Delusion Quotes - Page 24

• 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

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• 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.

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• 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”

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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

  PZ Myers

  People, Half, Credibility

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• Cheerfulness, up to and including delusion and false hope, has a recognized place in medicine.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Pain, Medicine, False Hope

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• Those desiring to escape from suffering hasten right toward suffering. With the very desire for happiness, out of delusion they destroy their own happiness as if it were an enemy

  Shantideva

  Enemy, Suffering, Desire

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• Dispel not, the happy delusions of children.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Children

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• Why will any man be so impertinently officious as to tell me all prospect of a future state is only fancy and delusion? Is there any merit in being the messenger of ill news. If it is a dream, let me enjoy it, since it makes me both the happier and better man.

  Joseph Addison

  Dream, Future, Men

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1853). “The Spectator”, p.463

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• Hope is a delusion; no hand can grasp a wave or a shadow.

  Victor Hugo

  Hands, Honor, Shadow

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• advance money is really a delusion, that is to say, I get no more until it is paid out in sales, but still, living from hand to mouth and day to day as I do, a nickel in the hand is more useful than the same nickel next year. What do I know about next year? I've never been there. I don't know any one who has.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Future, Hands, Years

  Katherine Anne Porter, Isabel Bayley (1994). “Letters of Katherine Anne Porter”, p.370, Atlantic Monthly Press

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• If in madness of delusion, anyone shall lift his parricidal hand against this blessed union, the arms of thousands will be raised to save it, and the curse of millions will fall upon the head which may have plotted its destruction.

  Andrew Jackson

  Blessed, Fall, Hands

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• I don't pretend to any exemption from the general lot of parental delusion-I mean that like most other parents I see my child through an atmosphere which illuminates, magnifies, and at the same time refines the object to a degree that amounts to a delusion.

  Sara Coleridge

  Children, Mean, Parent

  Sara Coleridge Coleridge (1874). “Memoir and Letters of Sara Coleridge”, p.70

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• We [on the left] have to be used to being a minority -- a small minority -- for some time to come. The odd thing is that the right, even when it is in power, likes to think of itself as an embattled minority against this elite that somehow runs everything. Whereas the left, even when it has no power at all, likes to imagine it somehow represents the majority of people. These are mirror-image delusions.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Running, Thinking, Mirrors

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• Most people are shaped to the form of their culture because of the enormous malleability of their original endowment. They are plastic to the moulding force of the society into which they are born. It does not matter whether, with the Northwest Coast, it requires delusions of self-reference, or with our own civilization the amassing of possessions. In any case the great mass of individuals take quite readily the form that is presented to them.

  Ruth Benedict

  Self, Civilization, People

  Ruth Benedict (1973). “Patterns of Culture”, p.279, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Belief and delusion are incestuous siblings.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Sibling, Belief

  Aleksandar Hemon (2009). “The Lazarus Project”, p.40, Pan Macmillan

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• Temporary delusions, prejudices, excitements, and objects have irresistible influence in mere questions of policy. And the policy of one age may ill suit the wishes or the policy of another. The constitution is not subject to such fluctuations. It is to have a fixed, uniform, permanent construction. It should be, so far at least as human infirmity will allow, not dependent upon the passions or parties of particular times, but the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.

  Joseph Story

  Party, Passion, Yesterday

  Joseph Story, Edmund H. Bennett (1858). “Commentaries on the Constitution of the Un. States: With a Prelim. Review of the Constitut. History of the Colonies and States, Bef. the Adoption of the Constitution”, p.303

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• Were an Asiatic to ask me for a definition of Europe, I should be forced to answer him: It is that part of the world which is haunted by the incredible delusion that man was created out of nothing, and that his present birth is his first entrance into life.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Men, Europe, Answers

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• If I thought it was my identity to be a spiritual teacher, that would be a delusion. It's not an identity. It's simply a function in this world.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Spiritual, Teacher, Identity

  Source: www.inner-growth.info

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• When people start using science to argue for their specific beliefs and delusions, to try to claim that they're supported by science, then scientists at least have to speak up and say, You re welcome to your delusions, but don't say that they're supported by science.

  Victor J. Stenger

  People, Religion, Atheism

  Interview with Cliff Walker, www.tapatalk.com. November 6, 1999.

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• History is the most dangerous product which the chemistry of the mind has concocted. Its properties are well known. It produces dreams and drunkenness. It fills people with false memories, exaggerates their reactions, exacerbates old grievances, torments them in their repose, and encourages either a delirium of grandeur or a delusion of persecution. It makes whole nations bitter, arrogant, insufferable and vainglorious.

  Paul Valery

  Dream, Memories, People

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