Delusion Quotes - Page 25

• Everyone, including skeptics, will generate delusions that match their views. That is how a normal and healthy brain works. Skeptics are not exempt from self-delusion.

  Scott Adams

  Self, Views, Healthy

  Scott Adams (2004). “God's Debris: A Thought Experiment”, p.73, Andrews McMeel Publishing

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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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• With my writing, I generally just pretend that no one's reading it. I allow myself that delusion so that I can write the things that I write.

  Roxane Gay

  Reading, Writing, I Can

  "Roxane Gay Will Make You Proud to Be a Bad Feminist". Interview with Hannah Levintova, www.motherjones.com. July 24, 2014.

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• There is only one true purpose in life: to wake up from the delusion that you are separate from everything else.

  Chuck Hillig

  Life, Purpose, Wake Up

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• It is terrible that we all die and lose everything we love; it is doubly terrible that so many human beings suffer needlessly while alive. That so much of this suffering can be directly attributed to religion—to religious hatreds, religious wars, religious delusions and religious diversions of scarce resources—is what makes atheism a moral and intellectual necessity.

  Sam Harris

  Religious, War, Hatred

  "Letter to a Christian Nation". Book by Sam Harris, www.theguardian.com. January 8, 2008.

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• A lot of gay men are in delusion if they think they're super macho.

  Scott Thompson

  Gay, Men, Thinking

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• Libraries are as the shrine where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed.

  Francis Bacon

  Library, Shrines, Saint

  Francis Bacon, Brian Vickers (1996). “The Major Works”, p.170, Oxford University Press, USA

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• In reading The History of Nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities, their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.

  Charles Mackay

  Running, Reading, Mad

  Charles Mackay (1852). “Memoirs of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds: Illustrated with numerous engravings. (2 Thle in 1 vol.). I”, p.7

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• Take a good long look at human beings in their actual practices and motives; bring the utmost psychological and bio-economic factors to bear on making sense of their illusions and delusions. What then would the truth have to be, such that such human beings are FIT TO KNOW IT at all, even provisionally or tentatively?

  Kenny Smith

  Fitness, Truth, Practice

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• Both in the lower and the middle classes the wiseacres urge young men 'to think it over' before taking the decisive step. Thus they foster the delusion that the choice of a wife or husband may be governed by a certain number of accurately weighable pros and cons. This is a crude delusion on the part of common sense.

  Denis de Rougemont

  Marriage, Husband, Men

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• This is no world. It is God Himself. In delusion we call it world.

  Swami Vivekananda

  World

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “Swami Vivekananda on Himself”, p.207, Advaita Ashrama

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• Patient acceptance is often considered a weak and passive response to problems that we do not have the power or courage to solve. In reality, however, being patient is far from being passive. There is nothing strong or courageous in reacting to hardship or insults with anger - all we are doing is being defeated by our delusions.

  Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

  Strong, Acceptance, Reality

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• Money, again, has often been a cause of the delusion of the multitudes. Sober nations have all at once become desperate gamblers, and risked almost their existence upon the turn of a piece of paper.

  Charles Mackay

  Pieces, Paper, Causes

  Charles Mackay (1852). “Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds”, p.8

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• Only in the last moment in history has the delusion arisen that people can flourish apart from the rest of the living world.

  E. O. Wilson

  People, World, Lasts

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• Too often we bask in our comfortable complacency and rationalize that the ravages of war, economic disaster, famine, and earth quake cannot happen here. Those who believe this are either not acquainted with the revelations of the Lord, or they do not believe them. Those who smugly think these calamities will not happen, that they will somehow be set aside because of the righteousness of the Saints, are deceived and will rue the day they harbored such a delusion.

  Ezra Taft Benson

  Religious, War, Believe

  Ezra Taft Benson (1988). “The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson”, Bookcraft Pubs

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• We cannot move casually into a better future. We cannot casually pursue the goal we have set for ourselves. A goal that is casually pursued is not a goal; at best it is a wish, and wishes are little more than self-delusion.

  Jim Rohn

  Moving, Self, Goal

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• Our whole system of banks is a violation of every honest principle of banks. There is no honest bank but a bank of deposit. A bank that issues paper at interest is a pickpocket or a robber. But the delusion will have its course. ... An aristocracy is growing out of them that will be as fatal as the feudal barons if unchecked in time.

  John Adams

  Issues, Principles, Aristocracy

  John Adams, Benjamin Rush (1892). “Old Family Letters: Copied from the Originals for Alexander Biddle... Series A-[B]”

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• To eat in a monastery refectory is an exercise in humility; daily, one is reminded to put communal necessity before individual preference. While consumer culture speaks only to preferences, treating even whims as needs to be granted (and the sooner the better), monastics sense that this pandering to delusions of self-importance weakens the true self, and diminishes our ability to distinguish desires from needs. It's a price they're not willing to pay.

  Kathleen Norris

  Humility, Exercise, Self

  Kathleen Norris (1997). “The Cloister Walk”, p.25, Penguin

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• Perhaps one day we will do “everything that we can to protect our people and the timeless values that we stand for.” But today, we won’t even honestly describe the motivations of our enemies. And in the act of lying to ourselves, we continue to pay lip service to the very delusions that empower them.

  Sam Harris

  Motivation, Lying, People

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• We are part of the whole which we call the universe, but it is an optical delusion of our mind that we think we are separate. This separateness is like a prison for us. Our job is to widen the circle of our compassion so we feel connected with all people and situations.

  Albert Einstein

  Jobs, Thinking, Compassion

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• Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.

  John Stuart Mill

  Men, Good Man, Needs

  "On Education" (1867)

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• You are the Children of God, the sharers of immortal bliss, holy and perfect beings. You divinities on earth. Come up, O lions, and shake off the delusion that you are sheep; you are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal; you are not matter, you are not bodies; matter is your servant,not you the servant of matter.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Children, Sheep, Perfect

  Swami Vivekananda (2006). “Pathways to Joy: The Master Vivekananda on the Four Yoga Paths to God”, p.39, New World Library

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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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