Self Deception Quotes:

The worst of all deceptions is self-deception.

- Plato

topic: Self, Deception, Self Deception

The ingenuity of self-deception is inexhaustible.

- Hannah More

topic: Self, Deception, Self Deception, Ingenuity

It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.

- Leo Tolstoy

topic: Life, Beauty, Lying, Definition Of Beauty, Inspirational Beauty

Of all forms of deception self-deception is the most deadly, and of all deceived persons the self-deceived are the least likely to discover the fraud.

- Aiden Wilson Tozer

topic: Self, Deception, Form, Self Deception

The human mind has an infinite capacity for self-deception.

- Gertrude Atherton

topic: Self, Deception, Mind, Human Mind, Self Deception

Above all, don't lie to yourself.

- Fyodor Dostoevsky

topic: Lying, Respect Women, Don't Lie, Lost Respect, Lying To Yourself

What destroys us most effectively is not a malign fate but our own capacity for self-deception and for degrading our own best self.

- George Eliot

topic: Fate, Self, Deception, Self Deception

We lie best when we lie to ourselves.

- Stephen King

source: Stephen King (2016). “It: A Novel”, p.445, Simon and Schuster

topic: Lying, Self Deception, Being Lied

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.

- Leonardo da Vinci

source: Leonardo Da Vinci, General Press (2016). “The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci”, p.444, GENERAL PRESS

topic: Inspirational, Spiritual, Men, Mislead Us, Deceptive

Self-deception can be more comforting than self-knowledge. We like to fool ourselves.

- Russ Roberts

source: Russ Roberts (2014). “How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life: An Unexpected Guide to Human Nature and Happiness”, p.31, Penguin

topic: Self, Comforting, Deception, Self Deception

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 was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.

- Marcus Aurelius

topic: Truth, Ignorance, Thinking, Open Mindedness, Self Deception

When we successfully deceive others, they are not aware of it; the same is true with self-deception.

- Mardy Grothe

topic: Self, Deception, Deceiving, Self Deception

Avoidance of self deception is a matter of integrity not comfort.

- Orrin Woodward

topic: Integrity, Self, Deception, Self Deception

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

- Soren Kierkegaard

source: "Works of Love". Book by Soren Kierkegaard, 1847.

topic: Self, Deception, Infinite, Self Deception

Narcissism and self-deception are survival mechanisms without which many of us might just jump off a bridge.

- Todd Solondz

source: "Sanity and Solitude: Cogent Ramblings of a Lone Aesthetic". Book by Bob Spencer, p. 81, 2012.

topic: Self, Bridges, Hype, Jumping Off A Bridge, Narcissist

There are genuine mysteries in the world that mark the limits of human knowing and thinking. Wisdom is fortified, not destroyed, by understanding its limitations. Ignorance does not make a fool as surely as self-deception.

- Mortimer Adler

topic: Wisdom, Ignorance, Thinking, Self Deception

Self-deception helps us deceive.

- David Livingstone

topic: Self, Deception, Helping, Self Deception

No satisfaction based upon self-deception is solid, and however unpleasant the truth may be, it is better to face it once and for all, to get used to it, and to proceed to build your life in accordance with it.

- Bertrand Russell

source: Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.72, Lulu Press, Inc

topic: Self, Deception, May, Self Deception

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

- Marcus Aurelius

topic: Ignorance, Self, Deception, Self Deception

Our capacity for self-deception has no known limits

- Michael Novak

source: Michael Novak (2011). “Ascent of the Mountain, Flight of the Dove: An Invitation to Religious Studies (Third Revised Edition)”, p.50, Transaction Publishers

topic: Self, Deception, Limits, Self Deception

We are inconsolable at being deceived by our enemies and being betrayed by our friends, yet we are often content in be being treated like that by our own selves.

- Francois de La Rochefoucauld

topic: Self, Deception, Enemy, Self Deception, Being Betrayed

You can fool yourself, you know. You'd think it's impossible, but it turns out it's the easiest thing of all.

- Jodi Picoult

source: Jodi Picoult (2007). “Vanishing acts”, p.156, Simon and Schuster

topic: Thinking, Fool, Impossible, Self Deception

It is self-love and its offspring self-deception, which shut the gates of heaven, and lead men, as if in a delicious dream, to hell.

- Christian Scriver

source: Christian Scriver (1857). “Gotthold's Emblems: or Invisible things understood by things that are made. Tr. by R. Menzies”, p.128

topic: Dream, Men, Self, Self Deception, Gates Of Heaven

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose.

- Bill Gates

topic: Inspirational, Success, Teacher, Young Entrepreneurs, Business Life

All violence is the result of people tricking themselves into believing that their pain derives from other people and that consequently those people deserve to be punished.

- Marshall B. Rosenberg

topic: Encouragement, Pain, Believe, Nonviolent Communication, Self Deception

Rationalization may be defined as self-deception by reasoning.

- Karen Horney

source: Karen Horney (2013). “Our Inner Conflicts: A CONSTRUCTIVE THEORY OF NEUROSIS”, p.135, Routledge

topic: Self, Deception, May, Self Deception

It may be that the deep necessity of art is the examination of individual's and society's self-deception.

