Quotes About Self-deception

The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.

If you were half as funny as you think you are, you'd be twice as funny as you are now.

Lying to other people is fine and usually funny, but lying to yourself is tacky.

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.

Polly was a writer of many deadlines. There were the ignorable deadlines, the not-to-be-taken-too-seriously deadlines: the deadlines-before-the-deadlines deadlines, and finally, the no-kidding-around deadlines. She set these various dates, she'd told him, to fool herself.

when confronted with a destructive outcome that is clearly their doing, they will say, plain and simple, "I never did that," and will to all appearances believe their own direct lie.

I know this sounds suspiciously like a rationale I had come up with to keep from doing something I didn't want to do anyway, but hey, I can't help that.)

If you are actively believing in the reality of what you are seeing, you are caught in your ego.

The worst lies are the lies we tell ourselves. We live in denial of what we do, even what we think. We do this because we're afraid. We fear we will not find love, and when we find it we fear we'll lose it. We fear that if we do not have love we will be unhappy.

When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.

Men who allow their love of power to give them a distorted view of the world are to be found in every asylum: one man will think that he is the Governor of the Bank of England, another will think he is the King, and yet another will think he is God.

Maybe some lies, maybe most of them, were lies we only told ourselves.

Cada cual mira los acontecimientos desde su esquina, con el rostro vuelto hacia la pared para no ver lo que no quiere.

It is last stage of all When we are frozen up within, and quite The phantom of ourselves, To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost Which blamed the living man.

Most men are good Christians in the verdict of their own opinion; but you know the law alloweth no man to be a witness in his own case, because their affection usually overreacheth conscience, and self-love deceiveth truth for its own interest.

Even if we can go on deceiving others, it becomes harder to hide the truth from ourselves.

Stop believing what you want to believe. It's unbecoming

Relative American openness, contrasted with the communist commitment to secrecy, in my view constitutes a claim upon a fragment of moral high ground. The egregious error committed by US statesmen and commanders was not that of lying to the world, but rather that of lying to themselves.

The egregious error committed by US statesmen and commanders was not that of lying to the world, but rather that of lying to themselves.

The web of hypocrisy of today hangs on the frontiers of two domains, between which our time swings back and forth, attaching its fine threads of deception and self-deception. No longer vigorous enough to serve morality without doubt or weakening, not yet reckless enough to live wholly to egoism, it trembles now toward the one and now toward the other in the spider-web of hypocrisy, and, crippled by the curse of halfness, catches only miserable, stupid flies.

Ne volim tugu, ?ini me zlim, zato se zavaravam bijesom.

The mind plays tricks on itself in order to stay in one piece.

Then I thought maybe she did know but didn't want to look at it. Maybe she did know but there's all kinds of lies you tell yourself when you want to.

We are never deceived," she says, her voice deep and ringing. "We deceive ourselves.