"when we badly want a thing, we..." - Quote by Mark Twain
when we badly want a thing, we go to hunting for good and righteous reasons for it; we give it that fine name to comfort our consciences, whereas we privately know we are only hunting for plausible ones.
More by Mark Twain
More on Human Nature
“If a man knew anything, he would sit in a corner and be modest; but he is such an ignorant peacock, that he goes bustling up and down, and hits on extraordinary discoveries.”
“There are people who in spite of their merit disgust us and others who please us in spite of their faults.”
“There is an innocence in admiration; it is found in those to whom it has never yet occurred that they, too, might be admired some day.”
More on Self Deception
“I am a wicked man... But do you know, gentlemen, what was the main point about my wickedness? The whole thing, precisely was, the greatest nastiness precisely lay in my being shamefully conscious every moment, even in moments of the greatest bile, that I was not only not a wicked man but was not even an embittered man, that I was simply frightening sparrows in vain, and pleasing myself with it.”
“The vain.- We are like shop windows in which we are continually arranging, concealing or illuminating the supposed qualities other ascribe to us - in order to deceive ourselves.”
“Who had deceived thee so often as thyself?”