritten rule that states if a quote giving advice comes from someone famous, very old, or Greek, then it must be good advice.

  Robert Foster Bennett

  Funny, Success, Giving

  13 Copy quote

• In the long run we are all dead.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Funny, Death, Running

  A Tract on Monetary Reform ch. 3 (1923)

  29 Copy quote

  Show source

• Always mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy, if possible.

  Stonewall Jackson

  Mislead Us, Enemy, Surprise

  "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (Volume II)". Book edited by Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel, November 1884 - November 1887.

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• The idea of protoplasm, which was really a name for our ignorance, [is] only a little less misleading than the expression "Vital force".

  John B. S. Haldane

  Ignorance, Expression, Names

  4 Copy quote

• Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Running, Long, Affair

  A Tract on Monetary Reform ch. 3 (1923)

  84 Copy quote

  Show source

• In my firm, we dealt in lies. Advertising is that ... the skilful use of the truth to mislead, to spoil, to debase.

  Storm Jameson

  Lying, Use, Advertising

  Storm Jameson (2011). “The Journal of Mary Hervey Russell”, p.38, A&C Black

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The countenance may be rightly defined as the title page which heralds the contents of the human volume, but like other title pages, it sometimes puzzles, often misleads, and often says nothing to the purpose.

  William Matthews

  Titles, Purpose, May

  7 Copy quote

• Evil men often easy to mislead, because they have spent so long deceiving that they no longer recognise the truth and mistake deseption for it.

  Dean Koontz

  Mistake, Men, Long

  4 Copy quote

• Bush and Cheney were not misled by flawed intelligence; they used the flawed intelligence to mislead.

  David Corn

  Used, Misled, Flawed

  "George W. Bush’s CIA Briefer: Bush and Cheney Falsely Presented WMD Intelligence to Public" by David Corn, www.motherjones.com. May 19, 2015.

  48 Copy quote

  Show source