Delusion Quotes - Page 23

• Ideation without execution is delusion

  Robin Sharma

  Execution, Ideation

  Twitter post from Sep 07, 2016

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• If I could give you only one advice, I would say: Don't identify with anything. Be completely empty - no one. Be no-body and see if you lose anything but delusion.

  Mooji

  Giving, Advice, Body

  200 Copy quote

• A delusion that encourages belief where there is no evidence is asking for trouble. Disagreements between incompatible beliefs cannot be settled by reasoned argument because reasoned argument is drummed out of those trained in religion from the cradle. Instead, disagreements are settled by other means which, in extreme cases, inevitably become violent. Scientists disagree among themselves but they never fight over their disagreements. They argue about evidence or go out and seek new evidence. Much the same is true of philosophers, historians and literary critics.

  Richard Dawkins

  Mean, Fighting, Religion

  "The atheist". Interview with Gordy Slack, www.salon.com. May 1, 2005.

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• Realize that the surface personality has no interest in anything which might disturb its darling delusions.

  Vernon Howard

  Personality, Identity, Might

  13 Copy quote

• Anger is one of the most common and destructive delusions, and it afflicts our mind almost every day. To solve the problem of anger, we first need to recognize the anger within our mind, acknowledge how it harms both ourself and others, and appreciate the benefits of being patient in the face of difficulties.

  Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

  Appreciate, Mind, Faces

  Kelsang Gyatso (2001). “Transform Your Life: A Blissful Journey”, p.309, Tharpa Publications UK

  43 Copy quote

  Show source

• We must always bear in mind that we are not going to be free, but are free already. Every idea that we are bound is a delusion.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Freedom, Ideas, Mind

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.949, Manonmani Publishers

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I was naïve when I was young, I was sheltered. I had illusions about who I was going to be, delusions, and a little bit of pretentiousness. And I thought, "I'll write the guy like that. It'll allow me to make fun of everyone else if I make fun of myself."

  Greg Mottola

  Fun, Writing, Guy

  4 Copy quote

• I have never been able to soothe myself with the sugary delusions of religion; for these things stand convicted of the utmost absurdity in light of modern scientific knowledge.

  H. P. Lovecraft

  Light, Able, Modern

  Letter to Reinhardt Kleiner (14 September 1919), in "Selected Letters I, 1911-1924" edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, (pp. 86-87), 1965.

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• This sounds so bleak when I say it, but we need some delusions to keep us going. And the people who successfully delude themselves seem happier than the people who can't.

  Woody Allen

  People, Sound, Needs

  7 Copy quote

• The promise of learning is a delusion.... Tomorrow would alter the sense of what had already been learned, that the learning process is extended in this way, so that from this standpoint none of us ever graduates from college, for time is an emulsion, and probably thinking not to grow up is the brightest kind of maturity for us, right now at any rate.

  John Ashbery

  Growing Up, Maturity, College

  John Ashbery (1986). “Selected Poems”, Penguin Group USA

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Every interview with a public figure should include the question "What have you been wrong about, and how did that change your views?" The answer will tell us if the person is intellectually honest or a tale spinner with delusions of infallibility.

  Stewart Brand

  Views, Answers, Honest

  Stewart Brand (2010). “Whole Earth Discipline: Why Dense Cities, Nuclear Power, Transgenic Crops, RestoredWildlands, and Geoengineering Are Necessary”, p.243, Penguin

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Poets suffer occasional delusions of angelhood and find themselves condemned to express it in the bric-a-brac tongues of the human world. Lots of them go mad.

  Glen Duncan

  Mad, Suffering, World

  Glen Duncan (2007). “I, Lucifer: Finally, the Other Side of the Story”, p.9, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• We are squandering our wealth. In many respects, to the extent that we persist in our imperial delusions, we're also going to squander our freedom...

  Andrew Bacevich

  Wealth, Squandering, Persist

  "Bill Moyers Journal", www.pbs.org. August 15, 2008.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is such a delusion as evinces itself in cool vehemence; and it is the most dangerous of all expressions of fanaticism.

  William Benton Clulow

  Expression, Vehemence, Dangerous

  7 Copy quote

• All these delusions of Divination have their root and foundation from Astrology. For whether the lineaments of the body, countenance, or hand be inspected, whether dream or vision be seen, whether marking of entrails or mad inspiration be consulted, there must be a Celestial Figure first erected, by the means of whole indications, together with the conjectures of Signs and Similitudes, they endeavour to find out the truth of what is desired.

  Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa

  Dream, Inspiration, Mean

  15 Copy quote

• The majority falls prey to the delusion–popular in some circles–that ordinary people are too careless and stupid to own guns, and we would be far better off leaving all weapons in the hands of professionals on the government payroll. But the simple truth–born of experience–is that tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people.

  Alex Kozinski

  Stupid, Fall, Gun

  "The Individual’s Right to Bear Arms". capitalismmagazine.com. May 22, 2003.

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• Discrepancy between theory and practice, which in sound physical and mechanical science is a delusion, has a real existence in the minds of men; and that fallacy, through rejected by their judgments, continues to exert and influence over their acts.

  William John Macquorn Rankine

  Real, Men, Discrepancies Between

  William John Macquorn Rankine (1872). “A Manual of Applied Mechanics”, p.4

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• To avert the danger [posed by theory] to life, Nietzsche could choose one of two ways: he could insist on the strictly esoteric character of the theoretical analysis of life - that is, restore the Platonic notion of the noble delusion - or else he could deny the possibility of theory proper and so conceive of thought as essentially subservient to, or dependent on, life or fate... If not Nietzsche himself, at any rate his successors [Heidegger] adopted the second alternative.

  Leo Strauss

  Character, Fate, Two

  "Natural Right and History". Book by Leo Strauss, 1953.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs.' The reason is that beliefs guide behavior, which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion.

  Michael Crichton

  Religious, Fighting, Animal

  Michael Crichton (1996). “The lost world”

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• A blind determination to save the prestige of personal existence, rather than, through an impartial disdain for its impotence and entanglement, at least to detach it from the background of universal delusion, is triumphing almost everywhere.

  Walter Benjamin

  Determination, Growth, Blind

  Walter Benjamin, Michael William Jennings, Edmund Jephcott (2016). “One-Way Street”, p.37, Harvard University Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• For Dostoevsky, Fourier is one of the industrious ant-hill engineers, busy, protected by the delusion that his goal, the will-ordered society, is the summation of all his desires.

  John Carroll

  Goal, Desire, Ants

  5 Copy quote

• Ruthven surmised that he had hit upon some of the central deceptions which had wrecked him and reduced him and so many of his colleagues to this condition. To surmise was not to conquer, of course; he was as helpless as ever but there was a dim liberation in seeing how he had been lied to, and he felt that at least he could take one thing from the terrible years through which he had come: he was free of self-delusion.

  Barry N. Malzberg

  Years, Self, Deception

  Barry N. Malzberg (2007). “Breakfast in the Ruins”, p.207, Baen Publishing Enterprises

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• We believe in a society in delusion, and if you're awake and not deluded people tell you you're mad. That's why I'm a freak and they're not. But I'm actually not.

  Billy Childish

  Believe, People, Mad

  7 Copy quote

• As priestcraft was always the enemy of knowledge, because priestcraft supports itself by keeping people in delusion and ignorance, it was consistent with its policy to make the acquisition of knowledge a real sin.

  Thomas Paine

  Real, Ignorance, People

  Thomas Paine (1859). “The Theological Works”, p.344

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Rational people have better things to do than grant unwarranted credibility to every half-assed delusion.

  PZ Myers

  People, Half, Credibility

  16 Copy quote