Fooling Yourself Quotes

Your job as a scientist is to figure out how you're fooling yourself. ~ Saul Perlmutter

The True Believer ignores anything that doesn't fit his belief system. Instead, he inevitably comes to hold those beliefs at a very profound level. They can become absolutely part of his identity. It is this that brings together the religious, the psychic, the cynic (as opposed to the open skeptic) and the narrow-minded of all kinds. It is something I encountered a lot among my fellow Christians. At one level it can be seen in the circular discussion which goes as follows:

Why do you believe in the bible?
Because it is Gods word.
And why do you believe in God?
Because of what it says in the bible.

At a less obvious level, it can be seen in the following common exchange:

Why do you believe Christianity is true?
Because I have the experience of a personal relationship with God.
So how do you know you're not fooling yourself?
Because i know it is real.

Even as an enthusiastic believer myself I could see this kind of tautology at work, and over time I realized that it is common to all forms of True Belief., regardless of the particular belief in question. The fact is, it's enormously difficult - and you need to be fantastically brave - to overcome the circularity of your own ideologies. But just because our identity might be tied up with what we believe, it doesn't make that belief any more correct. One wishes that True Believers of any sort would learn a little modesty in their convictions. ~ Derren Brown

We are all actors, set on the stage of the world, as the curtains open we put on our best performance to this audience of life. ~ Anthony Liccione

1. Write like you'll live forever - fear is a bad editor.
2. Write like you'll croak today - death is the best editor.
3. Fooling others is fun. Fooling yourself is a lethal mistake.
4. Pick one - fame or delight.
5. The archer knows the target. The poet knows the wastebasket.
6. Cunning and excess are your friends.
7. TV and liquor are your enemies.
8. Everything eternal happens in a spare room at 3 a.m.
9. You're done when the crows sing. ~ Ron Dakron

Do not try to change someone, when you do this you deny the Love inside you by choosing to deny what is Now. Love can only exist now, when you try to change someone into an idea of what you want them to be you have decided to be in a relationship with your projection of a possible potential of someone else. You are fooling yourself if you think trying to change someone will make you happy. Instead, change in yourself the things you think the other person should change. This is why you are not happy and fulfilled now. ~ Jackson Kiddard

When you allow yourself to express both your authentic creativity and leadership talents, you will move in authentic humility and open yourself to the freedom offered by The No-Plan Plan. You will know you have no need to control all the details or waste precious moments fooling yourself with unneeded plans. You'll find faith and trust yourself, the Spirit of your own understanding, and those you lead. ~ Kevin E. Houchin Esq.

You can have the most wonderful motives for what you do, but if what you do harms other people, you're fooling yourself. ~ John Carroll Lynch

As long as he fought imaginary giants, Don Quixote was just play-acting. However once he actually kills someone, he will cling to his fantasies for all he is worth, because only they give meaning to his tragic misdeed. Paradoxically, the more sacrifices we make for an imaginary story, the more tenaciously we hold on to it, because we desperately want to give meaning to those sacrifices and to the suffering we have caused. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

If you think you're immune to my charms, you're fooling yourself."
I pull my hand away and ignore how fiercely it tingles as I place it in my lap. "So, you don't think any woman can resist you?"
"I'm sure plenty of women could. But you? No. You're so starved of romance in your life, you're like an emotional skeleton. I intend to put some meat back on your bones. Make you believe in something other than a bleak apocalypse. ~ Leisa Rayven

Prenups are so unromantic - a sign of distrust, not love. Time for a reality check, my friends. First, drawing up a prenuptial agreement together is a sign of incredible trust and financial openness - you're fooling yourself if you think you can achieve complete intimacy without it. ~ Suze Orman

She thought: I love him. Like telling herself something and hoping she believed it. ~ Jack Skillingstead

If you have to use the words, "deep down" all that means is you're fooling yourself. You're seeing what you want to see and not what's really there. ~ Nyrae Dawn

You guys think you fooled me in the beginning," she rasps. "You were only fooling yourself. ~ Nyrae Dawn

Errors were not only meant to be committed by fools. ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

You are believing not in your god but in yourself if your god knows no better than you do ... and yet, in this alone, I am afraid, you have already been fooling yourself. ~ Criss Jami

Most of their lives, people are just waiting to be ambushed. ~ Brandon Hull ~ Jayden Hunter

Your positive thinker may do well in suburbia but I'd rather be with a lucid depressive in the Arctic, where survival depends on precision and not fooling yourself about your chances on the ice. ~ Gwyneth Lewis

