dishonesty

See Also: BELIEV ABILITY, CRIME, LIES/LIARS

1. All frauds, like the wall daubed with untempered mortar … always tend to the decay of what they are devised to support —Richard Whately
2. As honest a man as any in the cards, when the kings are out —Thomas Fuller
3. At length corruption, like a general flood … shall deluge all —Alexander Pope
4. Borrowed thoughts, like borrowed money, only show the poverty of the borrower —Marguerite, Countess Blessington
5. Corruption is like a ball of snow … once set a-rolling it must increase —Charles Caleb Colton
6. Crooked as a worm writhing on a hook —Herman Wouk

   The people who are likened to worms are characters from Wouk’s political novel, Inside, Outside.

7. (Pompous and braggadocian, he seemed to the children as flat and) false as his teeth —Ferrol Sams
8. (She was) false as water —William Shakespeare
9. Falser than vows made in wine —William Shakespeare
10. Fraudulent as falsies —Helen Hudson
11. He that builds his house with other men’s money is like one that gathers himself stones for the tomb of his burial —The Holy Bible/Apocrypha: Ecclesiasticus

    The word ‘builds’ has been modernized from ‘buildeth’ and ‘gathers’ from ‘gathereth.’

12. It is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent —Ralph Waldo Emerson
13. Permit memory to paint it [a long-ago life style] falsely, like the face of some old whore who could wish to be taken as young and innocent —George Garrett
14. Plays you as fair as if he’d picked your pocket —John Ray’s Proverbs
15. Robbers are like rane, tha fall on the just and the unjust —Josh Billings

    In Billings’ phonetic dialect the word ‘rane’ is ‘rain’ and ‘tha’ is ‘they.’

16. Sneaky as a rat in a hotel kitchen —William Alfred
17. There is something in corruption which, like a jaundiced eye, transfers the color of itself to the object it looks upon —Thomas Paine
18. To rob a friend even of a penny is like taking his life —Johann B. Nappaha