Lying To Ourselves Quotes

In fact, lying to ourselves may be the most dangerous thing in the world because we live our truth whether we are honest about it or not. ~ Cortney S. Warren

In physics, theories are made of math. We don't use math because we want to scare away those not familiar with differential geometry and graded Lie algebras; we use it because we are fools. Math keeps us honest - it prevents us from lying to ourselves and to each other. You can be wrong with math, but you can't lie. ~ Sabine Hossenfelder

The brain is unreliable. It relies on lies. ~ Brian Spellman

The truth was more powerful than a lie could ever be (Eric) ~ Shannon A. Thompson

We are lying to ourselves when we're not contradicting ourselves. ~ Marty Rubin

...today, I'm writing about the extraordinary; those 'moments' in life that reach us, and change us. Those moments take place all the time, really – it's just that we're taught not to notice. We're taught that whims are for the foolish; that instinct and passion are more akin to fairy tales than reality; that they won't get us very far, and everyone would laugh at us if they knew what we really held close to our hearts.

It's a lie we allow ourselves, and it's understandable.

But it's simply not true. ~ Dianna Hardy

I had great pity on Ansje, because she always acted very happy, but I believed that it was really a front. I could see through it. Inside she was crying because she was really very sad. You pity people like that
the ones who try to lie to themselves
because they suffer so much and don't face reality. ~ Diet Eman

The problem with a person with a lack of love is that they don't know what it looks like. So it's easy for them to get tricked, to see things that aren't there. But then I guess we all lie to ourselves all the time. ~ Charles Forsman

Most times we only see things for the way we are. But we're good at lying to ourselves. Sometimes we need somebody who's not living in our skin to point out how things really are. ~ Charles De Lint

It is not only by dint of lying to others, but also of lying to ourselves, that we cease to notice that we are lying. ~ Marcel Proust

Lies are usually attempts to make everything simpler - for the liar - than it really is, or ought to be.
In lying to others we end up lying to ourselves. We deny the importance of an event, or a person, and thus deprive ourselves of a part of our lives. Or we use one piece of the past or present to screen out another. Thus we lose faith even within our own lives. ~ Adrienne Rich

Clearly, it is time we learned to meet our emotional needs without embracing the preposterous. We must find ways to invoke the power of ritual and to mark those transitions in every human life that demand profundity - birth, marriage, death - without lying to ourselves about the nature of reality. Only then will the practice of raising our children to believe that they are Christian, Muslim, or Jewish be widely recognized as the ludicrous obscenity that it is. And only then will we stand a chance of healing the deepest and most dangerous fractures in our world. ~ Sam Harris

In lying to others we end up lying to ourselves. We deny the importance of an event, or a person, and thus deprive ourselves of a part of our lives. Or we use one piece of the past or present to screen out another. Thus we lose faith even in our own lives. ~ Adrienne Rich

Writers are liars trying to come clean. That's why the best ones are the most tragic. ~ Anthony Marais

My friend Madea has "attitude" that comes with wisdom. Back in our teens and twenties, we thought we knew everything and made all those foolish mistakes. Then, when we got a little older, at thirty, we started getting these flashes of light, revelations of what a great and lucky thing it is that we didn't get caught doing those stupid things back then. Around forty, if we are lucky, we stop lying to ourselves. Fifty and above, we've run out of patience for foolishness. Take me to the bottom line. ~ Tyler Perry

Life out here is hard. We all try to get through the best way we can. But trust me, there's not a single person here who isn't lying to themselves about something. ~ Jane Harper

We become our own opposition when we accept the following: procrastinating, lying to ourselves, comparing ourselves to others, and having self-doubts - in short, anything that gets in the way of our becoming who we were created to be. ~ Steve Harvey

Sometimes, lies were the same things as wishes. Sometimes, wishes were things to hate. ~ Shannon A. Thompson

What if we are all capable of lying to ourselves? But the story didn't bother Naomi. Instead it reassured her confirming that the stories we tell ourselves have more meaning than the facts. That doesn't make them lies. Seeded with every myth was the emotional truth. ~ Rene Denfeld

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

Too often we compare our weaknesses with other people's strengths only to find ourselves coming up short." We compare our worst to someone else's best which sets us up to sound like failures. Essentially, we begin lying to ourselves. ~ Ruth Schwenk

Jean Laffite was a sexy bad boy with a gentleman's manners and an air of barely suppressed danger. Every girl's secret dreamboat in other words. We always say we want a nice, hardworking, decent guy but we're lying to ourselves. - DJ Jaco ~ Suzanne Johnson

