La Rochefoucauld §laroch_087: Men would not live long in society were they not the dupes of each other.

Men would not live long in society were they not the dupes of each other. [A maxim, adds Aime Martin, "Which may enter into the code of a vulgar rogue, but one is astonished to find it in a moral treatise." Yet we have scriptural authority for it: "Deceiving and being deceived."--2 TIM. iii. 13.]