Quotes About Delusion

Just like Supreme Court justices, we as a nation have avoided contemplating remedies because we've indulged in the comfortable delusion that our segregation has not resulted primarily from state action and so, we conclude, there is not much we are required to do about it. Because once entrenched, segregation is difficult to reverse, the easiest course is to ignore it.

Contract freedom quickly revealed itself as a delusion when those negotiating contracts were so incommensurate in wealth and power.

The hell with this aching, suffering, callow, half-assed delusion that he was in "love" with her. The hell with "love" anyway, and with every other phony, time-wasting, half-assed emotion in the world.

That's how we both got committed to this enormous delusion—because that's what it is, an enormous, obscene delusion—this idea that people have to resign from real life and 'settle down' when they have families. It's the great sentimental lie of the suburbs

beautiful she thought she was. Aunt Sponge had a long-handled mirror on her lap, and she kept picking it up and gazing at her own hideous face. 'I look and smell,' Aunt Sponge declared, 'as lovely as a rose! Just feast your eyes upon my face, observe my shapely nose! Behold my heavenly silky locks! And if I take off both my socks You'll see my dainty toes.' 'But don't forget,' Aunt Spiker cried, 'how much your tummy shows!

The belief that "a political system created in a much simpler economic era still affords the people effective control through their votes over the complex industrial state which has come into being" is a popular delusion. "Politicians must perpetuate this idea, for their jobs depend on it," but "a true keynote speech would reveal the political government handling certain administrative details for an immensely powerful ruling class.

The belief that "a political system created in a much simpler economic era still affords the people effective control through their votes over the complex industrial state which has come into being" is a popular delusion.

The American male is convinced that he is a great warrior, a great statesman, and a great lover. Spot checks prove that he is as deluded as she is. Or worse. Historo-culturally speaking, there is strong evidence that the American male, rather than the female, murdered sex in your country.

Belief in the traditional sense, or certitude, or dogma, amounts to the grandiose delusion, My current model -- or grid, or map, or reality-tunnel -- contains the whole universe and will never need to be revised. In terms of the history of science and knowledge in general, this appears absurd and arrogant to me, and I am perpetually astonished that so many people still manage to live with such a medieval attitude.

Most people believe that they are in fact aware of the future, that they are planning and thinking ahead. They are usually deluded: What they are really doing is succumbing to their desires, to what they want the future to be. Their plans are vague, based on their imaginations rather than their reality. They may believe they are thinking all the way to the end, but they are really only focusing on the happy ending, and deluding themselves by the strength of their desire.

There have been mass delusions larger than this," I said, "following a fanatic leader.

At the front door, I took thirty seconds to compose myself. I need to learn how to whistle. My roommate at the center had taught me that trick. Parents never suspected their children were unhappy/delusional/high when the kid was whistling. Their minds just couldn't reconcile it. As I slipped inside, I puckered my lips, blowing soundless air. Whistling sucked.

A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.

The religions of mankind must be classed among the mass-delusions of this kind. No one, needless to say, who shares a delusion ever recognizes it as such.

The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.

Any titles, money, or privilege you inherit are actually hindrances. They delude you into believing you are owed respect.

In order to deceive others, you must first deceive yourself.

Two people who are a little bit deluded in each other's favour. That's what love is, isn't it?

The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there.

Medieval crusaders believed that God and heaven provided their lives with meaning; modern liberals believe that individual free choices provide life with meaning. They are all equally delusional.

As long as he fought imaginary giants, Don Quixote was just play-acting. However once he actually kills someone, he will cling to his fantasies for all he is worth, because only they give meaning to his tragic misdeed. Paradoxically, the more sacrifices we make for an imaginary story, the more tenaciously we hold on to it, because we desperately want to give meaning to those sacrifices and to the suffering we have caused.

The left-hand path adept seeks to liberate him/herself from passive subjection to the illusory nature of Maya, thus freeing the consciousness from the binds of self-created delusion.

Don't you know about the praying mantis that waved its arms angrily in front of an approaching carriage, unaware that they were incapable of stopping it? Such was the high opinion it had of its talents.

I mean, what is romance, but a mutual pact of delusion? When the pact ends, there's nothing left.