Reason, truth, innocence" --Royce sat back against the wall and folded his arms--"unicorns, pixies, and dragons; you're not that young to believe in such things. How is it that you fancy yourself a resident of a make-believe world."
"I told you. At this point, it's a choice."
"It's not. It's fooling yourself. I can decide between eating fish or pork, but I can only pretend to eat unicorn meat. I can't actually eat a unicorn. The world is the world, and you live in it with open eyes or choose to be blind. It's all the same to me, but don't stand there pretending your right. ~ Michael J. Sullivan

No. Forget it. You're only fooling yourself." "About what?" "About anything being worth a damn. It's dust, lady, all of it, dust and blood. ~ Ayn Rand

You're fooling yourself if you think I don't have those feelings for you, Tristan. I've fallen in love with you. ~ R.K. Lilley

The bed becomes your church; you pass the collection plate back and forth until you've given too much, then your poverty becomes your gift.... And though, in days or months or years to come, you'll swear you were fooling yourself, you weren't; it really happened.... above you for a moment hovered the dove. ~ Sy Safransky

If you think you are in control, you're fooling yourself. As soon as you start listening, you realize you're not in control. And letting go will yield more and better results. ~ Charlene Li

It's inevitable, Willa. We are inevitable. When you stop fooling yourself, come find me. ~ Tessa Bailey

Hirty's the end of being young, forty is where you stop fooling yourself. ~ Stephen King

When you multitask, you believe you're being exceptionally productive, but really, you're fooling yourself. Each time you switch tasks, you have to backtrack a little and remind yourself where you are in the process and what's next. Invariably. you are spending twice as much time on parts of the task. ~ Karen Finerman

The ethos of not fooling yourself is one of the best you could possibly have. It's powerful because it's so rare. ~ Charlie Munger

Do I have an original thought in my head? My bald head. Maybe if I were happier, my hair wouldn't be falling out.
Life is short. I need to make the most of it. Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I'm a walking cliché.
I really need to go to the doctor and have my leg checked. There's something wrong. A bump. The dentist called again. I'm way overdue. If I stop putting things off, I would be happier. All I do is sit on my fat ass. If my ass wasn't fat I would be happier. I wouldn't have to wear these shirts with the tails out all the time. Like that's fooling anyone. Fat ass.
I should start jogging again. Five miles a day. Really do it this time. Maybe rock climbing. I need to turn my life around. What do I need to do? I need to fall in love. I need to have a girlfriend. I need to read more, improve myself. What if I learned Russian or something? Or took up an instrument? I could speak Chinese. I'd be the screenwriter who speaks Chinese and plays the oboe. That would be cool.
I should get my hair cut short. Stop trying to fool myself and everyone else into thinking I have a full head of hair. How pathetic is that?
Just be real. Confident. Isn't that what women are attracted to? Men don't have to be attractive. But that's not true. Especially these days. Almost as much pressure on men as there is on women these days.
Why should I be made to feel I have to apologize for my existence? Maybe it's my brain chemistry. Maybe that's what's wron ~ Charlie Kaufman

Sometimes, sitting here in the dark, slowly slowly creating strategy, she wondered if she was only fooling herself to think her plans were clever. ~ Vernor Vinge

I used to get the feeling, and sometimes I still get it, that sometimes I was fooling somebody; I don't know who or what, maybe myself. ~ Marilyn Monroe

Humankind is still fooling around with hypocrisy, I thought. They don't realize that it's too late even for that. ~ Saul Bellow

...{N}othing is harder for the developing writer than overcoming his anxiety that he is fooling himself and cheating or embarrassing his family and friends. ~ John Gardner

Evil communication truly corrupts good manner.

Not every adult has good moral upbringing and as such they abuse ethics at will. To them, they are having fun when in truth they are fooling themselves. ~ OMOSOHWOFA CASEY

A lot of my friends were fooling around with drugs then. ~ Tommy Rettig

There are new gods growing in America, clinging to growing knots of belief: gods of credit card and freeway, of Internet and telephone, of radio and hospital and television, gods of plastic and of beeper and of neon. Proud gods, fat and foolish creatures, puffed up with their own newness and importance. "They are aware of us, they fear us, and they hate us," said Odin. "You are fooling yourselves if you believe otherwise. ~ Neil Gaiman

Which natural gift would you most like to possess? The ability to master other languages (which would have hugely enhanced the scope of these answers).
How would you like to die? Fully conscious, and either fighting or reciting (or fooling around).
What do you most dislike about your appearance? The way in which it makes former admirers search for neutral words. ~ Christopher Hitchens

That top," he said when he dipped his face close, and I realized his voice sounded funny. It was intense but it was also hoarse like when we were fooling around and I understood why when he again spoke. "Tonight, when I fuck you, I want you naked. Later, I want you ridin' my cock wearin' nothin' but that fuckin' top. ~ Kristen Ashley

If we consider the unblushing promises of reward ... promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased. ~ C.S. Lewis

Without writers fooling themselves about what their books might accomplish there would be no books at all. ~ Mark Vonnegut

