Countenance Quote by Seneca the Younger

“Despotism alone can provide that atmosphere of secrecy which favors crooked dealing and enables the freebooters of finance to make illicit fortunes.”

— Alexis de Tocqueville

There is no word or action but may be taken with two hands,--either with the right hand of charitable construction, or the sinister interpretation…

— Joseph Hall

A fraudulent intent, however carefully concealed at the outset, will generally, in the end, betray itself.

— Livy

The ideas by which people . . . interpret their existence and in measure guide their behavior, were not forged in a world of wealth.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

All business sagacity reduces itself in the last analysis to judicious use of sabotage.

— Thorstein Veblen

What matters to us is the revelation of the swindle, fraud, or defalcation. This makes known to the world that things have not been…

— Charles P. Kindleberger

“All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself. Surely a curious thing. That I…

— Charles Dickens

The nature of business is swindling.

— August Bebel

We are so used to dissembling with others that in time we come to deceive and dissemble with ourselves.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Indiscretion, rashness, falsehood, levity, and malice, produce each other.

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

Within the cult of Wall Street that forged Mitt Romney, making money justifies any behavior, no matter how venal.

— Matt Taibbi

The price of dishonesty is self-destruction.

— Rita Mae Brown