Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point 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.
People go on marrying because they can't resist natural forces, although many of them may know perfectly well that they are possibly buying a month's pleasure with a life's discomfort.
The preachers and lecturers deal with men of straw, as they are men of straw themselves. Why, a free-spoken man, of sound lungs, cannot draw a long breath without causing your rotten institutions to come toppling down by the vacuum he makes. Your church is a baby-house made of blocks, and so of the state. ...The church, the state, the school, the magazine, think they are liberal and free! It is the freedom of a prison-yard.
There's that horrible-beautiful moment, that bitter-sweet impasse where you know that somebody is bullshitting you but they're doing it with such panache and conviction...no, it's because they say exactly what you want to hear, at that point in time.
There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my belief, our case was in the last respect a rather common one.
The fine thing about pacts with the devil is that when you sign them you are well aware of their conditions. Otherwise, why would you be recompensed with hell?
How can a man's candour be seen in all its lustre unless he has a few failings to talk of? But he had an agreeable confidence that his faults were all of a generous kind--impetuous, arm-blooded, leonine; never crawling, crafty, reptilian.
Thus, you see, he arrived at the same end, via supposed duty, that he was previously pledged to via interest. I fancy a good number of us, when any line of action will promote our own interest, can make ourselves believe that reasons exist which compel us to it as a duty.
Deception' is the word I most associate with anorexia and the treachery which comes from falsehood. The illness appears inviting. It would seem to offer something to those unwary or unlucky enough to suffer from it - friendship, a get-out, or a haven - when, in fact, it is a trap.
"On the raptors kept for falconry: "They talk every night, deep into the darkness. They say about how they were taken, about what they can remember about their homes, about their lineage and the great deeds of their ancestors, about their training and what they've learned and will learn. It is military conversation, really, like what you might have in the mess of a crack cavalry regiment: tactics, small arms, maintenance, betting, famous hunts, wine, women, and song. Another subject they have is food. It is a depressing thought," he continued, "but of course they are mainly trained by hunger. They are a hungry lot, poor chaps, thinking of the best restaurants where they used to go, and how they had champagne and caviar and gypsy music. Of course, they all come from noble blood." "What a shame that they should be kept prisoners and hungry." "Well, they do not really understand that they are prisoners any more than the cavalry officers do. They look on themselves as being 'dedicated to their profession,' like an order of knighthood or something of that sort. You see, the member of the Muse [where Raptors are kept for falconry] is restricted to the Raptors, and that does help a lot. They know that none of the lower classes can get in. Their screened perches do not carry Blackbirds or such trash as that. And then, as for the hungry part, they're far from starving or that kind of hunger: they're in training, you know! And like everybody in strict training, they think about food."
The instinct of self-deception in human beings makes them try to banish from their minds dangers of which at the bottom they are perfectly aware by declaring them nonexistent, and a warning such as mine against cheap optimism was bound to prove particularly unwelcome at a moment when a sumptuously laid supper was awaiting for us in the next room.
Vidish', ia togda vse se- bia sprashival: zachem ia tak glup, chto esli drugie glu- py i koli ia znaiu uzh naverno, chto oni glupy, to sam ne khochu byt' umnee? Potom ia uznal, Sonia, chto esli zhdat', poka vse stanut umnymi, to slishkom uzh dol- go budet... Potom ia eshche uznal, chto nikogda etogo i ne budet, chto ne peremeniatsia liudi, i ne peredelat' ikh nikomu, i truda ne stoit tratit'! Da, eto tak! Eto ikh zakon... Zakon, Sonia! Eto tak!.. I ia teper' znaiu, Sonia, chto kto krepok i silen umom i dukhom, tot nad nimi i vlastelin! Kto mnogo posmeet, tot u nikh i prav. Kto na bol'shee mozhet pliunut', tot u nikh i zakonodatel', a kto bol'she vsekh mozhet posmet', tot i vsekh pravee! Tak dosele velos' i tak vsegda budet! Tol'ko slepoi ne razgliadit!
It was strange to Old Robert that he, who knew so much more than his neighbors, who had pondered so endlessly, should be not even a good farmer. Sometimes he imagined he understood too many things ever to do anything well.
The person who distrusts himself has no touchstone for reality - for this touchstone can be only oneself. Such a person interpose between himself and reality nothing less than a labyrinth of attitudes. And these attitudes, furthermore, though the person is usually unaware of it (is unaware of so much), are historical and public attitudes.
We are all worth something,' she said. 'Zottas are not worth more than the rest of us. Self-Deception makes us into monsters. Selfishness is an excuse to busy your empathy. People are basically good. Live as though it was the first days of a better [nation].