A Quote by Carl Sagan

Human beings have a demonstrated talent for self-deception when their emotions are stirred.

Carl Sagan

Quote Topics

Beings Deception Emotions Human Human Being Human Beings Self Self-Deception Talent

Quote Author

Carl Sagan
American - Scientist
November 9, 1934 - December 20, 1996

A sentimentalist is one who delights to have high and devout emotions stirred whilst reading in an arm-chair, or in a prayer meeting, but he never translates his emotions into action. Consequently a sentimentalist is usually callous, self-centred and selfish, because the emotions he likes to have stirred do not cost him anything.

Oswald Chambers

What is the most fascinating kind of self-deception to me, and a kind that isn't necessarily unhealthy, is what Friedrich Nietzsche called "strategic self-deception." The kind of self-deception that you can engage in with your eyes wide open. You do it because you say, "There's things that I couldn't accomplish without this kind of self-deception."

Clancy Martin

If you asked me what makes the world go round, I would say self-deception. Self-deception allows us to create a consistent narrative for ourselves that we actually believe. I’m not saying that the truth doesn’t matter. It does. But self-deception is how we survive.

Errol Morris

You bet I write disaster fiction. We have compiled a disastrous record on this planet, a record of stupidity and absurdity and self-abuse and self-aggrandizement and self-deception and pompousness and self-righteousness and cruelty and indifference beyond what any other species has demonstrated the capacity for, which is the capacity for all the above.

John Irving

I'm a bartender. I like recipes. They're concretes. Was the drink recipe for seduction one shot charm and two shots self-deception, shaken, not stirred?

Karen Marie Moning

The sinful emotions are stirred most deeply by self-love.

Walter J Chantry

The instinct for self-deception in human beings makes them try to banish from their minds dangers of which at bottom they are perfectly aware by declaring them non-existent.

Stefan Zweig

The habit of employing self-deception to maintain one's self esteem has often become so ingrained that the first step to developing accurate self-awareness is honest acknowledgment of the existence of hidden emotions, motives and tendencies in the mind without immediately suppressing them.

Bhikkhu Analayo

Emotions are the key to many aspects of life. They are precisely the elements that make human beings human. I think the fact that emotions have been reduced and put off to the side in intellectual work, particularly in the 20th Century, is tragic.

Bill Viola

Self-deception is a defining part of our human nature. By recognizing its various forms in ourselves and reflecting upon them, we may be able to disarm them and even, in some cases, to employ and enjoy them. This self-knowledge opens up a whole new world before us, rich in beauty and subtlety, and frees us not only to take the best out of it, but also to give it back the best of ourselves, and, in so doing, to fulfil our potential as human beings. I don't really think it's a choice.

Neel Burton

self-sacrifice is one of a woman's seven deadly sins (along with self-abuse, self-loathing, self-deception, self-pity, self-serving, and self-immolation).

Sarah Ban Breathnach

We are all members of the same flawed species. Putting our moral vision into practice means imposing our will on others. The human lust for power and esteem, coupled with its vulnerability to self-deception and self-righteousness, makes that an invitation to a calamity, all the worse when the power is directed at a goal as quixotic as eradicating human self-interest.

Steven Pinker

To regard human beings as tools - as instruments - for the use of other human beings is not only unscientific but it is repugnant, stupid and short sighted. Tools are made by man but have not the autonomy of their maker - they have not man's time-binding capacity for initiation, for self-direction, and self-improvement.

Alfred Korzybski

Of all forms of deception self-deception is the most deadly, and of all deceived persons the self-deceived are the least likely to discover the fraud.

Aiden Wilson Tozer

Lean into the sharp points and fully experience them. The essence of bravery is being without self-deception. Wisdom is inherent in (understanding) emotions.