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# Weekend Words: Cheat
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/weekend-words-cheat/
- Published: 2015-07-26T13:30:33.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:31:04.000Z
- Description: On Wednesday, Reuters reported that hackers have threatened to expose the identities of thousands of users at the adultery website Ashley Madison, whose slogan is "Life is short. Have an affair” — a breach that “could be disastrous for one whose business model is based on complete confidentially.”
- Author: Weekend Editors
- Tags: Opinion, Weekend, Weekend Words, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:08 (2014, 2015, part 2)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2015/07/cheat.jpg)

Georges de la Tour, “Cheater with the Ace of Diamonds” (1635), oil on canvas, 106 x 146 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris (Image via Web Gallery of Art)

On Wednesday, Reuters [reported](http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/22/ashley-madison-faces-doomsday-scenario-after-hack-bankers.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) that hackers have threatened to expose the identities of thousands of users at the adultery website Ashley Madison, whose slogan is “Life is short. Have an affair” — a breach that “could be disastrous for one whose business model is based on complete confidentially.”

> Children are the most desirable opponents at Scrabble as they are both easy to beat and fun to cheat.  
>  
> **—Fran Lebowitz**

> Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee,  
> Almost thy plausibility  
> Induces my belief,  
>  
> Till ranks of seeds their witness bear,  
> And softly through the altered air  
> Hurries a timid leaf!  
>  
> **—Emily Dickinson, “Indian Summer, XXVII”**

> Who came up with the term *cheating*, anyway? A cheater, I imagine. Someone who thought *liar* was too harsh. Someone who thought *devastator* was too emotional. The same person who thought, oops, he’d gotten *caught with his hand in the cookie jar.*  
>  
> **― David Levithan, *The Lover’s Dictionary***

> To cheat a man is nothing; but the woman must have fine parts indeed who cheats a woman!  
>  
> **—John Gay, *The Beggar’s Opera***

> There can never be such a thing as a free market, because it is human nature to cheat, monopolize, and buy off others so as to corner the market.  
>  
> **—Jane Smiley**

> Does anyone who will listen up  
> To our victories and dumb defeats  
> Knows they all take you to the cleaners  
> If you come between the cheats.  
>  
> **—Amy Winehouse, “Between the Cheats”**

> Peace, n. In international affairs, a period of cheating between periods of fighting.  
>  
> **—Ambrose Bierce, *The Devil’s Dictionary***

> A face peered. All the grey night  
> In chaos of vacancy shone;  
> Nought but vast Sorrow was there–  
> The sweet cheat gone.  
>  
> **—Walter de la Mare, “The Ghost”**

> You can’t cheat an honest man; never give a sucker an even break, or smarten up a chump.  
>  
> **—W. C. Fields, *You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man***