For will anyone dare to tell me that business is more entertaining than fooling among boats? He must have never seen a boat, or never seen an office, who says so. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Everyone wants to rule the world . . . Really, absolutely everyone. That's what it's all about, isn't it? That's what it's always about in the end. And every species believes it's number one. Every individual is firmly convinced that he or she alone has the right to ascend to the throne and issue orders to get rid of others. And in reality everyone is fooling themselves, because up there on the throne it's lonely and cold. ~ Akif Pirincci

I had reached a level of sophistication at which I could know I was fooling myself and still fool myself. ~ Wendell Berry

The nice thing about poetry is that you're always stretching the definitions of words. Lawyers and scientists and scholars of one sort or another try to restrict the definitions, hoping that they can prevent people from fooling each other. But that doesn't stop people from lying.

Cezanne painted a red barn by painting it ten shades of color: purple to yellow. And he got a red barn. Similarly, a poet will describe things many different ways, circling around it, to get to the truth.

My father also had a nice little simile. He said, "The truth is a rabbit in a bramble patch. And you can't lay your hand on it. All you do is circle around and point, and say, 'It's in there somewhere. ~ Pete Seeger

Casey knew his baseball. He only made it look like he was fooling around. He knew every move that was ever invented and some that we haven't even caught on to yet. ~ Sparky Anderson

I was fooling everyone by surrounding myself with funny people. But then I put myself out there - writing my own sketches, going on stage with nobody surrounding me - and for some reason people were still laughing. ~ Carly Craig

So much was so easy. Glamour was second nature. It was just making folk see what they wanted to see. Fooling folk was as simple as singing. Tricking folk and telling lies, it was like breathing.
But this? Convincing someone of the truth that they were too twisted to see? How could you even begin? ~ Patrick Rothfuss

This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no fooling around. ~ David Byrne

I am fooling only myself when I say that my mother exists now only in the photographs on my bulletin board or in the outline of my hand or in the armful of memories I still hold tight. She lives on beneath everything I do. Her presence influenced who I was and her absence influences who I am. Our lives are shaped as much by those who leave us as they are by those who stay. Loss is our legacy. Insight is our gift. Memory is our guide. ~ Hope Edelman

An awful realization that I have been fooling myself all my life thinking there was a next thing to do to keep the show going and actually I'm just a sick clown and so is everybody else ... ~ Jack Kerouac

There are no plans, just people fooling themselves by attempting to design their fates and futures. It makes them feel invincible, even if it's for a transient period of time. ~ Kanza Javed

I suppose about the only good in pretending is the fun we get out of fooling ourselves that we fool somebody. ~ Booth Tarkington

I want (the story) to be about good and evil and true love, and it should also be funny. No talking animals. Not too much fooling around with the narrative structure. The ending should be happy but still realistic, believable, you know, and there shouldn't be a moral although we should be able to think back later and have some sort of revelation. No 'and suddenly they woke up and discovered that it was all a dream.' Got that? ~ Kelly Link

I was foreign and Jewish, with a funny name, and was very small and hated sport, a real problem at an English prep school. So the way to get round it was to become the school joker, which I did quite effectively - I was always fooling around to make the people who would otherwise dump me in the loo laugh. ~ Alain De Botton

It was a fairy tale, no fooling. It was unreality becoming real. This frightened her. Because people don't care for unreality becoming real. It pricks their well-fed minds, you see, with something like a hunger pang. They prefer the logical stuffiness of expectancy. It is only at certain times that they weaken, letting imagination in. That's the time to get them. ("The Disinheritors") ~ Richard Matheson

Wrath…"
"What," he murmured against her, working her with his nose. "You don't like?"
"Shut up and get back to doing - "
His tongue slipping under the panties cut her off…and made him have to slow himself down.
She was so slick and wet and soft and willing, it was all he could do to keep himself from hauling her on the rug and going at her deep and hard. And then they'd both miss out on the fun of anticipation.
Moving the cotton aside with his hand, he kissed her pink flesh, then delved in. She was oh, so ready for him, and he knew it because of the honey that he swallowed as he dragged upward in a long, slow lick.
But it wasn't enough, and holding the panties to the side was distracting. With his fang, he punctured them, then split them apart right up the middle, leaving the two halves to hang off her hips. His palms went up to her ass and squeezed hard as he quit fooling around and got busy working out his female with his mouth. He knew exactly what she liked best, the sucking and the licking and the going in with his tongue.
Closing his eyes, he took it all in, the scent and the taste and the feel of her shuddering against him as she peaked and came apart.
Behind the fly of his leathers, his cock was screaming for attention, the rasp of the buttons not nearly sufficient to satisfy what it was demanding, but tough shit.
His erection was going to have to chill for a while, because this was too sweet to stop anytime soon. < ~ J.R. Ward

