Cheating

Cheating is defined as an act of deception, fraud, trickery, impersonation, imposture, or imposition. Cheating characteristically is employed to create an unfair advantage, usually in one's own interest, and often at the expense of others. Cheating implies the breaking of rules

Quotes

The only way to win is cheat.
- Mike Altman, Suicide is Painless, theme from M*A*S*H

Doubtless the pleasure is as great
Of being cheated as to cheat.
- Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part II, canto iii, line i (1664)

Everyone cheats in sports. It's like my father used to tell me — if you're not cheating, you're not trying.
- Greg Buttle, as quoted in "Sports This Morning," The Atlanta Constitution (July 14, 1980)
  Subsequent variations include:
- Maybe he caught me a little bit cheating. But if you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'.
  - Clint Malarchuk, as quoted in "Kerr's Presence Felt" by Rich Hoffman, Philadelphia Daily News (March 11, 1988)
- Hey, if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying.
  - Chili Davis, as quoted in "Angels Come Up Empty in 8-4 Loss to Red Sox" by Mike Penner, Los Angeles Times (May 22, 1988)
- When Jerry Glanville was the coach of the Falcons, he used to say, "If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'."
  - Tim Green, The Dark Side of the Game: My Life in the NFL (1996), p. 100
- Green quotes his old coach at Atlanta, Jerry Glanville, as insisting, “If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin.'” If this is true, I better understand the Falcons’ win-loss record during Glanville’s tenure. Further, I’ve known the current coach at Atlanta, Dan Reeves, for more than 25 years, from his days as a player for Dallas and coach for Dallas, Denver, New York and now Atlanta. Trust me on this: Reeves doesn’t buy into Green’s cheatin’ stuff. He knows football, how to coach skills and motivate toward excellence. These get you into the end zone a whole lot faster than yielding penalty yards to the opponent. Tim Green missed this tackle. Skills, commitment, talent, training and team work are game-winning skills in the NFL and at every level of athletics. Cheating does not fool officials, fans or coaches. It is not a tool for success. Ever.
  - Jim Tunney, "In NFL, cheating is for losers, not for winners," USA Today (November 17, 1997); reprinted as "On Cheating" at JimTunney.com
- But then, in a world of cheaters, if you're not cheating, you're not really competing.
  - John Stapleton IV, "PEDs Get the Best of Baseball," The Corsair (December 1, 2010), pp. 12, 13
- They always say, "If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'. So they're tryin' hard.
  - Joe Montana, re New England Patriots' cheating scandals; interviewed in October 2015 on Around the NFL

When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat;
Yet, fooled with hope, men favor the deceit;
Trust on, and think tomorrow will repay.
Tomorrow's falser than the former day.
None would live past years again,
Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain;
And from the dregs of life think to receive
What the first sprightly running could not give.
- John Dryden, Aureng-Zebe (1676), Act IV, scene i.

Every man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat him. But a day comes when he begins to care that he does not cheat his neighbor. Then all goes well. He has changed his marketcare into a chariot of the sun. What a day dawns, when we have taken to heart the doctrine of faith!
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Worship,” The Conduct of Life (1860)

I never yet feared those men who set a place apart in the middle of their cities where they gather to cheat one another and swear oaths which they break.
- Herodotus, The Histories, 1.153.1

One must not cheat anyone, not even the world of its victory.
- Franz Kafka, The Third Notebook (December 8, 1917)

L'intention de ne jamais tromper nous expose à être souvent trompés.
- Translation: The intention of cheating no one lays us open to being cheated ourselves.
- François de La Rochefoucauld, Moral Maxims and Reflections, no. 118 (1665-1678)

“You cheated.”
“That’s such a low word. Let’s just say I employed certain skills which are not necessarily observed within the strictest canon of the game.”
- Laura Resnick, The Capo of Darkness, reprinted in Mike Resnick (ed.) This is My Funniest (2006), ISBN 978-1-932100-95-2, p. 77

No treaty is ever an impediment to a cheat.
- Sophocles, Fragments, l (671)

Cheating

Quotes

See also