About sincerity and deceit - how does God feel about this?

Cunning is a negative human quality that has a deep meaning. Over the centuries, the development of this quality has been facilitated by the social system of society.

But not everyone can explain who the evil person is. Deep down, a person always wants to get more. Cunning is a manifestation of this desire: to get something with less effort.

As a result, a person begins to lie, dodge and look for cunning ways to achieve what he wants. It is very difficult to admit to yourself that you have negative qualities.

Basically, such people come up with ways to justify themselves to others and appear in the best light, which is why they lie. It’s like a lie for good, but for your own good.

↑ Definition

Cunning is a negative personality quality that is characterized by deceit, cunning, and pretense. Very often, cunning helps people achieve their goals. Behind the mask of good nature and friendliness, deceit and hypocrisy can be hidden.

Recognizing this quality in a person can be quite difficult. He begins to disguise himself, shows goodwill, tries to help, but all his actions are saturated with tricks, deceit and hypocrisy.

To win over a person and gain his trust, he pretends to be a friend. Even when he gets what he wants, the wicked person is never satisfied. He becomes irritable and nervous, in pursuit of more and more benefits. Selfish plans come to the fore, and base personality traits begin to prevail.

Deceit is...

Do you know what wickedness is?

Explanatory dictionaries define this word as a negative quality of a person, consisting of insincerity and cunning, covered with a soft and affectionate attitude.

For example:

1. Lizonka’s golden eyes sparkled with a charming, girlish cunning.
2. Cunning is your middle name.
3. I’ll tell you without cunning or guile: I don’t like your position.

↑ Advantages

Man, unlike animals, is endowed with reason and is able to evaluate his actions. You can achieve success in two ways: work and honesty, deception and pretense. The second option is the most cunning. He assumes to gain the trust of people in order to achieve his goals, to set up competitors, to build various intrigues, to pretend to be friends, to play on a person’s weaknesses, etc.

In general, be crafty. For the sake of self-interest, a person can turn a blind eye to his manifestations in relation to other people. Perhaps this way you can achieve success faster, move up the career ladder and receive a lot of bonuses, but deep down, a person ceases to be himself. There are no advantages to wickedness and there cannot be any. This is self-destruction with self-justification.

Morphological characteristics, declination

What questions does the word “cunning” answer? That's right, to the question “what?” Therefore it is a noun. Moreover, the noun is a common noun and inanimate. Like all neuter nouns, it belongs to the second declension. Theoretically, this word also has plural forms, but in colloquial speech the singular number is used predominantly.

↑ Disadvantages

Many things can come easy to a crafty person, but the consequences are extremely sad. People don't like to be played with like puppets. Sooner or later, deceit will bring its negative fruits in return for all previous successes. There simply won’t be any real friends left; many will turn away and won’t help in difficult times.

The constant stress of coming up with clever moves can lead to nervousness. A deceitful person does not have a good personal life; he is usually lonely and deeply unhappy. Under the mask, the true “I” is lost, which is difficult to find later. Negative manifestations do not remain without a trace, they cripple the soul and spoil the reputation. It can be very difficult to recover from something like this; habits are always hard to eradicate.

Slyness

Cunning as a personality quality is a tendency to plot, intrigue, be cunning, pretend with some intent, behave insincerely; to be filled with good-natured and cheerful deceit, playful and flirtatious half-truths.

The Civil War had just ended, food shortages, strict regulations regarding food price limits. But one resident of the town sells geese for five hundred rubles apiece and thrives. The neighbor wants to follow his example and places an ad in the newspaper, security officers immediately appear and confiscate his geese. “Dear neighbor,” asks the victim of the Chekists, “why doesn’t the Cheka come to you?” You sell your geese for the same five hundred rubles. — What did you write in the ad? “I wrote: I sell geese for five hundred rubles apiece.” - Well, you acted very stupidly. I always write like this: “On Sunday, five hundred rubles were lost on Cathedral Square. The one who finds it receives a goose as a reward.” And the next day half the city brings me the lost five hundred rubles...

Deceit is a half-truth with the addition of lies that distort the whole truth. Cunning is when the understatement of the truth is mixed with lies. Just as an old cocotte covers her face with a veil to hide her wrinkles, deceit covers lies with truth. The wicked man tells the truth, but not the whole truth, and adds a little lie that defiles and distorts the whole truth.

People say about a crafty person: “Everything would be simple, but the tail (of the fox) is tied.” Cunning leads the company with hypocrisy, cunning and deceit. When a person does not tell the whole truth, avoids direct questions, shows insincerity, disguises himself as friendliness, covers up malicious intent with ostentatious goodwill, be careful - this is deceit!

She cries with her eyes, but laughs with her heart. The ugly child of lies and deceit, deceit can be playful and flirtatious, and can hide under the guise of good-natured and cheerful deceit, crookedness and affable hypocrisy. His behavior is saturated with tricks, wobbles, tricks and excuses. Cunning craftiness is always mocking and clever.

It’s sweet to the ear, painful to the eyes, but when you eat it, it’s disgusting. No lie is from the truth (1 John 2:21). Cunning is a playful, flirtatious, sophisticated lie. On this occasion, the Bible says (Ps. 140: 3,4): “Deceitful words for bringing out sinful deeds together with people who practice iniquity. Lies and deceit, and, consequently, deceit are beyond the rules determined by the Almighty for the existence of Man in peace with him.”

