Self Deception Quotes

Cowardice shuts the eyes till the sky is not larger than a calf-skin: shuts the eyes so that we cannot see the horse that is running away with us; worse, shuts the eyes of the mind and chills the heart.

Like oneWho having into truth, by telling of it,Made such a sinner of his memory,To credit his own lie.

If I had really cared as I thought I did about the sorrows of the world I should not have been so overwhelmed when my own sorrow came- I thought I trusted the rope until it mattered to me whether it would bear me, now it matters and I find I didn't.

If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.

One is never deceived; one deceives oneself.

Not all who discharge their debts of gratitude should flatter themselves that they are grateful.

To awaken a man who is deceived as to his own merit is to do him as bad a turn as that done to the Athenian madman who was happy in believing that all the ships touching at the port belonged to him.

When our vices desert us, we flatter ourselves that we are deserting our vices.

The criminal is quite frequently not equal to his deed: he belittles and slanders it.

It is as easy to deceive one's self without perceiving it, as it is difficult to deceive others without their finding out.

When you're high, it's easy to kid yourself about how clever certain mediocre pieces of material are.

A man is never so proud as when striking an attitude of humility.

We deceive ourselves when giving respect to the person for whom we have surrendered ourselves, when we respectively expect them to be as we would wish them to be.

Man only blames himself in order that he may be praised.

A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others.

The most effectual way to be deceived is to believe oneself more cunning than one's neighbors.

The most difficult We do not deal in facts when we are contemplating ourselves.

We only acknowledge small faults in order to make it appear that we are free from great ones.

How quick come the reasons for approving what we like!

We often feel that we lack something, and seem to see that very quality in someone else, promptly attributing all our own qualities to him too, and a kind of ideal contentment as well. And so the happy mortal is a model of complete perfection--which we have ourselves created.

All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself.

It's the easiest thing in the world for a man to deceive himself.

We do what we must, and call it by the best names we can, and would fain have the praise of having intended the result which ensues.

We are never, never so much in danger of being proud as when we think we are humble.

We only confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no big ones.

She looked back as well as she could; but it was all confusion. She had taken up the idea, she supposed and made everything bend to it.

If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change. I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone: the harm is to persist in one's own self-deception and ignorance.

One of the greatest and also the commonest of faults is for men to believe that, because they never hear their shortcomings spoken of, or read about them in cold print, others can have no knowledge of them. GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG, The Reflections of Lichtenberg We are often more agreeable through our faults than our good qualities.

All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself. Surely a curious thing. That I should innocently take a bad half-crown of somebody else's manufacture, is reasonable enough; but that I should knowingly reckon the spurious coin of my own make, as good money!

We run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us from seeing it.

The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than anyone else. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offense, isn't it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him, but that he has invented the insult for himself, has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill--he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offense, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it.

Never pretend that the things you haven't got are not worth having.

No one talks more passionately about his rights than he who in the depths of his soul doubts whether he has any. By enlisting passion on his side he wants to stifle his reason and its doubts: thus he will acquire a good conscience and with it success among his fellow men.

It is easier to deceive yourself, and to do so unperceived, than to deceive another.

No one is so terribly deceived as he who does not himself suspect it.

Each person tries to hold himself hss and lay the blame upon somebody or something else, or even on bad luck.

Lay not that flattering unction to your soul, That not your trespass but my madness speaks.

The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him.

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.

Many a time comes when we want to interpret our weakness and cowardice as forgiveness and renunciation.

But he could not renounce his infinite capacity for illusion at the very moment he needed it most... he saw fireflies where there were none.

To a commonplace man of limited intellect, for instance, nothing is simpler than to imagine himself an original character, and to revel in that belief without the slightest misgiving.

Only one deception is possible in the infinite sense, self-deception.

Hope bases vast premises on foolish accidents, and reads a word where in fact only a scribble exists.

Therefore do not deceive yourself! Of all deceivers fear most yourself!

No one was ever injured by the truth; but he who persists in self-deception and ignorance is injured.

....honest men are few when it comes to themselves.

Those who are condemned to death affect sometimes a constancy and contempt for death which is only the fear of facing it; so that one may say that this constancy and contempt are to their mind what the bandage is to their eyes.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

Who had deceived thee so often as thyself?

Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.

Memory says, 'I did that.' Pride replies, 'I could not have done that.' Eventually, memory yields.

We often credit ourselves with vices the reverse of what we have, thus when weak we boast of our obstinacy.

We take greater pains to persuade others that we are happy than in endeavoring to think so ourselves

Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune.

We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love - first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.

The worst thing thou has to fear is the treachery of thine own heart.

Some people throw a bit of their personality after their bad arguments, as if that might straighten their paths and turn them into right and good arguments-just as a man in a bowling alley, after he has let go of the ball, still tries to direct it with gestures.

Do not mistake your objection to defeat for an objection to fighting, your objection to being a slave for an objection to slavery, your objection to not being as rich as your neighbor for an objection to poverty. The cowardly, the insubordinate, and the envious share your objections.

People do think that if they avoid the truth, it might change to something better before they have to hear it.