Deceive Yourself Quotes & Sayings

If you can deceive the Devil, you can no longer call yourself as human! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Do you even know," she said, and I could tell from the sound of her voice that she was about to cry, "can you even imagine what it's like to know that nothing you can do will make any difference? That nothing you can do will protect the people you love? That anything you could possibly ever do is less than worthless?" I could. "And yet you do it anyway." "Superstitious savage that I am." Definitely crying now. "Nothing I do will make any difference. But I will make you look at it. I will make you see what it is you've done, and ever after, if you would look away, if you would ever claim to be just, or proper, you'll have to lie to yourself outright." "Most esteemed Queter," I said, "idealist that you are, young as you are, you can have no idea just how easy it is for people to deceive themselves. — Ann Leckie

Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not 'So there's no God after all,' but 'So this is what God's really like. Deceive yourself no longer. — C.S. Lewis

James says that you deceive yourself if you only hear the Word but do not do it. How many people live in this deception their whole life-hearing and hearing, but never even trying to do what they hear! — Johan Oscar Smith

Do not deceive yourself. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Why do you voluntarily deceive yourself and require to be told now for the first time what fate it is that you have long been labouring under? Take my word for it: since the day you were born you are being led thither. — Seneca.

One thing I must tell you preacher is to let go of the old life you were living before you repented, because they are playing a greater role in your life than your life as a believer.Since you have repented, you need to remove your old self like a garment and put on your new self so that you may not continue to deceive yourself or be living a double lifestyle and be arrested by death or the coming of the LORD. — James C. Uwandu

You don't want to die? Then seek the solution in science because there is no spiritual solution for this problem! Do not deceive yourself with spirituality! You means your conscious and to keep your conscious alive you must find some biological/physical solutions, not spiritual ones! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

You'll have to ask Bill that, Sookie. And this is the only reason we're going? You're not cleverly using
this as an excuse to make out with me?"
"I'm not that clever, Eric."
"I think you deceive yourself, Sookie," Eric said with a brilliant smile. — Charlaine Harris

Approach each new problem not with a view of finding what you hope will be there, but to get the truth, the realities that must be grappled with. You may not like what you find. In that case you are entitled to try to change it. But do not deceive yourself as to what you do find to be the facts of the situation. — Bernard M. Baruch

If it's a slip or even a fall in your deen (religion), don't let shaytan (satan) deceive you. Let the slip make you witness His mercy in a more experiential and deep way. And then seek that mercy to save you from your sins and your own transgression against yourself. — Yasmin Mogahed

Don't deceive yourself. Everyone is guilty of something, and even the innocent can be a threat. Perhaps it takes small crimes to prevent bigger ones, Colonel West, but it's up to bigger men than us to decide. — Joe Abercrombie

In the end, what would you gain from everlasting remembrance? Absolutely nothing. So what is left worth living for? This alone: justice in thought, goodness in action, speech that cannot deceive, and a disposition glad of whatever comes, welcoming it as necessary, as familiar, as flowing from the same source and fountain as yourself. — Marcus Aurelius

Do not deceive yourself; do not be run away with by gratitude and compassion. — Jane Austen

Be very careful that you do not unconsciously assume that nervous tension is power. This is vital. Watch yourself the next time you work toward some goal. Look very closely to discover tense feelings and nervous thoughts whirling around inside. Do not let them deceive you into assuming that they are creative forces; they are not. They are thieves of genuine powers. As always, your awareness of their thievery is your first fine step toward casting them out. — Vernon Howard

Most important, you learn never to trust a man, even if he seems honest and sincere. You learn how men deceive themselves and how impossible it is to help them without injuring yourself. — Jack Abbott

No matter how sweet is smells, if you know it will give you a discomfort later, don't even attempt to taste it. Discipline yourself to stay out of sin! — Israelmore Ayivor

This is my perspective and has always been my perspective on life: I have a very grim, pessimistic view of it. I always have, since I was a little boy. It hasn't gotten worse with age or anything. I do feel that it's a grim, painful, nightmarish, meaningless experience, and that the only way that you can be happy is if you tell yourself some lies and deceive yourself. — Woody Allen

I do think that sometimes you can invent more palatable or digestible reasons versions or reasons, when perhaps you don't want to admit the truth to yourself, and sometimes we deceive ourselves - along with others - about our reasons and motives. — Adam Brody

When you say 'Yes' or promise something, you can very easily deceive yourself and others also, as if you had already done what you promised. It is easy to think that by making a promise you have at least done part of what you promised to do, as if the promise itself were something of value. Not at all! In fact, when you do not do what you promise, it is a long way back to the truth. — Soren Kierkegaard

Do not repeat after me words that you do not understand. Do not merely put on a mask of my ideas, for it will be an illusion and you will thereby deceive yourself. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