There is honey on the tongue, and ice under the tongue. Cunning is extremely inventive with evil intentions and designs, when a person, putting on a mask of good nature and sympathy, carries out his insidious intent. Saint Basil the Great compared wickedness to a polyp: “I cannot keep silent about the wickedness of the polyp, which every time takes on the color of a stone, to which it easily sticks. Therefore, many fish, swimming without fear, approach the polyp as if they were approaching a stone and become its prey. Such are the dispositions of those who please any prevailing power, each time conform to the circumstances, do not always adhere to the same intention, easily adapt to both: with the chaste they respect chastity, with the intemperate they are intemperate, and change their disposition to please everyone. It is not easy to evade such people and save yourself from the harm they cause, because the deceit they conceive is deeply hidden under the guise of friendship. The Lord calls people of this nature ravenous wolves who appear in sheep's clothing. Avoid quirky and multifaceted dispositions, strive for truth, sincerity and simplicity.”

Speeches are like honey, but deeds are like wormwood. The wicked man is full of envy, arrogance, self-interest, hatred and slander. In a society of such vices, he can exhibit exceptionally base personality traits. He is never at peace. His destiny is eternal confusion, irritability, deceit and anger.

“The evil one slanders one another, goes against everyone, takes part in quarrels, drives a person to irritation, helps in revenge, is ready for slander, and happily speaks ill of others,” writes Ephraim the Syrian. The crafty one is quick to insult, strong in verbosity, zealous in striking others, and the first to promote discord. The evil one mocks those who love; those who deserve approval are disdained; those who show success are dissatisfied with them. The evil one always envies, always competes, always becomes bitter; having received an order, contradicts it; having heard the command, he distorts it; after good advice he acts badly. The evil one is weak in psalmody, weakened in fasting, has neither strength nor understanding for any good deed, and is incapable of spiritual conversations, because “all wickedness stops its lips.” (Ps. 106:42).

Simple as a pig, but cunning as a snake. In an era of flourishing double standards, guile takes to water. Cunning is always biased and tendentious. The crafty mind is unusually inclined to distort facts, reinterpret, exaggerate, minimize, leave things out and outright falsify. Cunning is always right. Whatever it does, a powerful justification mechanism is activated and black becomes white and white becomes black.

Self-interest always has a selfless face. Cunning is rarely re-educated, because it does not see, or does not want to notice, shortcomings in itself. The Monk Abba Dorotheos said: “When justification is united with will, this is perfect death, great danger, great fear; then the unfortunate one finally falls. For who will make such a person believe that another person knows better what is good for him? Then he completely surrenders to his will, his thoughts, and finally the enemy arranges his fall as he wishes.”

Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov in “The Fugitive,” talking about a cowardly, crafty warrior who fled from the battlefield, significantly expands our understanding of craftiness:

“Mother, open it! I am a poor wanderer, I am your Harun! your youngest son; Through the Russian bullets I came to you harmlessly!” "One?" "One!". “Where are father and brothers?” "Pali! The Prophet blessed their death, And the angels took their souls.” “Have you taken revenge?” “I didn’t take revenge... But I took off into the mountains like an arrow, Left my sword in a foreign land, To console your eyes And wipe away your tears...” “Be quiet, be quiet! Evil giaur, You couldn’t die with glory, So get away, live alone. With your shame, fugitive of freedom, I will not darken my old years, You are a slave and a coward - and not my son!..”

Petr Kovalev Other articles by the author: https://www.podskazki.info/karta-statej/

↑ It's interesting to know

The scriptures write a lot about wickedness. “Evil” comes from the Slavic word “bow” (bend), which means the name of the devil. The Bible says a lot about this negative quality; almost every saint spoke about it. The destruction of the human soul occurs from within and negatively affects others. The words of one of the prayers ask “deliver us from evil.”

The beginning and root of evil - this is the characterization given by St. Simeon the New Theologian, making it clear that the fruits will be larger and more bitter. The evil one harms himself first of all; his soul is never calm, but is full of various intentions and anger.

Cunning: synonyms

Synonyms are words that are pronounced and spelled differently, but have exactly the same or similar meaning.

Deceit is:

• Cunning: The mother-in-law’s cunning shocked the young daughter-in-law.
• Dexterity: You should have seen with what dexterity Pavel tricked everyone around his finger.
• Cunning: We can talk for a long time about Kira’s cunning, but nevertheless we cannot fully describe it.
• Hypocrisy: Anna Lvovna's hypocrisy knows no bounds.
• Trickery: Joseph's trickery became the talk of the town.

↑ Results

Crafty man:

• accustomed to achieving success at the expense of others;
• he just seems like a nice person;
• often lonely, has no real friends;
• I’m used to dodging and making excuses.

It's worth thinking about how often everyone tries to appear better to people than they really are. Self-destruction comes from small things and the expenditure of energy does not always bring commensurate results. By choosing the path of truth and hard work, internal purification occurs, harmony and tranquility appear in life, and self-worth increases. And most importantly, you no longer have to come up with cunning plans and look for workarounds.