Misdirection Quotes

We used to think that secrecy was perhaps the greatest enemy of democracy, and as long as there was no suppression or censorship, people could be trusted to make the informed decisions that would preserve our free society, but we have learned in recent years that the techniques of misinformation and misdirection have become so refined that, even in an open society, a cleverly directed flood of misinformation can overwhelm the truth, even though the truth is out there, uncensored, quietly available to anyone who can find it. (Daniel Dennett)
We're a different sort of thief here, Lamora. Deception and misdirection are our tools. We don't believe in hard work when a false face and a good line of bullshit can do so much more. View quote
Scott Lynch
We use committees for all the ulterior purposes for which they might have been designed: diffusion of executive responsibility, plausible deniability, misdirection, providing the appearance of activity without the substance, and protecting the guilty. View quote
Charles Stross
This program fuses magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship. I achieve all the results you'll see here through a varied mixture of those techniques. At no point are actors or stooges used in the show. View quote
Derren Brown
The essence of sorcery, even for its nonfraudulent practitioners, is misdirection. View quote
Glen Cook
The map had been the first form of misdirection, for what is a map but a way of emphasizing some things and making other things invisible? View quote
Jeff VanderMeer
The greater the intellect, the more ease in its misdirection. View quote
David Mamet
Free speech gives us the ability to react vigorously with effective arguments and expose the weakness and misdirection of the other side's claims. View quote
Rush Limbaugh
...There is 10 times more in the world than would maintain all in yet unknown luxury. Yet how much misery there is in our midst; not because there is not enough, but owing to the misdirection of it. View quote
Ernestine Rose
War bred the strangest paranoias from its soup of deceptions, misinformation, misdirection, and poor communication. And lack of any cultural basis for understanding. View quote
Mike Jones
In both countries, what passes for public debate is still, on closer examination, mainly repetition of national slogans, appeal to popular prejudice, innuendo, self-justification, misdirection, incantation of homilies when evidence is asked for, and a thorough contempt for the intelligence of the citizenry. (Carl Sagan)