The worst of all deceptions is self-deception. — Saul Bellow
You can't know your real mind as long as you deceive yourself. — Bodhidharma
Nothing is so easy as to deceive one's self; for what we wish, that we readily believe; but such expectations are often inconsistent with the real state of things. — Demosthenes
A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true. — Demosthenes
The secret to getting away with lying, is believing with all your heart. That goes for lying to yourself even more so than lying to another. — Elizabeth Bear
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
The fundamental factor of self-deception is this constant desire to be something in this world and in the world hereafter. — Jiddu Krishnamurti
The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others. — Friedrich Nietzsche
The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool. — Jane Wagner
Short Deceiving Yourself Quotes
Rationalization may be defined as self-deception by reasoning. — Karen Horney
We lie best when we lie to ourselves. — Stephen King
We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves. — Eric Hoffer
Man has the supreme knack of deceiving himself; the Englishman is supremest among men. — Mahatma Gandhi
The only good in pretending is the fun we get out of fooling ourselves that we fool somebody. — Booth Tarkington
You believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself. — Marilyn Monroe
A deception that elevates us is dearer than a host of low truths. — Marina Ivanova Tsvetaeva
The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity. — Andre Gide
One is easily fooled by that which one loves. — Moliere
Deceiving Yourself Image Quotes
It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us.
Deceiving Ourselves Quotes
Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune. — Carl Jung
We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love - first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage. — Albert Camus
Behind the black portent of the new atomic age lies a hope which, seized upon with faith, can work out salvation... Let us not deceive ourselves: we must elect world peace or world destruction. — Bernard Baruch
Thing are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many; the intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden.
If we judge our lives by what we know or by what we say, we can easily deceive ourselves into thinking that we are something we are not; it is wiser to evaluate ourselves by the amount of truth we actually live. This is very humbling. — Paul Washer
Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others. — Fyodor Dostoevsky
All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince. — Plato
Let us not deceive ourselves; we must elect world peace or world destruction. — Bernard Baruch
Let us therefore yield ourselves and bow to the authority of the Holy Scriptures, which can neither err nor deceive. — Saint Augustine
Do we, holding that the gods exist, deceive ourselves with insubstantial dreams and lies, while random careless chance and change alone control the world? — Euripides
Lying To Yourself Quotes
In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself. — Jiddu Krishnamurti
When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself. — Tecumseh
When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear. — Thomas Sowell
Truths are not truths to you unless you realize them within yourself. Without realization, they are just ideas. For spiritual perception, spiritual consciousness, lies not in vague theological ideas, but in the acquisition of Self-realization. — Paramahansa Yogananda
Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love. — Fyodor Dostoevsky
One thing: you have to walk, and create the way by your walking; you will not find a ready-made path. It is not so cheap, to reach the ultimate realization of truth. You will have to create the path by walking yourself; the path is not ready-made, lying there and waiting for you. — Osho [Chandra Mohan Jain]
The lies the government and media tell are amplifications of the lies we tell ourselves. To stop being conned, stop conning yourself. — James Wolcott
Don't be afraid to expand yourself, to step out of your comfort zone. That's where the joy and the adventure lie. — Herbie Hancock
Get better at whatever you’re doing. So what if you suck at it now. Everybody sucks at everything when they start. But if you love it, and don’t lie to yourself, then get better at it. — Joe Rogan
Jace,” she said. “Why are you doing this to me?” “Because you’re lying to me. And you’re lying to yourself.” Jace’s eyes were blazing, and even though his hands were stuffed into his pockets, she could see that they were knotted into fists. — Cassandra Clare
Fooling Yourself Quotes
You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this. — Henry David Thoreau
Those who love you are not fooled by mistakes you have made or dark images you hold about yourself. They remember your beauty when you feel ugly; your wholeness when you are broken; your innocence when you feel guilty; and your purpose when you are confused. — Alan Cohen
All negotiations are defined by a network of subterranean desires and needs. Don’t let yourself be fooled by the surface. Once you know that the Haitian kidnappers just want party money, you will be miles better prepared. — Chris Voss
