Swindle Quotes

“Someone who smiles too much with you can sometime frown too much with you at your back.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“If love has taken us for a ride and passion made us ignore sham and swindle, the time has come to separate the wheat from the chaff and polish up diamonds of trust, neatly, day by day. ("Taken for a ride")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Some friends are like sunny days, with false flames, oozing from afar, coming near without a dime.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“It doesn't really matter if you are left behind the back, but what matters is your capacity to pull and push everyone by your way to get to the front.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“Stupid women were lured into it and assured they would become young and beautiful if they let themselves be pummeled and pounded and smeared with sticky creams, and have their faces lifted and their stomachs flattened. They paid a lot of money to Madame Olympia, who would put a little bit of magic into the creams and ointments that she used so that at first they did look marvelous. But it was the kind of magic that wore off very quickly, leaving the women even uglier than before so that they would rush back to her and pay her more money and the whole thing would start again.”
― Eva Ibbotson, Which Witch?

“What imperialists actually wanted was expansion of political power without the foundation of the body politic. Imperialist expansion had been touched off by a curious kind of economic crisis, the overproduction of capital and the emergence of "superfluous" money, the result of oversaving, which could no longer find productive investment within national borders. For the first time, investment of power did not pave the way for investment of money, since uncontrollable investments in distant countries threatened to transform large strata of society into gamblers, to change the whole capitalist economy from a system of production to a system of financial speculation, and to replace the profits of production with profits in commissions. The decade immediately before the imperialist era, the seventies of the last century, witnessed an unparalleled increase in swindles, financial scandals, and gambling in the stock market.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

“Don't let out your true behaviour in the public, even if you were born nasty, make others feel you were well bred.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“Rich men want to believe they deserve every penny they've got, so they forget what they owe to chance. Smart men are always looking for loopholes. They want an opportunity to game the system."
"So who's the hardest mark to swindle?" asked Nina.
"The toughest mark is an honest one," said Kaz. "Thankfully, they're always in short supply.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“When water fountains start charging to drink, then you know we have a problem.”
― Anthony Liccione

“You didn’t warn us about this, Readier,’ said Stowley resentfully.

Gilt waved his hands. ‘We must speculate to accumulate!’ he said. ‘The Post Office? Trickery and sleight of hand. Oh, von Lipwig is an ideas man, but that’s all he is. He’s made a splash, but he’s not got the stamina for the long haul. Yet as it turns out he will do us a favour. Perhaps we have been . . . a little smug, a little lax, but we have learned our lesson! Spurred by the competition we are investing several hundred thousand dollars—’

‘Several hundred?’ said Greenyham.

Gilt waved him into silence, and continued: ‘—several hundred thousand dollars in a challenging, relevant and exciting systemic overhaul of our entire organization, focusing on our core competencies while maintaining full and listening co-operation with the communities we are proud to serve. We fully realize that our energetic attempts to mobilize the flawed infrastructure we inherited have been less than totally satisfactory, and hope and trust that our valued and loyal customers will bear with us in the coming months as we interact synergistically with change management in our striving for excellence. That is our mission.’

An awed silence followed.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“Never invest in any scheme that is based on a metaphor, or anything with the word, “next”, in it (e.g., “this kid is the next Elvis Presley”, “this will be the Lake Lucerne of the Southwest”). You will lose your shirt.”
― Clifford Cohen

“I SHOULD BE UPSET THAT A BURGLAR STOLE ALL
MY LAMPS, BUT I’M DELIGHTED!”
― Lynn Byk, The Fearless Moral Inventory of Elsie Finch

“Kaida's attorney suggested a quit claim deed as the best vehicle for transferring Gail’s home into Kaida's name with a limiting clause for a life estate for Gail. The single page was drafted on his computer.
When Gail asked Kaida why her beneficiary deed and her will were not sufficient, Kaida told her the new “trust” was more complete. It ensured that Grant and Paige would finally inherit her property at the end of Kaida’s life. It would also substantially help her build Kaida’s credit back from the bankruptcy to have her name on the deed.
Gail certainly loved Kaida and her grandchildren. Gail trusted Kaida’s promise to care for her in her old age, and she believed their funds had become hopelessly co-mingled, so that sitting in the attorney’s office that day, she finally agreed to sign the trust document with a “joint tenancy life estate” on her property. It felt like a business transaction. It was only right to incentivize Kaida for her promise to care for her in her old age.”
― Lynn Byk, The Fearless Moral Inventory of Elsie Finch