1. "He is—and this is a fundamental entrepreneurial talent—a master illusionist. It’s the essential entrepreneurial skill, to convince people you are what you have yet to become."
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Michael Wolff, The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch
2. "The ego is a master illusionist, and one of the ways it diverts your attention, from the moment you’re born, is by giving you — and this calls for another drum roll, please — problems."
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Gary R. Renard, The Disappearance of the Universe: Straight Talk about Illusions
3. "Clever deceivers rarely tell outright falsehoods. It’s too risky. The art of deception is closely related to the magician’s craft: it involves knowing how to draw attention to a harmless place, to deflect it away from the action. Deeply entrenched patterns of perceptual, emotional, and cognitive dispositions serve as instruments of deception. A skilled deceiver is an illusionist who knows how to manipulate the normal patterns of what is salient to their audience. He places salient markers—something red, something anomalous, something desirable—in the visual field, to draw attention just where he wants it."
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Clancy Martin, The Philosophy of Deception