You will never become who you want to be if you keep blaming everyone else for who you are now. — John Spence
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool. — Richard P. Feynman
If you expect the world to be fair with you because you are fair, you're fooling yourself. That's like expecting the lion not to eat you because you didn't eat him. — John Spence
The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too. — Samuel Butler
Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself. — Charlie Chaplin
There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. — Cynthia Heimel
You can always tell a real friend: when you've made a fool of yourself he doesn't feel you've done a permanent job. — Laurence J. Peter
Self Deception Quotes
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
People always have been and they always will be stupid victims of deceit and self-deception in politics. — Vladimir Lenin
It is the cult of self that is killing the United States. This cult has within it the classic traits of psychopaths: superficial charm, grandiosity and self-importance ; a need for constant stimulation; a penchant for lying, deception and manipulation; and the incapacity for remorse or guilt. — Chris Hedges
It's easy to be in motion and convince yourself that you're making progress. — James Clear
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
We expect more from technology and less from each other. We create technology to provide the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship. — Sherry Turkle
I will not allow yesterday's success to lull me into today's complacency, for this is the great foundation of failure. — Og Mandino
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
It is a self-deception of philosophers and moralists to imagine that they escape decadence by opposing it. That is beyond their will; and, however little they acknowledge it, one later discovers that they were among the most powerful promoters of decadence. — Friedrich Nietzsche
No one was ever injured by the truth; but he who persists in self-deception and ignorance is injured. — Marcus Aurelius
Deceiving Others Quotes
Remember: The best deceivers do everything they can to cloak their roguish qualities. They cultivate an air of honesty in one area to disguise their dishonesty in others. Honesty is merely another decoy in their arsenal of weapons. — Robert Greene
Human life is thus only an endless illusion. Men deceive and flatter each other. No one speaks of us in our presence as he does when we are gone. Society is based on mutual hypocrisy. — Blaise Pascal
I think each player has an individual style. Each is concerned with giving the best to his team, and I think my best talent is dribbling and setting up goal situations, giving an assist or deceiving one of the other team's players. — Ronaldinho
You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; and just so, you learn to love by loving. All those who think to learn in any other way deceive themselves. — Saint Francis de Sales
Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance. — Oscar Wilde
There's a sort of rage a man feels when he's been deceived where he most trusted. It compares to no other anger. — Orson Scott Card
A cunning woman is her own mistress because she confides in no one. She who deceives others anticipates deceit, and guards herself. — Ninon De L'Enclos
Human beings will continue to deceive and overpower one another. Basically, everyone exists in the very nature of suffering, so to abuse or mistreat each other is futile. The foundation of all spiritual practice is love. That you practice this well is my only request. — Dalai Lama
An attempt to gain a value by deceiving the mind of others is an act of raising your victims to a position higher than reality. — John Galt
He who has made it a practice to lie and deceive his father, will be the most daring in deceiving others. — Horace
Convincing Yourself Quotes
Don't waste your energy trying to convince people to understand you. Your time is too valuable to try to prove yourself to people. — Joel Osteen
I am convinced that it will not be long before the whole world acknowledges the results of my work. — Gregor Mendel
The hardest spiritual work in the world is to love the neighbor as the self - to encounter another human being not as someone you can use, change, fix, help, save, enroll, convince or control, but simply as someone who can spring you from the prison of yourself, if you will allow it. — Barbara Brown Taylor
Once you no longer need to convince yourself that the world isn’t filled with uncertainty and tragedy, you’re free to focus on doing what you can to help. — Oliver Burkeman
Life is too short to spend your precious time trying to convince the person who wants to live in gloom and doom otherwise. — Zig Ziglar
The past is what you remember, imagine you remember, convince yourself you remember, or pretend you remember. — Harold Pinter
Life is too short to spend your precious time trying to convince a person who wants to live in gloom and doom otherwise. Give lifting that person your best shot, but don't hang around long enough for his/her bad attitude to pull you down. Instead, surround yourself with optimistic people. — Zig Ziglar
