self-deception quotes

People who lie to themselves about investing are the same as overweight people who blame their genes for their obesity.

Some people have a difficult time facing truth and reality. They prefer to live in a make-believe world, pretending that certain things aren’t happening.

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.

It may easily come to pass that a vain man may become proud and imagine himself pleasing to all when he is in reality a universal nuisance.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.

Unlike grown ups, children have little need to deceive themselves.

Nature never deceives us; it is we who deceive ourselves.

Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.

The most common lie is that which one lies to himself; lying to others is relatively an exception.

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.

It’s when you begin to lie to yourself in a poem in order to simply make a poem, that you fail.

When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.

Who had deceived thee so often as thyself?

We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love – first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.