Quotes About Self-deception

However, most people don't like to admit that they are fools. Consequently, the more they sacrifice for a particular belief, the stronger their faith becomes.

It is only when we have the courage to face things exactly as they are, without any self-deception or illusion, that a light will develop out of events, by which the path to success may be recognized.

Think of denial as an acronym for Don't Even Notice I Am Lying

No one fools anyone much, except himself," said Jacob to himself. "How do I fool myself?

The easiest thing of all is to deceive one's self for what a man wishes he generally believes to be true.

There is a great deal of wishful thinking in such cases; it is the easiest thing of all to deceive one's self.

We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip little by little at a truth we find bitter.

We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter.

Some people have the last laugh because they always get the joke last, and they still don't realize that the joke is on them. They just laugh last and the longest.

seems to be that at some level of consciousness, Whites realize that they have lived lies of self-deception and that they do hold responsibility for the current oppression of people of color in the United States, whether through action or inaction (Helms, 1992; Spanierman, Poteat, Beer & Armstrong, 2006; Tatum, 1992).

This change often presents a major challenge because the person may experience loneliness and the type of marginalization that people of color have constantly experienced. For many White Americans, the challenge and isolation may be too much, and they will return to their old ways allowing denial and self-deception to reestablish themselves.

It's not our disadvantages or shortcomings that are ridiculous but rather the studious way we try to hide them and our desire to act as if they did not exist.

At every waking moment now, I was plagued by the thought that I was living a lie.

We don't know the terrible things that are coming our way," she said as she looked down at the cut crystal, her eyes teary. "We just see the shiny surface, our own beautiful selves reflected in it. Not the monster lurking beneath.

I am broken. I am a fraud. I am impossible to love.

She says that everyone creates a version of her life that she wishes were true and tries to believe.

Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.

the easiest thing of all is to deceive oneself, for what a man wishes, he generally believes to be true!

Rationalizing is not a tool for penetration of reality but a post-factum attempt to harmonize one's own wishes with existing reality.

I don't think people can help it. We play with fire and tell ourselves we're just lighting a modest, necessary candle. We know discretion is called for and everything in us cries out to be seen, to spread our feathers.

happen? That the biggest con of all is telling yourself that it will? How could he tell Craw that saying you were going to do something and then making it happen was, for Jeremy, as unlikely as Craw settling down with a nice girl and breeding like bunnies?

The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity.

But what people lie about the most are themselves, and these lies become the stories they believe and want to tell you.

We are never so ridiculous through what we are as through what we pretend to be.