In the last analysis, provincialism is your belief in yourself, in your neighborhood, in your reality. It is patriotism without belligerence. Convincing cases have been made to show that all great art is provincial in the sense of reflecting a place, a time, and a Zeitgeist. — Richard M. Weaver
Don’t limit yourself and don’t let others convince you that you are limited in what you can do. Believe in yourself and then live so as to reach your possibilities. You can achieve what you believe you can. Trust and believe and have faith. — Thomas S. Monson
Lack of confidence is what makes you want to change somebody else's mind. When you're OK, you don't need to convince anyone else in order to empower yourself. — Jada Pinkett Smith
Being Deceived Quotes
Our labor here is brief, but the reward is eternal. Do not be disturbed by the clamor of the world, which passes like a shadow. Do not let false delights of a deceptive world deceive you. — Clare of Assisi
A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human. — Alan Turing
Do not allow yourselves to be deceived: Great Minds are Skeptical. — Friedrich Nietzsche
The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists. — Joan Robinson
If the president alone was vested with the power of appointing all officers, and was left to select a council for himself, he would be liable to be deceived by flatterers and pretenders to patriotism. — Roger Sherman
I am convinced that human life is filled with many pure, happy, serene examples of insincerity, truly splendid of their kind-of people deceiving one another without (strangely enough) any wounds being inflicted, of people who seem unaware even that they are deceiving one another. — Osamu Dazai
Every time I went away I was deceiving my mum. I'd tell her I was going to school but I'd be out on the street playing football. I always had a ball on my feet. — Ronaldo
Wherever there is power, there is age. Don't be deceived by dimples and curls. I tell you that babe is a thousand years old. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
No matter how smart or well-educated you are, you can be deceived. — James Randi
. . . you should know that there is present with you the angel whom God has appointed for each man. . . This angel, who is sleepless and cannot be deceived, is always present with you; he sees all things and is not hindered by darkness. You should know, too, that with him is God. — Anthony the Great
Fear is good. In the right degree it prevents us from making fools of ourselves. But in the wrong measure it prevents us from fully living. Fear is our boon companion but never our master. — Alan Brennert
If poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, science fiction writers are its court jesters. We are Wise Fools who can leap, caper, utter prophecies, and scratch ourselves in public. We can play with Big Ideas because the garish motley of our pulp origins make us seem harmless. — Bruce Sterling
I do think to some extent multitasking is a way of fooling ourselves that we're being exceptionally efficient. — James Surowiecki
Life is a very sad piece of buffoonery, because we have .. the need to fool ourselves continuously by the spontaneous creation of a reality .. which, from time to time, reveals itself to be vain and illusory. — Luigi Pirandello
Let us not fool ourselves - without Christianity, without Christian education, without the principles of Christ inculcated into young life, we are simply rearing pagans. — Peter Marshall
Children are not yet fools, but we shall turn them into imbeciles like ourselves, with high I.Q.'s if possible. — R. D. Laing
We must learn to give ourselves permission to blunder, to fail, and to make fools of ourselves every day for the rest of our lives. We do so in any case. — Sheldon B. Kopp
If Jesus Christ isn't the central figure in our lives and in our churches, we're only fooling ourselves. — Aiden Wilson Tozer
This is my child, this is my wealth: such thoughts are the preoccupations of fools. If we are unable to own even ourselves, why make such claims? — Buddha
Cheating Yourself Quotes
You set a goal to be the best and then you work hard every hour of every day, striving to reach that goal. If you allow yourself to settle for anything less than number one, you are cheating yourself. — Don Shula
Don't cheat yourself out of music. Music is one thing. The music business is another thing. Save enough of yourself to keep living anyway. Save enough joy in your heart to enjoy it. Let your reward be in the doing of it. — Bill Withers
Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won't cheat, then you know he never will. — John D. MacDonald
If you are not learning while you’re earning, you are cheating yourself out of the better portion of your compensation. — Napoleon Hill
I was thrown out of NYU for cheating-with the deans wife — Woody Allen
The ultimate goal is victory. And if you refuse to work as hard as you possibly can toward that aim, or if you do anything that keeps you from achieving that goal, then you are just cheating yourself. — Don Shula
Live today. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Just today. Inhabit your moments. Don't rent them out to tomorrow. — Jerry Spinelli
