delusion

Link	Quote	Tags	Author
325a29f	It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.	delusion goodness lies self-deception wisdom	Leo Tolstoy
9b51b25	For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.	delusion knowledge religion science truth understanding	Carl Sagan
d507ea2	In an era of stress and anxiety, when the present seems unstable and the future unlikely, the natural response is to retreat and withdraw from reality, taking recourse either in fantasies of the future or in modified visions of a half-imagined past.	anxiety conservatism delusion psychology uncertainty	Alan Moore
13b44c3	Whatever, crazy chick who maybe lives here and maybe also breaks into Michael's house when they're all gone. I'm out. Have a nice delusion. -Shayne	delusion humour morganville-vampires	Rachel Caine
39cb2d5	Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have.	delusion	James Baldwin
c84f7e1	[I]t is difficult to imagine a set of beliefs more suggestive of mental illness than those that lie at the heart of many of our religious traditions.	delusion faith harris religion sam	Sam Harris
3e86697	That's the myth of it, the required lie that allows us to render our judgments. Parasites, criminals, dope fiends, dope peddlers, whores--when we can ride past them at Fayette and Monroe, car doors locked, our field of vision cautiously restricted to the road ahead, then the long journey into darkness is underway. Pale-skinned hillbillies and hard-faced yos, toothless white trash and gold-front gangsters--when we can glide on and feel only fear, we're well on the way. And if, after a time, we can glimpse the spectacle of the corner and manage nothing beyond loathing and contempt, then we've arrived at last at that naked place where a man finally sees the sense in stretching razor wire and building barracks and directing cattle cars into the compound. It's a reckoning of another kind, perhaps, and one that becomes a possibility only through the arrogance and certainty that so easily accompanies a well-planned and well-tended life. We know ourselves, we believe in ourselves; from what we value most, we grant ourselves the illusion that it's not chance in circumstance, that opportunity itself isn't the defining issue. We want the high ground; we want our own worth to be acknowledged. Morality, intelligence, values--we want those things measured and counted. We want it to be about Us. Yes, if we were down there, if we were the damned of the American cities, we would not fail. We would rise above the corner. And when we tell ourselves such things, we unthinkably assume that we would be consigned to places like Fayette Street fully equipped, with all the graces and disciplines, talents and training that we now posses. Our parents would still be our parents, our teachers still our teachers, our broker still our broker. Amid the stench of so much defeat and despair, we would kick fate in the teeth and claim our deserved victory. We would escape to live the life we were supposed to live, the life we are living now. We would be saved, and as it always is in matters of salvation, we know this as a matter of perfect, pristine faith. Why? The truth is plain: We were not born to be niggers.	delusion fear hatred lies poverty prejudice race society the-american-dream	David Simon
c4ceedd	I was deluded, and I knew it. Worse: my love for Pippa was muddied-up below the waterline with my mother, with my mother's death, with losing my mother and not being able to get her back. All that blind, infantile hunger to save and be saved, to repeat the past and make it different, had somehow attached itself, ravenously, to her. There was an instability in it, a sickness. I was seeing things that weren't there. I was only one step away from some trailer park loner stalking a girl he'd spotted in the mall. For the truth of it was: Pippa and I saw each other maybe twice a year; we e-mailed and texted, though with no great regularity; when she was in town we loaned each other books and went to the movies; we were friends; nothing more. My hopes for a relationship with her were wholly unreal, whereas my ongoing misery, and frustration, were an all-too-horrible reality. Was groundless, hopeless, unrequited obsession any way to waste the rest of my life?	delusion delusional delusional-love frustration grief hope hopeless hunger loner loss misery obsession past reality relationship save sickness stalking unreal unrequited-love waste	Donna Tartt
f749916	On the throne of the world, any delusion can become fact.	bullshit bullshit-and-politics delusion power-corrupts propaganda truthiness	Gore Vidal
1e1dda3	Seven billion who need to be kept happy, and docile, until the end. How do you do that? What's the best way to calm down a scared kid, get them to go back to sleep? Tell them a story. Some shit about Jesus or whatever.	delusion docile dying frightened funny happy jesus people population religion scared sleep story terrified terrifying truth	Neal Stephenson
f81ee1e	The last time that I consciously wrote anything to 'save the honor of the Left', as I rather pompously put it, was my little book on the crookedness and cowardice and corruption (to put it no higher) of Clinton. I used leftist categories to measure him, in other words, and to show how idiotic was the belief that he was a liberal's champion. Again, more leftists than you might think were on my side or in my corner, and the book was published by Verso, which is the publishing arm of the . However, if a near-majority of leftists and liberals choose to think that Clinton was the target of a witch-hunt and the victim of 'sexual McCarthyism', an Arkansan Alger Hiss in other words, you become weary of debating on their terms and leave them to make the best of it.	arkansas bill-clinton corruption cowardice debate delusion idiocy impeachment-of-bill-clinton leftism lewinsky-scandal liberalism mccarthyism new-left-review sex verso-books witch-hunt	Christopher Hitchens
c769481	The 'pre-emption' versus 'prevention' debate may be a distinction without much difference. The important thing is to have it understood that the United States is absolutely serious. The jihadists have in the past bragged that America is too feeble and corrupt to fight. A lot is involved in disproving that delusion on their part.	debate delusion iraq-war islam islamic-terrorism jihad preemptive-war preventive-war united-states war war-on-terror	Christopher Hitchens
671800d	for the people must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have.	delusion government	Henry David Thoreau
f7174c3	She lived in the dream world of unreality, or else she would not admit reality; he did not know. In any case, he loved her as she was. It might never be used, but it would give her pleasure to have it.	coping delusion doom last-days love post-apocalyptic unreality	Nevil Shute
6ed78c9	Men who believe that the way to the mind is not by way of ice picks through the brain or large dosages of dangerous medicine but through an honest reckoning of the self.	broken-hearted confess delusion denial happy heal healing honesty hope life love pathetic recover rigourous-honesty scars self-hate tragic treatment wound	Dennis Lehane
d503bb8	For everyone nowadays knows, absolutely certain, that nothing will ever happen to me. Others die, I go on.	certainty delusion immortality life mortality	Ray Bradbury
fcc572a	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)	delusion infinite-regress religion	Daniel C. Dennett

