Delusion Quotes

• Affirmation without discipline is the beginning of delusion.

  Jim Rohn

  Inspiring, Leadership, Greatness

  FaceBook post by Jim Rohn from Apr 22, 2017

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• It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

  Carl Sagan

  Death, Witty, Atheist

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.32, Ballantine Books

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• The belief that one's own view of reality is the only reality is the most dangerous of all delusions.

  Paul Watzlawick

  Life, Ignorance, Reality

  Paul Watzlawick (1977). “How real is real?: Confusion, disinformation, communication”, Vintage

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• When all else fails there's always delusion.

  Conan O'Brien

  Failing, Absurd, When All Else Fails

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• If America ever passes out as a great nation, we ought to put on our tombstone: America died from a delusion she had Moral Leadership.

  Will Rogers

  Tombstone, Moral Leadership, Usa

  Will Rogers (1979). “Will Rogers' Daily Telegrams: The Hoover years, 1931-1933”, Will Rogers Heritage Trust

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• Propounding peace and love without practical or institutional engagement is delusion, not virtue.

  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

  And Love, Engagement, Virtue

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• The human capacity for self-delusion is boundless, and the effects of belief are overpowering.

  Michael Shermer

  Self, Belief, Capacity

  Michael Shermer (2016). “Skeptic: Viewing the World with a Rational Eye”, p.136, Henry Holt and Company

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• Some `advanced thinkers' are of the opinion that anyone who differs from the conventional opinion must be in the right. This is a delusion; if it were not, truth would be easier to come by than it is.

  Bertrand Russell

  Would Be, Opinion, Easier

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.62, Routledge

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• It is a popular delusion that the scientific enquirer is under an obligation not to go beyond generalisation of observed facts...but anyone who is practically acquainted with scientific work is aware that those who refuse to go beyond the facts, rarely get as far.

  Thomas Huxley

  Science, Facts, Obligation

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• Delusion and weakness produce not one mischief the less, because they are universal.

  Edmund Burke

  Weakness, Produce, Mischief

  Edmund Burke (1852). “The Works and Correspondence of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke”, p.313

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• One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation.

  Thomas Reed

  Libertarian Party, Evil, Liberty

  "Will It Be As Always?" by Henryk A. Kowalczyk, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 5, 2015.

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• Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion.

  Edward Abbey

  Truth, Comfortable

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.13, RosettaBooks

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• The more one is absorbed in so-called philosophy, the greater one's delusion and blindness.

  Emanuel Swedenborg

  Philosophy, Blindness, Greater

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• If it is the great delusion of moralists to suppose that all previous ages were less sinful than their own, then it is the great delusion of intellectuals to suppose that all previous ages were less sick.

  Louis Kronenberger

  Sick, Age, Ethics

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• There is no liberation to compare with freeing oneself from the illusions and delusions of the age in which one lives.

  Terence McKenna

  Age, Illusion, Compare

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• The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.

  Sir Arthur Harris, 1st Baronet

  War, Wind, Bombs

  Statement in 1942. "The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won". Book by Victor Davis Hanson, 2017.

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• A delusion held by one person is a mental illness, held by a few is a cult, held by many is a religion.

  Robert Todd Carroll

  Anarchy, Mental Illness, Cult

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• Getting rid of a delusion makes us wiser than getting hold of a truth.

  Ludwig Borne

  Wiser

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• That the self advances and confirms the ten thousand things is called delusion; that the ten thousand things advance and confirm the self is called enlightenment.

  Dogen

  Self, Enlightenment, Thousand

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• I suppose our capacity for self-delusion is boundless.

  John Steinbeck

  Depression, Self, Mental Illness

  John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.12, Penguin

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• The effect is delusion, and therefore the cause must be delusion.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Causes, Effects

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.947, Manonmani Publishers

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• I seek the truth...it is only persistence in self-delusion and ignorance that does harm.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Wisdom, Truth, Ignorance

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• Love without desire is a delusion: it does not exist in nature.

  Ninon de L'Enclos

  Desire, Doe

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• Irrational beliefs are culturally accepted delusions.

  Robert Todd Carroll

  Belief, Accepted, Irrational

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  A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Beauty, Spiritual

  Letter of 1950, as quoted in "The New York Times", March 29, 1972.

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