Whence but from heaven, could men unskilled in arts,
In several ages born, in several parts,
Weave such agreeing truths? Or how, or why,
Should all conspire to cheat us with a lie?

The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud,if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair, if they were not cherished by our virtues.

The opportunity to decieve others is ever present and often tempting, and each instance of deception casts us onto some of the steepest ethical terrain we ever cross.

We deceive ourselves a good deal about love. It is almost never what they say it is.

Oh, what a tangled web do parents weave when they think that their children are naive.

Anyone can deceive us .... for a time.
[KGB]

We have woven a web, you and I, attached to this world but a separate world of our own invention.

We fool ourselves so much we could do it for a living.

We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others, that in the end, we become disguised to ourselves.

That's how history unfolds. People weave a web of meaning, believe in it with all their heart, but sooner or later the web unravels, and when we look back we cannot understand how anybody could have taken it seriously. (p.175)

— The most subtle of our acts is to simulate blindness for snares that we know are set for us. We are never so easily deceived as when trying to deceive.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

All of us labor in webs spun long before we were born.

We forge the chains we wear in life.