Self Deception Quotes - Page 3

• If we can but tear the blindfold of self-deception from our eyes and loosen the gag of self-denial from our voices, we can restore our country to greatness.

  Theodore C. Sorensen

  Country, Eye, Greatness

  "Congressional Record, V. 150, PT. 13, July 22, 2004 to September 14, 2004". Book published by Government Printing Office, p. 18022, 2009.

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• Many of my fellow atheists consider all talk of 'spirituality' or 'mysticism' to be synonymous with mental illness, conscious fraud, or self-deception. I have argued elsewhere that this is a problem - because millions of people have had experiences for which 'spiritual' and 'mystical' seem the only terms available.

  Sam Harris

  Spiritual, Atheist, Self

  "On Spiritual Truths" by Sam Harris, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 16, 2011.

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• Good science is more than the mechanics of research and experimentation. Good science requires that scientists look inward-to contemplate the origin of their thoughts. The failures of science do not begin with flawed evidence or fumbled statistics; they begin with personal self-deception and an unjustified sense of knowing.

  Robert A. Burton

  Humility, Self, Knowing

  Robert A. Burton, M.D., M.D. (2008). “On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not”, p.170, Macmillan

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• I will not allow yesterday's success to lull me into today's complacency, for this is the great foundation of failure.

  Og Mandino

  Inspirational, Motivational, Congratulations

  Og Mandino (2011). “The Greatest Salesman in the World”, p.55, Bantam

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• If people are innately saddled with certain sins and flaws, like selfishness, prejudice, sort-sightedness, and self-deception, then political reform would seem to be a waste of time.

  Steven Pinker

  Self, People, Political

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• 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.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Mistake, Ignorance, Self

  Marcus Aurelius (2006). “Meditations”, p.95, Penguin UK

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• In the horrifying calculus of self-deception, the greater the pain we inflict on others, the greater the need to justify it to maintain our feelings of decency and self-worth.

  Carol Tavris

  Pain, Self Worth, Feelings

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• If tempted by something that feels 'altruistic,' examine your motives and root out that self-deception. Then, if you still want to do it, wallow in it!

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Roots, Self, Deception

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.233, Penguin

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• The essence of bravery is being without self-deception.

  Pema Chodron

  Essence, Self, Bravery

  Pema Chodron (2008). “The Pocket Pema Chodron”, p.49, Shambhala Publications

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• The only thing infinite is our capacity for self-deception

  Robert Todd Carroll

  Self, Deception, Infinite

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• Wooden-headedness, the source of self-deception, is a factor that plays a remarkably large role in government. It consists in assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by the facts.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Thinking, Government, Self

  Barbara Tuchman (2015). “The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam”, p.13, Crux Publishing Ltd

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• There is nothing disastrous in the temporary nature of our ideas. They are always that. But there may very easily be a train of evil in the self-deception which regards them as final. I think God will forgive us our skepticism sooner than our Inquisitions.

  Walter Lippmann

  Thinking, Self, Ideas

  Walter Lippmann (1914). “A Preface to Politics”

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• The instinct for self-deception in human beings makes them try to banish from their minds dangers of which at bottom they are perfectly aware by declaring them non-existent.

  Stefan Zweig

  Self, Deception, Mind

  "Beware of Pity". Book by Stefan Zweig, 1939.

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• People always have been the foolish victims of deception and self-deception in politics, and they always will be, until they have learned to seek out the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises.

  Vladimir Lenin

  Religious, Self, Class

  Vladimir Il'ich Lenin (1975). “Izbrannye Proizvedenii͡a V Trekh Tomakh”

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• Truth often finds its way to the mind close muffled in robes of sleep, and then speaks with uncompromising directness of matters in regard to which we practise an unconscious self-deception during our waking moments.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Sleep, Self, Deception

  Nathaniel Hawthorne (2012). “Young Goodman Brown and Other Short Stories”, p.20, Courier Corporation

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• 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

  Self, Deception, May

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

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• It is one of the dangerous self-deceptions of our society to pretend that mechanisms of control do not really exist, and to maintain, without qualification, that we are an economically "free" people.

  Robert Heilbroner

  Self, People, Deception

  "The Future As History". Book by Robert Heilbroner, Chapter III, Part 9, The Embrarras De Richesses, p. 150, 1960.

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• Man is an evasive beast, given to cultivating strange notions about himself. He is humiliated by his simian ancestry, and tries to deny his animal nature, to persuade himself that he is not limited by its weaknesses nor concerned in its fate. And this impulse may be harmless, when it is genuine. But what are we to say when we see the formulas of heroic self-deception made use of by unheroic self-indulgence?

  Upton Sinclair

  Fate, Animal, Men

  "The Profits of Religion : An Essay in Economic Interpretation". Book by Upton Sinclair, Introductory, "Bootstrap-lifting", 1918.

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• The fundamental factor of self-deception is this constant desire to be something in this world and in the world hereafter.

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Self, Deception, Desire

  Jiddu Krishnamurti (2013). “The first and last freedom”, p.234, Rajpal & Sons

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• People always have been and they always will be stupid victims of deceit and self-deception in politics.

  Vladimir Lenin

  Freedom, Stupid, Self

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• Lean into the sharp points and fully experience them. The essence of bravery is being without self-deception. Wisdom is inherent in (understanding) emotions.

  Pema Chodron

  Self, Essence, Bravery

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• I think that there is an ongoing conspiracy in the philosophical community, an organized form of self-deception, as in a cult, to simply all together pretend that we knew what "first-person perspective" (or "quale" or "consciousness") means, so that we can keep our traditional debates running on forever.

  Thomas Metzinger

  Running, Philosophical, Mean

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• Above all, do not lie to yourself.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Respect, Lying, Occupy Yourself

  Fyodor Dostoevsky (2002). “The Brothers Karamazov: A Novel in Four Parts With Epilogue”, p.44, Macmillan

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• I'm a bartender. I like recipes. They're concretes. Was the drink recipe for seduction one shot charm and two shots self-deception, shaken, not stirred?

  Karen Marie Moning

  Self, Two, Deception

  Karen Marie Moning (2008). “Faefever: Fever Series”, p.92, Delacorte Press

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• Men are inconsolable concerning the treachery of their friends or the deceptions of their enemies; and yet they are often very highly satisfied to be both deceived and betrayed by their own selves.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Friends, Men, Self

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