Be honest and work hard to get what you want. Don't take shortcuts; you only cheat yourself in the long run. Success is not measured by money or fame, but by how you feel about your own goals and accomplishments and the time and effort you put into them. — Willie Stargell
No one can cheat you out of ultimate success but yourself. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
No matter what looms ahead, if you can eat today, enjoy the sunlight today, mix good cheer with friends today, enjoy it and bless God for it. Do not look back on happiness -- or dream of it in the future. You are only sure of today; do not let yourself be cheated out of it. — Henry Ward Beecher
Deception Quotes
Nothing is more unreliable than the populace, nothing more obscure than human intentions, nothing more deceptive than the whole electoral system. — Marcus Tullius Cicero
The church today is riddled with fad doctrines and new sounds that distract from the clear message of the Great commission in the New Testament. Any message that attracts you which does not bring glory to Christ is the message of a seducing spirit and the man giving it is in deception. — John Hagee
Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions. — Niccolo Machiavelli
Men are gentle, honest and straightforward. Women are convoluted, deceptive and dangerous. — Erin Pizzey
They catch up with a liar sooner than with a limping dog. — Hungarian Proverbs
In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth. — Mahatma Gandhi
Don't lose who you are in the blur of the stars Seeing is deceiving, dreaming is believing — Jessie J
In the end, what would you gain from everlasting remembrance? Absolutely nothing. So what is left worth living for? This alone: justice in thought, goodness in action, speech that cannot deceive, and a disposition glad of whatever comes, welcoming it as necessary, as familiar, as flowing from the same source and fountain as yourself. — Marcus Aurelius
Human potential is the same for all. Your feeling, 'I am of no value', is wrong. Absolutely wrong. You are deceiving yourself. We all have the power of thought — so what are you lacking? If you have will-power , then you can do anything. It is usually said that you are your own master. — Dalai Lama
A strong player requires only a few minutes of thought to get to the heart of the conflict. You see a solution immediately, and half an hour later merely convince yourself that your intuition has not deceived you. — David Bronstein
Be sure that you are not deceiving yourself at any time about actual conditions. — John D. Rockefeller
Approach each new problem not with a view of finding what you hope will be there, but to get the truth, the realities that must be grappled with. You may not like what you find. In that case you are entitled to try to change it. But do not deceive yourself as to what you do find to be the facts of the situation. — Bernard Baruch
Life is about balance. Be kind, but don’t let people abuse you. Trust, but don’t be deceived. Be content, but never stop improving yourself. — Zig Ziglar
There are so many ways to betray someone. You can whisper behind his back. You can deceive him on purpose. You can deliver him into the hands of his enemy, when he trusts you. You can break a promise. The question is, if you do any of those things, are you also betraying yourself? — Jodi Picoult
Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not 'So there's no God after all,' but 'So this is what God's really like. Deceive yourself no longer. — C. S. Lewis
Seek for the endless life in the world, because with death, there remains neither the seeker nor the sought! The other world is altogether an illusion! Stop deceiving yourself; seek for the endless life in the world! — Mehmet Murat Ildan
I do not believe there is such a thing as a God. — George Holyoake
[I]f you are truly a man, sure of yourself and confident of your strength, you may taste of life without fear and without reserve; you may be sad or joyous, deceived or respected; but be sure you are loved, for what matters the rest? — Alfred De Musset
The most sure method of subjecting yourself to be deceived is to consider yourself more cunning than others. — Francois de la Rochefoucauld
All life's battles teach us something, even those we lose. When you grow up, you'll discover that you have defended lies, deceived yourself, or suffered foolishness. If you're a good warrior you will not blame yourself for this, but neither will you allow your mistakes to repeat themselves. — Paulo Coelho
Seek truth! Seek truth in the darkness, under the oceans, above the clouds; seek it everywhere and every time! Stop deceiving yourself with the untruth, seek the truth! — Mehmet Murat Ildan
Therefore do not deceive yourself! Of all deceivers fear most yourself! — Soren Kierkegaard
What I like about experience is that it is such an honest thing. You may take any number of wrong turnings; but keep your eyes open and you will not be allowed to go very far before the warning signs appear. You may have deceived yourself, but experience is not trying to deceive you. The universe rings true wherever you fairly test it. — C. S. Lewis