- Robert Motherwell

topic: Art, Self, Deception, Self Deception

The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

topic: Inspirational, Liars, Lying, Lies And Liars, Self Deception

Cheating in school is a form of self-deception. We go to school to learn. We cheat ourselves when we coast on the efforts and scholarship of someone else.

- James E. Faust

topic: Cheating, School, Self, Self Deception

If it is necessary sometimes to lie to others, it is always despicable to lie to oneself.

- W. Somerset Maugham

topic: Lying, Sometimes, Oneself, Self Deception

Self-deception is nature; hypocrisy is art.

- Mason Cooley

topic: Art, Self, Hypocrisy, Self Deception

Food, clothing and shelter — these are the basic needs. Beyond that, if you want anything, it is the beginning of self-deception.

- U.G. Krishnamurti

source: "Stopped in Our Tracks, Book Two: Excerpts from U.G.'s Dialogues". Book by K. Chandrasekhar, 2005.

topic: Self, Deception, Needs, Self Deception, Basic Needs

People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception.

- James A. Baldwin

topic: Life, Strong, Believe, Self Deception, Strong Willed

Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.

- Ludwig Wittgenstein

source: "Culture and Value" by Ludwig Wittgenstein, translated by Peter Winch, (p. 34e), 1980.

topic: Deception, Investing, Deceiving, Deceiving Yourself, Self Deception

How much rationality and higher protection there is in such self-deception, and how much falseness I still require in order to allow myself again and again the luxury of my sincerity.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

source: Friedrich Nietzsche (2012). “Human, All-Too-Human: Parts One and Two”, p.8, Courier Corporation

topic: Self, Order, Luxury, Falseness, Self Deception

Suppose we were able to share meanings freely without a compulsive urge to impose our view or conform to those of others and without distortion and self-deception. Would this not constitute a real revolution in culture.

- David Bohm

source: David Bohm, Mark Edwards (1991). “Changing consciousness: exploring the hidden source of the social, political, and environmental crises facing our world”, Harpercollins

topic: Real, Learning, Knowledge, Distortion, Self Deception

Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.

- George Orwell

topic: Power, Self, Deception, Patriotism And Nationalism, Self Deception

He who desires anything but God deceives himself, and he who loves anything but God errs miserably.

- Philip Neri

topic: Desire, Saint, Deceiving, Miserable People, Self Deception

It struck him that in moments of crisis one is never fighting against an external enemy, but always against one’s own body... On the battlefield, in the torture chamber, on a sinking ship, the issues that you are fighting for are always forgotten, because the body swells up until it fills the universe, and even when you are not paralysed by fright or screaming with pain, life is a moment-to-moment struggle against hunger or cold or sleeplessness, against a sour stomach or an aching tooth.

- George Orwell

source: George Orwell, Ian Angus, Sheila Davison “The Complete Works of George Orwell: Nineteen eighty-four”

topic: Pain, Struggle, Fighting, Self Deception, Self Conscious

Self-deception ultimately explains Japan's plight. The Japanese have never accepted that change is in their interest - and not merely a response to U.S. criticism.

- Paul Samuelson

topic: Japan, Self, Hype, Self Deception

I'm interested in memory because it's a filter through which we see our lives, and because it's foggy and obscure, the opportunities for self-deception are there. In the end, as a writer, I'm more interested in what people tell themselves happened rather than what actually happened.

- Kazuo Ishiguro

source: "In the Land of Memory" by Adam Dunn, edition.cnn.com. October 27, 2000.

topic: Memories, Opportunity, Self, Self Deception

You bet I write disaster fiction. We have compiled a disastrous record on this planet, a record of stupidity and absurdity and self-abuse and self-aggrandizement and self-deception and pompousness and self-righteousness and cruelty and indifference beyond what any other species has demonstrated the capacity for, which is the capacity for all the above.

- John Irving

topic: Writing, Self, Stupidity, Self Deception

All deception in the course of life is indeed nothing else but a lie reduced to practice, and falsehood passing from words into things.

- Robert Southey

topic: Life, Lying, Practice, Self Deception, Course Of Life

We expect more from technology and less from each other.

- Sherry Turkle

source: "Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other". Book by Sherry Turkle, 2011.

topic: Motivation, Inspiration, Technology, Social Interaction, Sherry

As a writer, I'm more interested in what people tell themselves happened rather than what actually happened.

- Kazuo Ishiguro

source: FaceBook post by Kazuo Ishiguro from Aug 07, 2014

topic: People, Literature, Self Deception

Human beings have a demonstrated talent for self-deception when their emotions are stirred.

- Carl Sagan

topic: Self, Deception, Emotion, Self Deception

Man can try to name love, showering upon it all the names at his command, and still he will involve himself in endless self deceptions. If he possesses a grain of wisdom he will lay down his arms and name the unknown by the more unknown - ignotum per ignotius - that is by the name of God.

- Carl Jung

topic: God, Men, Self, Self Deception

First, what does truth require? It requires us to face the facts as they are, not to involve ourselves in self-deception; to refuse to think merely in slogans. If we are to work for the future of the city, let us deal with the realities as they actually are, not as they might have been, and not as we wish they were.

- John F. Kennedy

source: "Address at the Free University of Berlin". www.presidency.ucsb.edu. June 26, 1963.

topic: Truth, Reality, Thinking, Self Deception

Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil.

- Robert A. Heinlein

topic: Self, Roots, Evil, Altruism, Self Deception