Quotes About Self-deception

Most of the bad guys in the real world don't know that they are bad guys. You don't get a flashing warning sign that you're about to damn yourself. It sneaks up on you when you aren't looking.

Most of the bad guys in the real world don't know that they are bad guys. You don't get a flashing warning sign that you're about to damn yourself. It sneaks up on you when you aren't looking.

When we have the habit of setting as a goal only activity that we can accomplish and that is genuinely productive, we've taken the first step to getting some real work done. Rather than succeeding or not succeeding almost by accident in the service of some goal that's really beyond our control, we've taken the first step to taking responsibility for our actions and to end what is, really, self-deception (and probably companywide deception).

Sometimes people that are standing on third base think they hit a triple. But they didn't.

We sort of tell ourselves what we want to hear and the more we do that, the more we begin to agree with ourselves—and maybe get fooled into thinking what is wrong is actually right.

She studied my face. I rubbed my eyes. "I'm fine," I assured her. That was five months ago. I wasn't fine then and I'm not fine now. (Thwonk)

When you tell a lie, you have to sound like you believe it. Goes double for the ones you tell yourself.

lies. The hardest kind to see through. The kind you tell yourself.

I didn't think my mother was even consciously aware of what she was doing. She had convinced herself more than anyone else so that she would not feel the insufferable guilt that comes when you realize you have abused and betrayed your own children.

He that hath nothing to feed on but vanity and lies must needs lie down in the bed of sorrow.

First of all, people are always pretending to be what they are," said his father. "That's basically a philosophical question. Part of being something is pretending to be it.

It's like you have a KICK ME sign on your back when it comes to identifying inaccuracies in what you know and believe. You can't see the sign because your eyes can see only what's in front of you. No matter how fast you spin around, you just can't see yourself from the back. Someone keeps kicking you, it's getting irritating, and you can't figure out why, even though you can clearly see the KICK ME signs on everybody else.

One of the lies that we tell ourselves is that we're making progress; but Huey's chair's empty.

I don't believe Fermat had a proof. I think he fooled himself into thinking he had a proof.

Tengo treinta años -dije-. He rebasado en cinco años la edad de mentirme a mí mismo y llamarle a eso honor.

Otuzuma girdim, dedim. Kendime yalan söyleyip bunun ad?na onur diyecek ya?? beÅŸ y?l geçtim.

The more I meditate on our capacity for self-deception, the more my certainties crumble, slipping through my fingers as fine sand. And when this meditation becomes a feeling that clouds my mind, then the whole world appears to me as a mist made of shadows, a twilight of edges and corners, a fiction of the interlude,* a dawn that never becomes morning.

I painted myself in false colors and ended up with an attic room for an empire.

I want to tell more stories about lying, dual lives, self-deception - those are my favorites.

My whole life has been a lie.

The whole secret to our success is being able to con ourselves into believing that we're going to change the world because statistically we are unlikely to do it.

Everyone realizes that one can believe little of what people say about each other. But it is not so widely realized that even less can one trust what people say about themselves.

The mask of self-deception was no longer a mask for me, it was a part of me. Night lifted it, laying bare the stifled truth below; but there was no one to see except myself

The mask of self-deception was not longer a mask for me, it was a part of me. Night lifted it, laying bare the stifled truth below; but there was no one to see except myself, and when day broke the mask fell back again of its own accord.