Quotes About Self-deception

Her own folly amused her: she had once thought of herself as smart—but look at where she was.

she was lying about herself to find out the truth about herself.

That part of us that we trap in our dreams and deny in daylight hours.

Si alguien duda de su veracidad, o piensa que no es posible que un hombre se engañe a sí mismo de este modo,—debo aconsejarle que por un momento se remita a sus propias reflexiones; y entonces podré aventurarme a poner por testigo de mis aseveraciones a su propio corazón'.

Can you go cazy without knowing you're crazy?

The sad truth about bigotry is that most bigots either don't realize that they are bigots, or they convince themselves that their bigotry is perfectly justified.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.

Science is what we have learned about how to keep from fooling ourselves.

For someone who'e smarter than a supercomputer, sometimes you're a real idiot.

I have started smiling! I've mastered this smirk; it's a smile that isn't a smile.

Cold glass, how you insert yourself Between myself and myself. I scratch like a cat. The blood that runs is dark fruit- An effect, a cosmetic. You smile. No, it is not fatal.

This was a religious problem, my father felt; people can want to be deceived. Do not deceive, the Kotzker rebbe insisted, and that also means do not deceive oneself by being gullible.

The Greeks understood this relationship between man and the machinations of the universe. Their tragedies taught us that we need to learn raw humility in the fickle face of fate. Tragic heroes marched out into the world full of pride, biased vision and a mighty capacity for self-deception. Fate ultimately brought them to their knees. The lesson for us is not that we are doomed but that we must reassess the control we think we wield.

In order for us to maintain our way of living, we must tell lies to each other, and especially to ourselves. It's not necessary that the lies be particularly believable, but merely that they be erected as barriers to truth. These barriers to truth are necessary because without them many deplorable acts would become impossibilities. Truth must at all costs be avoided.

For us to maintain our way of living, we must tell lies to each other and especially to ourselves. The lies are necessary because, without them, many deplorable acts would become impossibilities.

In order to maintain our way of living, we must tell lies to each other, and especially to ourselves.

He who controls the senses but has a mind full of cravings is a pretender who fools himself.

In a world full of lies, the most dangerous ones are those we tell ourselves.

The human capacity for self-deception is very impressive, often showing breathtaking flights of creativity. —Jerry L. Horner, Daniel Seligman Research Associate

More often than not, family stories turn out to be etched in sand rather than granite. Even the parts we think are true—even the parts about ourselves—crumble under scrutiny. These are the lies we tell everyone who knows us. These are the lies we tell ourselves.

we must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God, whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution. And is not the reason perhaps for our countless relapses and the feebleness of our Christian obedience to be found precisely in the fact that we are living on self-forgiveness and not a real forgiveness.

Confession is the God-given remedy for self-deception and self-indulgence. When we confess our sins before a brother-Christian, we are mortifying the pride of the flesh and delivering it up to shame and death through Christ. Then through the word of absolution we rise as new men, utterly dependent on the mercy of God. Confession is thus a genuine part of the life of the saints, and one of the gifts of grace.

That is what we mean by cheap grace, the grace which amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the repentant sinner who departs from sin and from whom sin departs. Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves.

The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ. Such a man knows that the call to discipleship is a gift of grace, and that the call is inseparable from the grace. But those who try to use this grace as a dispensation from following Christ are simply deceiving themselves.