It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.

delusion goodness lies self-deception wisdom

Leo Tolstoy

9b51b25

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

delusion knowledge religion science truth understanding

Carl Sagan

d507ea2

In an era of stress and anxiety, when the present seems unstable and the future unlikely, the natural response is to retreat and withdraw from reality, taking recourse either in fantasies of the future or in modified visions of a half-imagined past.

anxiety conservatism delusion psychology uncertainty

Alan Moore

13b44c3

Whatever, crazy chick who maybe lives here and maybe also breaks into Michael's house when they're all gone. I'm out. Have a nice delusion. -Shayne

delusion humour morganville-vampires

Rachel Caine

39cb2d5

Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have.

delusion

James Baldwin

c84f7e1

[I]t is difficult to imagine a set of beliefs more suggestive of mental illness than those that lie at the heart of many of our religious traditions.

delusion faith harris religion sam

Sam Harris

3e86697

That's the myth of it, the required lie that allows us to render our judgments. Parasites, criminals, dope fiends, dope peddlers, whores--when we can ride past them at Fayette and Monroe, car doors locked, our field of vision cautiously restricted to the road ahead, then the long journey into darkness is underway. Pale-skinned hillbillies and hard-faced yos, toothless white trash and gold-front gangsters--when we can glide on and feel only fear, we're well on the way. And if, after a time, we can glimpse the spectacle of the corner and manage nothing beyond loathing and contempt, then we've arrived at last at that naked place where a man finally sees the sense in stretching razor wire and building barracks and directing cattle cars into the compound. It's a reckoning of another kind, perhaps, and one that becomes a possibility only through the arrogance and certainty that so easily accompanies a well-planned and well-tended life. We know ourselves, we believe in ourselves; from what we value most, we grant ourselves the illusion that it's not chance in circumstance, that opportunity itself isn't the defining issue. We want the high ground; we want our own worth to be acknowledged. Morality, intelligence, values--we want those things measured and counted. We want it to be about Us. Yes, if we were down there, if we were the damned of the American cities, we would not fail. We would rise above the corner. And when we tell ourselves such things, we unthinkably assume that we would be consigned to places like Fayette Street fully equipped, with all the graces and disciplines, talents and training that we now posses. Our parents would still be our parents, our teachers still our teachers, our broker still our broker. Amid the stench of so much defeat and despair, we would kick fate in the teeth and claim our deserved victory. We would escape to live the life we were supposed to live, the life we are living now. We would be saved, and as it always is in matters of salvation, we know this as a matter of perfect, pristine faith. Why? The truth is plain: We were not born to be niggers.

