A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their confidence. A confidence artist is an individual operating alone or in concert with others who exploits characteristics of the human psyche such as dishonesty, honesty, vanity, compassion, credulity, irresponsibility, naïveté or greed.
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Famous quotes containing the words confidence and/or trick:
“Sincerity is a certain openness of heart. It is to be found in very few, and what we commonly look upon to be so is only a cunning sort of dissimulation, to insinuate ourselves into the confidence of others.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“Suspicion all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes;
Treason is but trusted like the fox,
Who never so tame, so cherished and locked up,
Will have a wild trick of his ancestors.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)