Quotes About Self-deception

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

Though wisdom is common, yet the many live as if they had a wisdom of their own.

My message to you is this: Pretend that you have free will. It's essential that you behave as if your decisions matter, even though you know they don't. The reality isn't important; what's important is your belief, and believing the lie is the only way to avoid a waking coma. Civilization now depends on self-deception. Perhaps it always has.

Pretend that you have free will. It's essential that you behave as if your decisions matter, even though you know they don't. The reality isn't important; what's important is your belief, and believing the lie is the only way to avoid a waking coma. Civilization now depends on self-deception. Perhaps it always has.

Minha mensagem para vocês é: finjam que têm livre-arbítrio. É essencial para vocês se comportarem como se suas decisões tivessem importância, mesmo sabendo que não têm. A realidade não importa: o que importa é a sua crença, porque acreditar nessa mentira é a única maneira de evitar o coma lúcido. A civilização depende agora da autoilusão. Talvez sempre tenha dependido.

The reality isn't important; what's important is your belief, and believing the lie is the only way to avoid a waking coma. Civilization now depends on self-deception. Perhaps it always has.

I need a spiritual connection - I can make changes, but I can't make miracles - and I need people around me who'll support me and believe in me and tell me the truth and not let me deceive myself into avoiding the what's scary and hard and necessary.

I lost my second marriage because of drinking, and I loved the woman very much. But I thought I needed booze to write. I'm glad I was disabused.

Almost every natural man that hears of hell, flatters himself that he shall escape it.

Because there is no man who can be true and just judge of himself, so much will self-love deceive him.

The only thing that ever consoles man for the stupid things he does is the praise he always gives himself for doing them.

How we lie to ourselves when we've fallen in love with the wrong man.

Man has the supreme knack of deceiving himself; the Englishman is supremest among men.

No man is clever enough to know all the evil he does.

Man is bound to lie about himself

Men who can succeed in deceiving no one else, will succeed at last in deceiving themselves.

It is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self knowledge.

I had fooled myself into thinking that I was something important to the rest of the world.

Do whatever it takes to avoid fooling yourself into believing that something is true when it is false, or that something is false when it is true.

Leonardo da Vinci would be in full agreement: "The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinion.

Men are so self-complacent in their own affairs, and so willing to deceive themselves, that they are rescued with difficulty from this pest. If they wish to defend themselves they run the risk of becoming contemptible.

It sounds to me like you're making excuses, Jeb said quietly. You're trying to convince yourself, and you're using me to listen to yourself talk.

For a little while, maybe I did fall for my own mythology.

You're in love with your image of Linda. Mr. Green is in love with his image of Jesus. Both of your images have little to do with reality. Both of you are making yourselves miserable.' 'That's not fair, comparing me to him. You don't see me hammering nails in people.' 'You prefer to hammer them through your own hands.