You can deceive yourself into thinking that America is a technological leader, but if you don't see what anyone else is doing you have no accurate assessment - you can't make an accurate assessment of where you fit and why. I consider our moving frontier in space as the anecdote to that downward trend. — Neil deGrasse Tyson
Every living soul has different talents, different desires, different faculties. Be yourself, for even if you deceive the entire world, you will be ten thousand times worse than nothing. — Carl Jung
If you can deceive the Devil, you can no longer call yourself as human! — Mehmet Murat Ildan
I do think that sometimes you can invent more palatable or digestible reasons versions or reasons, when perhaps you don't want to admit the truth to yourself, and sometimes we deceive ourselves - along with others - about our reasons and motives. — Adam Brody
Always keep your eye on your opponent, and never let yourself be deceived by ruses. — Oswald Boelcke
Imagination comes from yourself and can deceive you, but vision is a gift from outside yourself - like light striking on your closed eyelids and lifting them to see what's really there. — Elizabeth Goudge
This is my perspective and has always been my perspective on life: I have a very grim, pessimistic view of it. I always have, since I was a little boy. It hasn't gotten worse with age or anything. I do feel that it's a grim, painful, nightmarish, meaningless experience, and that the only way that you can be happy is if you tell yourself some lies and deceive yourself. — Woody Allen
It is easier to deceive yourself, and to do so unperceived, than to deceive another. — Francois de la Rochefoucauld
Meditation requires courage. It requires the basic integrity, sincerity, respect towards your own being. At least don't deceive yourself. — Osho
When you say 'Yes' or promise something, you can very easily deceive yourself and others also, as if you had already done what you promised. It is easy to think that by making a promise you have at least done part of what you promised to do, as if the promise itself were something of value. Not at all! In fact, when you do not do what you promise, it is a long way back to the truth. — Soren Kierkegaard
Most important, you learn never to trust a man, even if he seems honest and sincere. You learn how men deceive themselves and how impossible it is to help them without injuring yourself. — Jack Abbott
When the Lord is your confidence you will never find yourself at all deceived by the ways and speech of men and women, though they be very brilliant, if they speak outside of the Principle that demonstrates healing and goodness and life. — Emma Curtis Hopkins
Neglect not your time, nor use it haphazardly; on the contrary you should bring yourself to account. Structure your litanies and other practices during each day and night. This is how to bring about the spiritual blessing (baraka) in each period. If each of your breaths is a priceless jewel, Be not like the deceived fools who are joyous because each day their wealth increases while their life grows ever shorter. — Al-Ghazali
James says that you deceive yourself if you only hear the Word but do not do it. How many people live in this deception their whole life-hearing and hearing, but never even trying to do what they hear! — Johan Oscar Smith
It is fine to imitate a being you respect, but you cannot become that very being. Imitation is something one does to grow and develop. It is not something you use to deceive yourself. You absorb in yourself the things you think have some kind of value, but even if you try to find the meaning about your true self you will not find anything. Because those who cannot accept their real self always fail. — Masashi Kishimoto
I did not deceive you, mon ami. At most, I permitted you to deceive yourself. — Agatha Christie
To say nothing of what you lose, lose, lose, are losing, man. You fool, you stupid fool ... You've even been insulated from the responsibility of genuine suffering ... Even the suffering you do endure is largely unnecessary. Actually spurious. It lacks the very basis you require of it for its tragic nature. You deceive yourself. — Malcolm Lowry
Don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now, work gone wrong, your plans all proving deceptive — don’t mourn them uselessly. As one long prepared, and graced with courage, say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving. Above all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say it was a dream, your ears deceived you: don’t degrade yourself with empty hopes like these. — C.P. Cavafy
You’ve no more for me than I have for you.” Considerably disconcerted by this direct attack, she stammered: “How can you say so? When I am sure I have always been most sincerely attached to you!” “You deceive yourself, sister: not to me, but to my purse! — Georgette Heyer
Do not repeat after me words that you do not understand. Do not merely put on a mask of my ideas, for it will be an illusion and you will thereby deceive yourself. — Jiddu Krishnamurti
You'll have to ask Bill that, Sookie. And this is the only reason we're going? You're not cleverly using this as an excuse to make out with me?" "I'm not that clever, Eric." "I think you deceive yourself, Sookie," Eric said with a brilliant smile. — Charlaine Harris
In Conclusion
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