The Good News means we can stop lying to ourselves. The sweet sound of amazing grace saves us from the necessity of self-deception. It keeps us from denying that though Christ was victorious, the battle with lust, greed, and pride still rages within us. ~ Brennan Manning

When what we say doesn't match how we act, we are lying to ourselves. ~ Cortney S. Warren

We never know what is going to happen, do we? Life is always throwing us this way and that. That's where the adventure is. Not knowing where you'll end up or how you'll fare. It's all a mystery, and when we say any different, we're just lying to ourselves. Tell me, when have you felt most alive? ~ Eowyn Ivey

Regardless of how far a person runs, a lie will eventually catch up to them. ~ Donald L. Hicks

It's going to be okay, Eric," Urte said, helping me sit up.
I shook my head. "Lying is my forte, Urte, not yours." (Eric.) ~ Shannon A. Thompson

There's no greater perjury than self-deception. Lying to ourselves puts to death our definitive truth. Confronting the lies we've told ourselves, no matter how small, is a difficult endeavor but nothing is more liberating. To be honest with ourselves is the fastest path to self-acceptance. Being authentic about who we are, actually enriches the relationships around us. The truth sets us free and that's no lie. ~Jason Versey ~ Jason Versey

In my previous life, I learned something. I remember seeing it painted on the faces of the kids in the hospital. It is this: All hearts have but one request. One simple, unspoken, undeniable need. One undeniable fear.
To be known.
You can stamp it out. Kill it. Box it up and hem it in. Numb it and close the door. Bury it and nail it shut. Encase it in stone. But eventually, the needs of the heart will tear the door off the hinges, unearth it, and crack the stone. No prison ever built could house it. Those of us who think we can are lying to ourselves. And those next to us.
Hope never dies. ~ Charles Martin

We are lying to ourselves and to each other.
Lying about what? I don't care if we're lying.
I am a bad person.
I don't care. I don't care what you are. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

Men prefer sweet lies to unpleasant truths ~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

This is the art of rationalization, and we do it so often that some researchers believe that a majority of our time is spent rationalizing. That is, we go around much of the day lying to ourselves about why we are doing most of the things we do. When ~ Hugh Howey

The doctor begins to lose freedoms; it's like telling a lie, and one leads to another. First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then the doctors aren't equally divided geographically, so a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him you can't live in that town, they already have enough doctors. You have to go someplace else. And from here it is only a short step to dictating where he will go. ~ Ronald Reagan

Bush is almost always clear when he's speaking cruelly. For example, when the subject is the punitive infliction of great pain, there is no problem with his syntax, grammar, or vocabulary, even if he happens to be lying ... On the other hand, our president is extraordinarily tongue-tied when he's trying, off the cuff, to sound a note of idealism, magnanimity or
especially
compassion. ~ Mark Crispin Miller

But the sun was shining, and some of the people in the world had been left alive, and it was doubtful whether the ridiculousness of man would ever completely succeed in destroying the world - or, in fact, the basic equanimity of the least and commonest flower: for would its kind not come up again in the spring? come up, if necessary, among, between, or out of - beastly inconvenient - the smashed corpses lying in strict composure, in that hush infallible and sincere?
And was not this something to be thankful for?
And in the meantime, while people did live they would be grand, would be glorious and brave, would have nimble hearts that would beat and beat. They would even get up nonsense, through wars, through divorce, through evictions and jiltings and taxes.
And, in the meantime, she was going to have another baby.
The weather was bidding her bon voyage. ~ Gwendolyn Brooks

That's why you look down on me, because you know I lie. At wakes, at funerals, at weddings - yes, I lie. I lie at wakes and funerals to relieve pain. 'Cause reading, writing, and 'rithmetic is not enough. You think that's all the sent you to school for? They send you to school to relieve pain, to relieve hurt - and if you have to lie to do it, then you lie. You lie and you lie and you lie. When you tell yourself you feeling good when you sick, you lying. When you tell other people you feeling well when you feeling sick, you lying. You tell them that 'cause they have pain too, and you don't want to add yours - and you lie. She been lying every day of her life, your aunt in there. That's how you got through that university - cheating herself here, cheating herself there, but always telling you she's all right. I've seen her hands bleed from picking cotton. I've seen the blisters from the hoe and the cane knife. At that church, crying on her knees. You ever looked at the scabs on her knees, boy? Course you never. 'Cause she never wanted you to see it. And that's the difference between me and you, boy; that make me the educated one, and you the gump. I know my people. I know what they gone through. I know they done cheated themself, lied to themself - hoping that one they all love and trust can come back and help relieve the pain. ~ Ernest J. Gaines

