Quotes About Self-deception

But she did not look the future in the face. She wanted to feel nothing, to think nothing; simply to believe that it was all silly invention on her part. Yet she could not. Not quite.

Our myths are so many, our vision so dim, our self-deception so deep and our smugness so gross that scarcely any way now remains of reporting the American Century except from behind the billboards ...

Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continue therein, he being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed." James 1:22-25

readers rarely accept arguments that challenge their interests. Even if they acknowledge at some level that there may be truth in what you say, they will blank out the unwelcome knowledge.

Act as though there is nothing wrong, and you can make it true, for a while.

Modern man is a prisoner who thinks he is free because he refrains from touching the walls of his dungeon.

There are words for deceiving others, like "rational." And others, like "dialectic," for deceiving oneself.

The individual who lies to himself, just like the society that does not lie to itself, soon rots and dies.

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

I have a disdain," he says, "for complicated fancy equipment because it takes a lot of time to learn how to use, and I'm suspicious when the distance between the raw data and the final conclusion is too long. It gives you plenty of opportunity to massage that data, and human beings are notoriously susceptible to self-deception, whether scientists or not." Ramachandran

To hear and to see Even an obvious lie Again And again and again May be to say it, Almost by reflex Then to defend it Because we've said it And at last to embrace it Because we've defended it And because we cannot admit That we've embraced and defended An obvious lie.

The indissoluble link between prideful self-love, aversion to truth, self-deception and hypocrisy is one of the great themes of the Bible—for example, the drumbeat repetition that "the way of a fool is right in his own eyes" (Prov 12:15). Sinful minds therefore claim both self-rightness in terms of truth and self-righteousness in terms of goodness.

Man's love of truth is such that when he loves something which is not the truth, he pretends to himself that what he loves is the truth, and because he hates to be proved wrong, he will not allow himself to be convinced that he is deceiving himself. So he hates the real truth for what he takes to his heart in its place.

Either we may seek to conform our desires to the truth, which leads to conviction, or we may seek to conform the truth to our desires, which leads to evasion.

Each day I deceived myself, unlike you who could never deceive yourself. Anxiety was trapped in the depths of my heart, like a formation of black clouds I could not break free of.

One lies to seek a bit of relief from a ponderous, suffocating reality, but the liar, like the drinker, gradually comes to need larger and larger doses. The lies become blacker and more complex, and they mesh and rub together until in the end they shine with the luster of truth.

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.

Avec l'argent, nul n'est à l'aise : ceux qui croient le détester l'idolâtrent en secret. Ceux qui l'idolâtrent le surestiment. Ceux qui feignent de le mépriser se mentent à eux-mêmes. Engouement

Your mind will believe comforting lies while also knowing the painful truths that make those lies necessary. And your mind will punish you for believing both.

Men lie, and they lie to theirselves worst of all.

We have to lie to ourselves to live. Otherwise, we'd go crazy.

After he killed the farmer's daughter, said the monster, the prince lay down next to her and returned to sleep. When he awoke, he acted out a pantomime should anyone be watching. But also, it may surprise you to learn, for himself. The monster's branches creaked. Sometimes people need to lie to themselves most of all.

It does not matter what you think, your mind will contradict itself a hundred times each day. Your mind will believe comforting lies while also knowing the painful truths that make those lies necessary. You do not write your life with words, you write it with actions. What you think is not important. It is only important what you do.

Men lie, and they lie to theirselves worst of all. ... the thing to remember, the thing that's most important of all that I might say in this here telling of things is that Noise ain't truth, Noise is what men want to be true, and there's a difference twixt those two things so big that it could ruddy well kill you if you don't watch out.