I think the easiest people to fool are ourselves. Fooling ourselves may even be a necessary precondition for fooling others. ~ Iain Banks

I thought I was fooling people. But it's the old thing of 'they say vodka doesn't smell'. No, not until you sweat. And you just lie and lie and you think 'I can deal with this'. And then you finally go, 'No you can't'. And then you give up. ~ Robin Williams

It takes all sorts of in and outdoor schooling To get adapted to my kind of fooling. ~ Robert Frost

If you're not able to laugh inside a sex shop,
then you probably shouldn't be there.
I mean, they don't call it fooling around for nothing. ~ David Levithan

Hunting and fishing involve killing animals with devices (such as guns) for which the animals have not evolved natural defenses. No animal on earth has adequate defense against a human armed with a gun, a bow and arrow, a trap that can maim, a snare that can strangle, or a fishing lure designed for the sole purpose of fooling fish into thinking they have found something to eat ~ Marc Bekoff

Pipe-smokers spend so much time cleaning, filling and fooling with their pipes, they don't have time to get into mischief. ~ Bill Vaughan

First, let's pretend for a minute. Let's say that, as the imposter complex voice tells you, you really do have no idea what you're doing, you actually are fooling everyone, and it's true you are in fact a big, giant fraud. Okay, seriously think about what I just said. That would take an immense amount of work. That's pulling off a major heist, like stealing the Queen of England's entire hat collection or something. ~ Andrea Owen

I don't think it's necessary to put your feelings about photography in words. I've read things that photographers have written for exhibitions and so forth about their subjective feelings about photography and mostly I think it's disturbing. I think they're fooling themselves very often. They're just talking, they're not saying anything. ~ Eliot Porter

Since you came back from summer break, our entire relationship is about fooling around. We never talk anymore, and I'm sick of feeling guilty for not ripping my clothes off and spreading my legs to prove I love you. ~ Simone Elkeles

You're not fooling anyone by taking your clothes off when you go to bed. ~ Richard Brautigan

I've been in love often enough to be completely exhausted by it, and not to know what it means any more. When you look back afterwards, you can always find another way of putting it. You say, "I was obsessed, it was really lust, I was fooling myself," because after you've recovered from being in love, you always decide that that wasn't what it was. ~ Louis De Bernieres

I was the only woman fooling around with a camera in the streets and all the reporters laughed at me. So I became a fighter. ~ Lola Alvarez Bravo

It dawns on me that maybe I'm just terrifically lazy; that I might be appropriating other people's invisible sicknesses and disorders and scribbling them on the clipboard at the end of my bed to fool the nurses; so I can indulge in rest cures all day, every day. That I'm even fooling myself. ~ Jalina Mhyana

A lot of nerds aren't aware they're nerds. A geek has thrown his hands up to the universe and gone, 'I speak Klingon - who am I fooling? You win! I'm just gonna openly like what I like.' Geeks tend to be a little happier with themselves. ~ Patton Oswalt

What has gone wrong with the men who are ruling I'd like to know who they think they are fooling They told us that torture was over and gone but everyone knows the same torture goes on ~ Peter Weiss

I thought I could handle it, and I was doing pretty well until I sat across from you and looked up at you from my canvas. It all fell to pieces then, and I knew I'd been fooling myself. To have you sit a few feel away and only touch you with my eyes was too much to bear. ~ Tess Oliver

I admitted it was tempting to wish for cosmic, mind-blowing, I-could-die-right-now orgasms, but the truth is, sometimes we do have to settle for light, that-was-fun type, and explore additional features.
Ian made me feel good. Sexy. Powerful. Wasn't that what was sex really about? Or was I just fooling myself? ~ Gina Wings

Hey," she whispered to Malachi. "When are Irin considered adults?"

He was following what looked to be a quiet argument between Sari and Mala. "Full adults? Around sixty to seventy-five years. When we're finished with our training. Why?"

She flushed. Wow.

"So, you're quite the cradle robber, aren't you?"

Malachi turned to her abruptly. "What? No, I'm not."

"I'm not even thirty. That's like... a teenager to you guys."

She could see the flush crawl up his neck, even behind the beard. "You're human. You mature differently."

"But I'm not really human."

His shoulders were stiff and his posture screamed his discomfort. It was really a shame Ava found teasing him to be so amusing.

"I mean, what would your mom say if she found out you were mated-and I mean well and thoroughly mated- to what she would basically consider a kid?"

He wiped a hand over his forehead. "Heaven above, please stop talking."

"So are we going to stop fooling around now?"

He groaned. "Ava."

"I'm just yanking your chain."

"You're going to have to speak up, because the mental lecture my mother's memory is giving me right now is rather loud. ~ Elizabeth Hunter