What?" he said. "You're giving me a weird look."
"Nothing," I said. "You just…look nice."
It was a silly thing to say. He was dusty, sweaty, and smeared with my blood. His hair and clothes were mussed. Nice wasn't exactly the word for it, but the other ones I thought of were too much, too soon.
Still, he smiled as if he understood. "You do, too."
"I look filthy," I said. "But thank you for lying about it. ~ Veronica Roth

Yes, poisonous thing!" repeated Giovanni, beside himself with passion. "Thou hast done it! Thou has blasted me! Thou hast filled my veins with poison! Thou hast made me as hateful, as ugly, as loathsome and deadly a creature as thyself – a world's wonder of hideous monstrosity! Now, if our breath be happily as fatal to ourselves as to all others, let us join our lips in one kiss of unutterable hatred, and so die! ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

It was a dead swan. Its body lay contorted on the beach like an abandoned lover. I looked at the bird for a long time. There was no blood on its feathers, no sight of gunshot. Most likely, a late migrant from the north slapped silly by a ravenous Great Salt Lake. The swan may have drowned. I knelt beside the bird, took off my deerskin gloves, and began smoothing feathers. Its body was still limp - the swan had not been dead long. I lifted both wings out from under its belly and spread them on the sand. Untangling the long neck which was wrapped around itself was more difficult, but finally I was able to straighten it, resting the swan's chin flat against the shore. The small dark eyes had sunk behind the yellow lores. It was a whistling swan. I looked for two black stones, found them, and placed them over the eyes like coins. They held. And, using my own saliva as my mother and grandmother had done to wash my face, I washed the swan's black bill and feet until they shone like patent leather. I have no idea of the amount of time that passed in the preparation of the swan. What I remember most is lying next to its body and imagining the great white bird in flight. I imagined the great heart that propelled the bird forward day after day, night after night. Imagined the deep breaths taken as it lifted from the arctic tundra, the camaraderie within the flock. I imagined the stars seen and recognized on clear autumn nights as they navigated south. Imagined their silhouettes passing ~ Terry Tempest Williams

This was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling "conciousness expansion" without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him too seriously. After West Point and the Priesthood, LSD must have seemed entirely logical to him ... but there is not much satisfaction in knowing that he blew it very badly for himself, because he took too many others down with him. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

Too many commercials, too many lies Too many celebrities I don't recognize Too many brand names, too many magazines I got so much sensation, I can't feel a thing Simple living Got to get to simple living Simple living Simple ... simply living Too many things we just throw away If we put it in the garbage, we're gonna eat it someday We turn on the lights and a river dies We turn the TV on to see an eagle fly ~ Fred Small

[Propaganda] must be aimed at the emotions and only to a very limited degree at the so-called intellect ... The art of propaganda lies in understanding the emotional ideas of the great masses and finding, through a psychologically correct form, the way to the attention and thence to the heart of the broad masses. ~ Adolf Hitler

People, like houses, hold their secrets. Sometimes the secrets inhabit them, and sometimes people inhabit their secrets. They wrap their arms tight to hug them close, twist their lying tongues around the truth. But, like gravy left overnight, the truth is a thin layer of film that forms and covers the surface. The truth prevails, rises above all else. It squirms and wriggles inside, grows until the swollen tongue can't wrap itself around the lie any longer, until the time comes when it needs to spit the words out and send truth flying through the air and crashing into the world like…well, like a frozen dead bird through a living room window. Truth and time always work alongside each other. ~ Cecelia Ahern

His steeds to water at those springs On chaliced flowers that lies; And winking Mary-buds begin To ope their golden eyes: With every thing that pretty is, My lady sweet, arise. ~ William Shakespeare

Sweet love, sweet thorn, when lightly to my heart. I took your thrust, whereby I since am slain, And I lie disheveled in the grass apart, A sodden thing bedrenched by tears and rain. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

You don't know how to lie. If you can't lie, you'll never go anywhere. ~ Richard M. Nixon

The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass 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, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

VIEW FROM A HILL
I am not yet quite over it.
I am lying down on top of it.
Surveying behind me a wasteland
Of dried-up promise.
While the lights below twinkle
With dull mocking uncertainty.
There isn't much left to look forward to,
And the looking forward of the past has been belied. ~ John Tottenham