The most dangerous person ever to deceive is yourself, for in doing so you destroy your basis for honesty. Honesty is the foundation of intelligence, while dishonesty is the foundation of stupidity. — Orest Stocco

I know an excuse when I hear one. Don't you dare deceive yourself into believing that you're the victim, Derek Novak. — Bella Forrest

Every living soul has different talents, different desires, different faculties. Be yourself, for even if you deceive the entire world, you will be ten thousand times worse than nothing. — Carl Jung

It is easier to deceive yourself, and to do so unperceived, than to deceive another. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Any man or woman who neglects to maintain inward vigilance, and only makes an outward show of holiness in dress, speech, and behavior, is a wretched creature. For they watch the doings of other people and criticize their faults, imagining themselves to be something when in reality they are nothing. In this way they deceive themselves. Be careful to avoid this, and devote yourself inwardly to His likeness by humility, charity, and other spiritual virtues. In this way you will be truly converted to God. — Walter Hilton

What I like about experience is that it is such an honest thing. You may take any number of wrong turnings; but keep your eyes open and you will not be allowed to go very far before the warning signs appear. You may have deceived yourself, but experience is not trying to deceive you. The universe rings true wherever you fairly test it. — C.S. Lewis

Meditation requires courage. It requires the basic integrity, sincerity, respect towards your own being. At least don't deceive yourself. — Rajneesh

How can you trust only yourself when your eyes can blind you, your ears deceive you, when you speak that which you don't mean, and do that which you planned against? — Kyle Schmalenberg

Imagination comes from yourself and can deceive you, but vision is a gift from outside yourself - like light striking on your closed eyelids and lifting them to see what's really there. — Elizabeth Goudge

Life is messy, Ren. It's not easy and it's definitely not for the timid. Everyone has a past. Things that stab them right between the eyes. Old grudges. Old shame. Regrets that steal your sleep and leave you awake until you fear for your own sanity. Betrayals that make your soul scream so loud you wonder why no one else hears it. In the end, we are all alone in that private hell. But life isn't about learning to forgive those who have hurt you or forgetting the past. It's about learning to forgive yourself for being human and making mistakes. Yes, people disappoint us all the time. But the harshest lessons come when we disappoint ourselves. When we put our trust and our hearts into the hands of the wrong person and they do us wrong. And while we may hate them for what they did, the one we hate most is ourself for allowing them into our private circle. How could I have been so stupid? How could I let them deceive me? We all go through that. It's humanity's brotherhood of misery. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Don't deceive yourself; laughing at someone's weakness is not the way to reveal your strength. Your strength is in the help you offer, not the mockeries you deliver! — Israelmore Ayivor

Life is, you know, but an idea. You can fill it up with anything really and deceive yourself into believing that is what you need. You can be happy, sad, benevolent, crafty, unpleasant. That man filled it up with nastiness and it destroyed him in the end. I wonder what could have made him that way. Cruelty on the part of others or cruelty in his heart?" - Lady Cavendish — Noorilhuda

You've no more for me than I have for you."
Considerably disconcerted by this direct attack, she stammered: "How can you say so? When I am sure I have always been most sincerely attached to you!"
"You deceive yourself, sister: not to me, but to my purse! — Georgette Heyer

If you don't want to deceive yourself in this new year, don't be a miracle chaser — Sunday Adelaja

I did not deceive you, mon ami. At most, I permitted you to deceive yourself. — Agatha Christie

Some people would much prefer the infinite regress of mysteries, apparently, but in this day and age the cost is prohibitive: you have to get yourself deceived. You can either deceive yourself or let others do the dirty work, but there is no intellectually defensible way of rebuilding the mighty barriers to comprehension that Darwin smashed. (p.25) — Daniel C. Dennett

Always make a note of what you are doing and where it leads. By and by, you will become aware of that which is ego and that which is nature; which is real and which is false. It will take time and alertness, observation. And don't deceive yourself - because only ego leads to misery, nothing else. Don't throw the responsibility on the other; the other is irrelevant. Your ego leads to misery, nobody else leads you into misery. Ego is the gate of hell, and the natural, the authentic, the real that comes from your center, is the door to heaven. You will have to find it and work it out. — Rajneesh

I won't lie - I don't care.
And you should quit trying to deceive yourself because I can tell by the way you show no desire to do anything but complain about the issue that you don't honestly care either. — Richelle E. Goodrich

There are so many ways to betray someone.
You can whisper behind his back.
You can deceive him on purpose.
You can deliver him into the hands of his enemy, when he trusts you.
You can break a promise.
The question is, if you do any of those things, are you also betraying yourself? — Jodi Picoult

Free your life from the fangs of gossips by not associating yourself with them. Anyone who helps you to gossip about someone can also help someone to gossip about you. — Israelmore Ayivor

