Quotes About Self-deception

Existential dread] is the profound awareness that one is capable of ultimate bad faith with himself and with others: that one is living a lie.

It is true, the Zen-man's contempt for conventional and formalistic social custom is a healthy phenomenon, but it is healthy only because it presupposes a spiritual liberty based on freedom from passion, egotism and self-delusion. A pseudo-Zen attitude which seeks to justify a complete moral collapse with a few rationalizations based on the Zen Masters is only another form of bourgeois self-deception.

Thus we never see the one truth that would help us begin to solve our ethical and political problems: that we are all more or less wrong, that we are all at fault, all limited and obstructed by our mixed motives, our self-deception, our greed, our self-righteousness and our tendency to aggressivity and hypocrisy.

When a proud man thinks he is humble his case is hopeless.

Alcuni di noi, però, pur non andando da nessuna parte, ingannano se stessi, convincendosi invece che stanno andando da qualche parte: per ingannarsi a questo modo ci vuole una specie di talento naturale, e le obiezioni che si levano a questo riguardo sono rare, ma ciò nonostante insidiose.

You see if you tell yourself the same tale over and over again enough times then the tellings become separate stories and you will generally fool yourself into forgetting you started with one solitary season out of your life.

As a writer, I'm more interested in what people tell themselves happened rather than what actually happened

Your assumptions are your worst enemies. Trust them too much, and you'll fail to see what's right under your nose.

the best lies told were the ones we tell ourselves.

si verdaderamente quieres encontrar una disculpa para justificar cualquier cosa, ten la plena seguridad que la hallarás sin mayor dificultad.

Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune.

It is often tragic to see how blatantly a man bungles his own life and the lives of others yet remains totally incapable of seeing how much the whole tragedy originates in himself, and how he continually feeds it and keeps it going.

I'm so good at faking I don't even know when I'm doing it

El orgullo, el hecho de creer mentiras sobre uno mismo para aumentar el valor de uno mismo, a menudo era el preludio de una desagradable caída.

Life is too short to have anything but delusional notions about yourself.

She'd always known that a strong capacity for self-deception and ignoring unpleasant realities had to be useful somewhere.

Sentient beings are spectacular liars. We are gifted with an unparalleled ability to deny things that make our life unpleasant. We even pretend death isn't a certainty, because contemplating our own mortality drives us mad.

Sometimes, when you crave certain feelings, you'll trick yourself into thinking the other person is something other than what he appears.

It wasn't even real. The thing between me and Curran. It wasn't real. I deluded myself. I had this aching need to be loved and it was screwing with my head. Sometimes, when you crave certain feelings, you'll trick yourself into thinking the other person is something other than what he appears.

I had deluded myself throughout by the idea of reviving a secret love which did not exist at all.

He who imagines he can do without the world deceives himself much; but he who fancies the world cannot do without him is still more mistaken.

We keep on deceiving ourselves in regard to our faults, until we at last come to look upon them as virtues.

A fellow who is always declaring he's no fool usually has his suspicions.

A fool always finds one still more foolish to admire him.