Delusion Quotes - Page 20

• We believe in a society in delusion, and if you're awake and not deluded people tell you you're mad. That's why I'm a freak and they're not. But I'm actually not.

  Billy Childish

  Believe, People, Mad

  7 Copy quote

• As priestcraft was always the enemy of knowledge, because priestcraft supports itself by keeping people in delusion and ignorance, it was consistent with its policy to make the acquisition of knowledge a real sin.

  Thomas Paine

  Real, Ignorance, People

  Thomas Paine (1859). “The Theological Works”, p.344

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Rational people have better things to do than grant unwarranted credibility to every half-assed delusion.

  PZ Myers

  People, Half, Credibility

  16 Copy quote

• Cheerfulness, up to and including delusion and false hope, has a recognized place in medicine.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Pain, Medicine, False Hope

  4 Copy quote

• The fundamental delusion of human beings is the belief that we exist separately and independently from the rest of the universe.

  Reb Anderson

  Fundamentals, Belief, Humans

  4 Copy quote

• This sounds so bleak when I say it, but we need some delusions to keep us going. And the people who successfully delude themselves seem happier than the people who can't.

  Woody Allen

  People, Sound, Needs

  7 Copy quote

• I have a theory about marriage, Monsieur Boustouler. And it’s that nearly always you will know within two weeks if it’s going to work. It’s astonishing how many people remain shackled for years, decades even, in a protracted and mutual state of self-delusion and false hope when in fact they had their answer in those first two weeks.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Self, Years, Two

  "And the Mountains Echoed". Book by Khaled Hosseini, May 21, 2013.

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• As someone who's been covering presidential campaigns since the 1950s, I have no delusions about political reporting. Candidates bargaining access to get the kind of news coverage they want is nothing new.

  Dan Rather

  Presidential, Political, Covering

  "Dan Rather: 'Quote approval' a media sellout" by Dan Rather, www.cnn.com. July 19, 2012.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Every interview with a public figure should include the question "What have you been wrong about, and how did that change your views?" The answer will tell us if the person is intellectually honest or a tale spinner with delusions of infallibility.

  Stewart Brand

  Views, Answers, Honest

  Stewart Brand (2010). “Whole Earth Discipline: Why Dense Cities, Nuclear Power, Transgenic Crops, RestoredWildlands, and Geoengineering Are Necessary”, p.243, Penguin

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Poets suffer occasional delusions of angelhood and find themselves condemned to express it in the bric-a-brac tongues of the human world. Lots of them go mad.

  Glen Duncan

  Mad, Suffering, World

  Glen Duncan (2007). “I, Lucifer: Finally, the Other Side of the Story”, p.9, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Discrepancy between theory and practice, which in sound physical and mechanical science is a delusion, has a real existence in the minds of men; and that fallacy, through rejected by their judgments, continues to exert and influence over their acts.

  William John Macquorn Rankine

  Real, Men, Discrepancies Between

  William John Macquorn Rankine (1872). “A Manual of Applied Mechanics”, p.4

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think the Buddhist ethic is clearer and more systematic in some ways. The Buddhist notion is that our chief problems are greed, hatred and delusion. Well, delusion is not much mentioned in the Christian tradition. In the West, we have underplayed the idea that our moral and spiritual troubles have to do with a lack of clarity or insight because original sin has dominated so much of our thinking. We tend to think that our troubles are caused by insufficient will power.

  Ninian Smart

  Christian, Spiritual, Buddhist

  Source: www.scottlondon.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• To avert the danger [posed by theory] to life, Nietzsche could choose one of two ways: he could insist on the strictly esoteric character of the theoretical analysis of life - that is, restore the Platonic notion of the noble delusion - or else he could deny the possibility of theory proper and so conceive of thought as essentially subservient to, or dependent on, life or fate... If not Nietzsche himself, at any rate his successors [Heidegger] adopted the second alternative.

  Leo Strauss

  Character, Fate, Two

  "Natural Right and History". Book by Leo Strauss, 1953.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• The majority falls prey to the delusion–popular in some circles–that ordinary people are too careless and stupid to own guns, and we would be far better off leaving all weapons in the hands of professionals on the government payroll. But the simple truth–born of experience–is that tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people.

  Alex Kozinski

  Stupid, Fall, Gun

  "The Individual’s Right to Bear Arms". capitalismmagazine.com. May 22, 2003.

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• All these delusions of Divination have their root and foundation from Astrology. For whether the lineaments of the body, countenance, or hand be inspected, whether dream or vision be seen, whether marking of entrails or mad inspiration be consulted, there must be a Celestial Figure first erected, by the means of whole indications, together with the conjectures of Signs and Similitudes, they endeavour to find out the truth of what is desired.

  Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa

  Dream, Inspiration, Mean

  15 Copy quote

• There is such a delusion as evinces itself in cool vehemence; and it is the most dangerous of all expressions of fanaticism.

  William Benton Clulow

  Expression, Vehemence, Dangerous

  7 Copy quote

• The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs.' The reason is that beliefs guide behavior, which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion.

  Michael Crichton

  Religious, Fighting, Animal

  Michael Crichton (1996). “The lost world”

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• There's always an element of self delusion among people who believe they ought to be President. There's an underestimation of your opponent and an overestimation of your own abilities. This is compatible with being rich and powerful, the idea that we were blessed by God because we deserve to be blessed.

  Jimmy Carter

  Powerful, Believe, Blessed

  30 Copy quote

• We are squandering our wealth. In many respects, to the extent that we persist in our imperial delusions, we're also going to squander our freedom...

  Andrew Bacevich

  Wealth, Squandering, Persist

  "Bill Moyers Journal", www.pbs.org. August 15, 2008.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• A blind determination to save the prestige of personal existence, rather than, through an impartial disdain for its impotence and entanglement, at least to detach it from the background of universal delusion, is triumphing almost everywhere.

  Walter Benjamin

  Determination, Growth, Blind

  Walter Benjamin, Michael William Jennings, Edmund Jephcott (2016). “One-Way Street”, p.37, Harvard University Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• When I was a kid, I thought I was the strongest man in the world. Then, the fastest runner and then the smartest person in the world. One by one my delusions got shut down. Now I just see myself as the lamest guy in the world.

  Jack Black

  Kids, Men, Guy

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• I don't know what people want. I have delusions of grandeur, but I'm not sitting here talking to you and thinking that I'm the goddamn President. I want to know everything, but I just can't.

  Willis Earl Beal

  Thinking, People, President

  Source: pitchfork.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am trying to change hip-hop music because I do feel there are places people can go with production and the structure of an album that they haven't gone yet. But, like I said, I don't have any delusions of grandeur. I just want to make music that doesn't make me bored.

  El-P

  People, Bored, Trying

  Source: pitchfork.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Realization is to get rid of the delusion that you have not realized.

  Ramana Maharshi

  Yoga, Realization

  Maharshi Ramana, Swami Saraswati Ramananda (1963). “Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi”

  29 Copy quote

  Show source

• Off goes the head of the king, and tyranny gives way to freedom. The change seems abysmal. Then, bit by bit, the face of freedom hardens, and by and by it is the old face of tyranny. Then another cycle, and another. But under the play of all these opposites there is something fundamental and permanent - the basic delusion that men may be governed and yet be free.

  H. L. Mencken

  Change, Kings, Men

  Preface to the first edition of "The American Credo: A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind", book by George Jean Nathan and H. L. Mencken, 1920.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source