[W]e must first experience the kingdom if we are even to know what kind of freedom and what kind of equality we should desire. Christian freedom lies in service, Christian equality is equality before God, and neither can be achieved through the coercive efforts of liberal idealists who would transform the world into their image. ~ Stanley Hauerwas

Left to ourselves, we might pick the wrong health insurance, the wrong mortgage, the wrong school for our kids; why, unless they stop us, we might pick the wrong light bulb. ~ Mitch Daniels

On the other hand, although I have a regular work schedule, I take time to go for long walks on the beach so that I can listen to what is going on inside my head. If my work isn't going well, I lie down in the middle of a workday and gaze at the ceiling while I listen and visualize what goes on in my imagination. ~ Albert Einstein

The world lies in the hands of those that have the courage to dream and who take the risk of living out their dreams - each according to his or her own talent. ~ Paulo Coelho

A thirsty ambition for truth and virtue, and a frenzy to conquer all lies and vices which are not recognized as such nor desire to be; herein consists the heroic spirit of the philosopher. ~ Johann Georg Hamann

I think all of us have our inner 13-year-old a lot closer to the surface than we're willing to admit even to ourselves. ~ Jennifer Garner

"Thou shalt not bear false witness" Exodus 20:16. When we speak of morality, we imply that a man is true to his word-true to his signature on a contract. The violations of God's laws are evidence that lying and misrepresentation are not absent from us. ~ Ezra Taft Benson

In war, in some sense, lies the very genius of law. It is law creative and active; it is the first principle of the law. What is human warfare but just this, - an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party. Men make an arbitrary code, and, because it is not right, they try to make it prevail by might. The moral law does not want any champion. Its asserters do not go to war. It was never infringed with impunity. It is inconsistent to decry war and maintain law, for if there were no need of war there would be no need of law. ~ Henry David Thoreau

I didn't want any flowers, I only wanted
to lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.
How free it is, you have no idea how free. ~ Sylvia Plath

On September 16, in defiance of the cease-fire, Ariel Sharon's army
circled the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, where Fatima and
Falasteen slept defenselessly without Yousef. Israeli soldiers set up
checkpoints, barring the exit of refugees, and allowed their Lebanese
Phalange allies into the camp. Israeli soldiers, perched on rooftops,
watched through their binoculars during the day and at night lit the sky
with flares to guide the path of the Phalange, who went from shelter to
shelter in the refugee camps. Two days later, the first western
journalists entered the camp and bore witness. Robert Fisk wrote of it
in Pity the Nation:
They were everywhere, in the road, the laneways, in the
back yards and broken rooms, beneath crumpled masonry
and across the top of garbage tips. When we had seen a
hundred bodies, we stopped counting. Down every
alleyway, there were corpses - women, young men, babies
and grandparents - lying together in lazy and terrible
profusion where they had been knifed or machine-gunned to
death. Each corridor through the rubble produced more
bodies. The patients at the Palestinian hospital had
disappeared after gunmen ordered the doctors to leave.
Everywhere, we found signs of hastily dug mass graves.
Even while we were there, amid the evidence of such
savagery, we could see the Israelis watching us. From the
top of the tower block to the wes ~ Susan Abulhawa

I realise that man, in his imperfection, can commit innumerable errors - but to devote myself deliberately to errors, that is something I cannot do. I shall never come personally to terms with the Christian lie. Our epoch, in the next 200 years, will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity. My regret will have been that I could not behold its demise. ~ Adolf Hitler

My doctor asked me how many golf balls I had hit in my career. I'm lying there in bed calculating somewhere between four and five million golf balls I had hit to do that on my body. ~ Greg Norman

From the Left comes the proposition that, given the slow economy, we should defer attending to the problem of mounting obligations - and the truly delusional idea that growing federal debt doesn't matter because we owe most of it to ourselves. ~ Steven Rattner

Meg invited me to come again, but I always had reasons why I couldn't: my schedule was busy, bus fare wasn't cheap. Both of which were true, even if they weren't the truth. ~ Gayle Forman

All of us must act selfishly to Iearn charity, must lie to learn honor, must betray and be betrayed to learn to value trust and commitment. ~ Bill Vaughan

The truly scary thing about undiscovered lies is that they have a greater capacity to diminish us than exposed ones. They erode our strength, our self-esteem, our very foundation. ~ Cheryl Hughes