delusion fear hatred lies poverty prejudice race society the-american-dream

David Simon

c4ceedd

I was deluded, and I knew it. Worse: my love for Pippa was muddied-up below the waterline with my mother, with my mother's death, with losing my mother and not being able to get her back. All that blind, infantile hunger to save and be saved, to repeat the past and make it different, had somehow attached itself, ravenously, to her. There was an instability in it, a sickness. I was seeing things that weren't there. I was only one step away from some trailer park loner stalking a girl he'd spotted in the mall. For the truth of it was: Pippa and I saw each other maybe twice a year; we e-mailed and texted, though with no great regularity; when she was in town we loaned each other books and went to the movies; we were friends; nothing more. My hopes for a relationship with her were wholly unreal, whereas my ongoing misery, and frustration, were an all-too-horrible reality. Was groundless, hopeless, unrequited obsession any way to waste the rest of my life?

delusion delusional delusional-love frustration grief hope hopeless hunger loner loss misery obsession past reality relationship save sickness stalking unreal unrequited-love waste

Donna Tartt

f749916

On the throne of the world, any delusion can become fact.

bullshit bullshit-and-politics delusion power-corrupts propaganda truthiness

Gore Vidal

1e1dda3

Seven billion who need to be kept happy, and docile, until the end. How do you do that? What's the best way to calm down a scared kid, get them to go back to sleep? Tell them a story. Some shit about Jesus or whatever.

delusion docile dying frightened funny happy jesus people population religion scared sleep story terrified terrifying truth

Neal Stephenson

f81ee1e

The last time that I consciously wrote anything to 'save the honor of the Left', as I rather pompously put it, was my little book on the crookedness and cowardice and corruption (to put it no higher) of Clinton. I used leftist categories to measure him, in other words, and to show how idiotic was the belief that he was a liberal's champion. Again, more leftists than you might think were on my side or in my corner, and the book was published by Verso, which is the publishing arm of the . However, if a near-majority of leftists and liberals choose to think that Clinton was the target of a witch-hunt and the victim of 'sexual McCarthyism', an Arkansan Alger Hiss in other words, you become weary of debating on their terms and leave them to make the best of it.

arkansas bill-clinton corruption cowardice debate delusion idiocy impeachment-of-bill-clinton leftism lewinsky-scandal liberalism mccarthyism new-left-review sex verso-books witch-hunt

Christopher Hitchens

c769481

The 'pre-emption' versus 'prevention' debate may be a distinction without much difference. The important thing is to have it understood that the United States is absolutely serious. The jihadists have in the past bragged that America is too feeble and corrupt to fight. A lot is involved in disproving that delusion on their part.

debate delusion iraq-war islam islamic-terrorism jihad preemptive-war preventive-war united-states war war-on-terror

Christopher Hitchens

671800d

for the people must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have.

delusion government

Henry David Thoreau

f7174c3

She lived in the dream world of unreality, or else she would not admit reality; he did not know. In any case, he loved her as she was. It might never be used, but it would give her pleasure to have it.

coping delusion doom last-days love post-apocalyptic unreality

Nevil Shute

6ed78c9

Men who believe that the way to the mind is not by way of ice picks through the brain or large dosages of dangerous medicine but through an honest reckoning of the self.

broken-hearted confess delusion denial happy heal healing honesty hope life love pathetic recover rigourous-honesty scars self-hate tragic treatment wound

Dennis Lehane

d503bb8

For everyone nowadays knows, absolutely certain, that nothing will ever happen to me. Others die, I go on.

certainty delusion immortality life mortality

Ray Bradbury

fcc572a

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)

delusion infinite-regress religion

Daniel C. Dennett