To say nothing of what you lose, lose, lose, are losing, man. You fool, you stupid fool ... You've even been insulated from the responsibility of genuine suffering ... Even the suffering you do endure is largely unnecessary. Actually spurious. It lacks the very basis you require of it for its tragic nature. You deceive yourself. — Malcolm Lowry

You may think or tell others that you are a realized person,
You may even convince others or deceive yourself;
But unless you have love for humanity and peace within,
Self-realization will never knock at your door. — Gian Kumar

I was always a liar. But one thing I failed to realize about being a liar is that you know when you are deceiving someone else, but when you deceive yourself you believe you are telling the truth. — Jack Gantos

If you prefer Mr. Martin to every other person; if you think him the most agreeable man you have ever been in company with, why should you hesitate? You blush, Harriet. - Does any body else occur to you at this moment under such a definition? Harriet, Harriet, do not deceive yourself; do not be run away with by gratitude and compassion. At this moment whom are you thinking of? The — Jane Austen

You can deceive yourself with truth too. That's an even more dangerous dream. — Erich Maria Remarque

Do not deceive yourself, Gawain. There are black places in the heart of every man. — Suzannah Rowntree

I despise this false lucidity that comes with age. The truth is that they are just like everyone else: nothing more than kids without a clue about what has happened to them, acting big and tough when in fact all they want is to burst into tears.
And yet there's nothing to understand. The problem is that children believe what adults say and, once they're adults themselves, they exact their revenge by deceiving their own children. 'Life has meaning and we grown-ups know what it is' is the universal lie that everyone is supposed to believe. Once you become an adult and you realize that's not true, it's too late. The mystery remains intact, but all your available energy has long been wasted on stupid things. All that's left is to anesthetize yourself by trying to hide the fact that you can't find any meaning in your life, and then, the better to convince yourself, you deceive your own children. — Muriel Barbery

Therefore do not deceive yourself! Of all deceivers fear most yourself! — Soren Kierkegaard

It is fine to imitate a being you respect, but you cannot become that very being.
Imitation is something one does to grow and develop. It is not something you use to deceive yourself.
You absorb in yourself the things you think have some kind of value, but even if you try to find the meaning about your true self you will not find anything. Because those who cannot accept their real self always fail. — Masashi Kishimoto

It is as easy to unknowingly deceive yourself as it is to deceive others. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Still, as long as you keep pointing to the specifics, you will miss the full meaning of your pain. You will deceive yourself into believing that if the people, circumstances, and events had been different, your pain would not exist. This might be partly true, but — Henri J.M. Nouwen

When he asked Saphira about it, she said, It matters little to me, Eragon. Dragons have never believed in higher powers. Why should we when deer and other prey consider us to be a higher power? He laughed at that. Only do not ignore reality in order to comfort yourself, for once you do, you make it easy for others to deceive you. — Christopher Paolini

You can't know your real mind as long as you deceive yourself. — Bodhidharma

Betrayals that make your soul scream so loud you wonder why no one else hears it. In the end, we are all alone in that private hell. But life isn't about learning to forgive those who have hurt you or forgetting the past. It's about learning to forgive yourself for being human and making mistakes. Yes, people disappoint us all the time. But the harshest lessons come when we disappoint ourselves. When we put our trust and our hearts into the hands of the wrong person and they do us wrong. And while we may hate them for what they did, the one we hate most is ourself for allowing them into our private circle. How could I have been so stupid? How could I let them deceive me? — Sherrilyn Kenyon

You're worried about getting things successfully done in order to attain some degree of self-worth. Your soul is for sale; You most likely deceive yourself in order to convince yourself. Letting go equals failing, isn't that right? And you forget outstandingly well, don't you? You forget that It takes admirable courage not only to try but also to gracefully give up. — Albert Camus

I think it is no small attraction in a painter to be able to give a pleasing air to his figures, and whoever is not naturally possessed of this grace may acquire it by study, as opportunity offers in the following manner: be on the watch to take good parts of many beautiful faces of which the beautiful parts are established by general repute rather than by your own judgement, for you may deceive yourself by selecting faces that resemble your own, since it often seems that such similarities please us; ... so therefore choose the beautiful ones as I tell you and fix them in your mind. — Leonardo Da Vinci

There will be times when it seems that it would be best to just call him and see how he's doing. Don't deceive yourself, you don't care about how he's doing, you're just craving him, don't do it. You'll only hurt yourself. — Osayi Emokpae Lasisi

You can see your real face only when you stop deceiving yourself! Until then, you will always see someone which is not you! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

God gently reached around His son, embracing him.
"Love takes risks, dear one. You have the freedom to say no to Us, no to Love, to turn your face away."
Adam frowned. "And if I did such a thing, what would happen?"
"In turning you would find within yourself a shadow. This darkening would become more real to you than I am. From then, until you re-turned your face to Mine, this empty nothingness would deceive you about everything, including who We are to you, and who you are to all creation. — Wm. Paul Young