“The art of governing mankind by deceiving them.”

Source: The Round Table

1770s, A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774)
Source: A Summary View of the Rights of British America: Reprinted from the Original Ed.,

Speech (7 June 1923), Seanad Éireann (Irish Free Senate), on the Censorship of Films Bill. http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/S/0001/S.0001.192306070006.html

this is not a cliche!
Constance Lewellen interview, 1986

Our America (1881)

Source: The Commercial Power of Great Britain, 1925, p. xxxi ; Highlighted section cited in: Joel Mokyr. The Enlightened Economy: Britain and the Industrial Revolution, 1700-1850. 2011. p. 237
Context: The successes obtained in the government of the arts, are similar to the successes obtained in the government of men. We may succeed for a time, by fraud, by surprise, by violence: we can succeed permanently only by means directly opposite. It is not alone the courage, the intelligence, the activity of the manufacturer and the merchant which maintain the superiority of the productions and the commerce of their country; it is far more their wisdom, their economy, above all their probity.

Letter to William Hunter (11 March 1790)
1790s

2000s, The Central Idea (2006)
Context: According to Abraham Lincoln, public opinion always has a central idea from which all its minor thoughts radiate. The central idea of the American Founding—and indeed of constitutional government and the rule of law—was the equality of mankind. This thought is central to all of Lincoln's speeches and writings, from 1854 until his election as president in 1860. It is immortalized in the Gettysburg Address.

Act I, scene i
The Beggar's Opera (1728)