Quotes About Self-deception

Lying gives him a deep and subtle pleasure, so deep and subtle he does not know he is lying; he thinks he is the most truthful of princes.

How readily and thinly we procure these fictional selves, deceiving the world and what we might have become if only we hadn't got in the way, if only we had waited to see what might have become of us.

The Folk doubtlessly learned this lesson long ago. They do not need to deceive humans. Humans will deceive themselves.

Lie until even you believe it - that's the real secret of lying

The most important thing for any con artist is never to think like a mark. Marks think they can get something for nothing. Marks think they can get what they don't deserve and could never deserve. Marks are stupid and pathetic and sad. Marks think they're going to go home one night and have the girl they've loved since they were a kid suddenly love them back. Marks forget that whenever something's too good to be true, that's because it's a con.

You're nothing. The human species pretends it is so resilient. Mortal lives are one long game of make-believe. If you couldn't lie to yourselves, you'd cut your own throats to end your misery.

What has changed? Is he different because I have forced him to be? Is it because he is away from Balekin? Or is he no different at all and I am only seeing what I want to see?

They do not need to deceive humans. Humans will deceive themselves.

The easiest lies to tell are the ones you want to be true.

He maintained to Beatrix that love existed only by desire; that most women deceived themselves in loving; that they loved for reasons unknown to men and to themselves; that they wanted to deceive themselves, and that the best among them were artful.

Writers kid themselves -- about themselves and other people. Take the talk about writing methods. Writing is just work -- there's no secret. If you dictate or use a pen or type or write with your toes -- it's still just work.

People have a habit of inventing fictions they will believe wholeheartedly in order to ignore the truth they cannot accept.

I am vain, or once was, and one of my vanities was to feign that I was not.

It is never persuasive to argue that you are not the kind of person who does what you are actually doing.

It's as if your money, by conceit inexhaustible, isn't real, so your generosity isn't real, either.

There is nothing disastrous in the temporary nature of our ideas. They are always that. But there may very easily be a train of evil in the self-deception which regards them as final. I think God will forgive us our skepticism sooner than our Inquisitions.

At thirty-two years of age, Rachel tried not to dwell too much on the fact that her entire adult existence was a mirage.

Yes. I know. I look like you. Crazy, eh? Can you believe it? What sort of sad loser spends his whole adult life pretending to be someone he was in love with when he was a child? You know, I even call myself Phin sometimes. Isn't that pathetic?' Phin nods, then shakes his head, then says, 'Yes. That is pretty fucked up. What are you doing here? What do you want?

There are lots of people who rewrite their past and, what's more, believe it themselves. Now that is odd.

This is what Ania will pay for: not only her inaction, but her self-deception, for narrating away evil while staring it in the face.

God knows we are subtle creatures who are more than able to use candour to avoid acknowledging our deceptions of others and ourselves.

If you lie to yourself you will lie to God too.

The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves.

The truth is that our minds are corrupted by sin. Not just a little bit, but deeply, down to the depths as far as we can perceive, and beyond. And not just grossly, so that it is easy to figure out where we went wrong, but subtly, delicately, invisibly. If we think we know and appreciate how far we have gone wrong, we are still deceiving ourselves at this point also.