#Self Deception Quotes

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

“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 do what we can, and then make a theory to prove our performance the best.”

“We make trifles of terrors,Ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge,When we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear.”

“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.”

“Appeasement is feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last.”

“They feed the crocodile in the hope that he will eat them last.”

“Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured. But I fear - I fear greatly - the storm will not pass. It will rage and it will roar, even more loudly, even more widely.”

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

“Methought I was enamour'd of an ass.”

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

“Every young man is prone to be misled by the suggestions of his own ill-founded ambition which he mistakes for the promptings of asecret genius, and thence dreams of unrivaled greatness.”

“We know how often in our lives through laziness and cowardice we give up the battle and try to hypnotise our minds into the belief that we are brave.”

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

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

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

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

“There is nothing everyone is so afraid of as being told how vastly much he is capable of. You are capable of - do you want to know? - you are capable of living in poverty; you are capable of standing almost any kind of maltreatment, abuse, etc. But you do not wish to know about it, isn't that so? You would be furious with him who told you so, and only call that person your friend who bolsters you in saying: 'No, this I cannot bear, this is beyond my strength, etc.”

“To cheat oneself out of love is the most terrible deception; it is an eternal loss for which there is no reparation, either in time or in eternity.”

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

“No one is willing to acknowledge a fault in himself when a more agreeable motive can be found for the estrangement of his acquaintances.”

“It was the passions about whose origin we deceived ourselves that tyrannized most strongly over us.”

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

“People settle for a level of despair they can tolerate and call it happiness.”

“We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles.”

“I thought I was fooling people. But it's the old thing of 'they say vodka doesn't smell'. No, not until you sweat. And you just lie and lie and you think 'I can deal with this'. And then you finally go, 'No you can't'. And then you give up.”

“"It's just literally being afraid. And you think, oh, [the alcohol] will ease the fear. And it doesn't." What was he afraid of? "Everything. It's just a general all-round arggghhh. It's fearfulness and anxiety." He added, "For that first week you lie to yourself, and tell yourself you can stop, and then your body kicks back and says, no, stop later. And then it took about three years, and finally you do stop."”

“Men wish to be saved from the mischiefs of their vices, but not from their vices.”

“isn't so astonishing, the number of things that I can remember, as the number of things I can remember that aren't so.”

“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.”

“Man has the supreme knack of deceiving himself; the Englishman is supremest among men.”

“I tell myself that I know you, and then when I think about it, I realize that I don't.”

“Men are good. But they are poor victims making themselves miserable under the false belief that they are doing good.”

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

“Take a day to heal from the lies you've told yourself and the ones that have been told to you.”

“The only way you can be a mark is if you want something for nothing. If you're greedy, you're set up.”

“Denial is much more then an Egyptian River.”

“The statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.”

“Unlike grown ups, children have little need to deceive themselves.”

“To benefit by others' killing and to delude oneself into the belief that one is being very religions and nonviolent is sheer self-deception.”

“We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking.”

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

“These four, however, seek the freedom of their will at the very point where they are most securely chained. It is as if the silkworm sought freedom of will in spinning. What is the reason?”

“For the most part, we are not where we are, but in a false position. Through an infirmity of our natures, we suppose a case, and put ourselves into it, and hence are in two cases at the same time, and it is doubly difficult to get out.”

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

“When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.”

“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.”

“If anyone can refute me-show me I'm making a mistake or looking at things from the wrong perspective-I'l l gladly change. It's the truth I'm after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance.”

“The most common lie is that which one lies to himself; lying to others is relatively an exception.”

“If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one ever was truly harmed. Harmed is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance.”