A Quote by Gertrude Atherton

The human mind has an infinite capacity for self-deception.

Gertrude Atherton

Quote Topics

Capacity Deception Human Human Mind Infinite Mind Self Self-Deception

Quote Author

Gertrude Atherton
American - Author
October 30, 1857 - June 14, 1948

Man (and woman) has an infinite capacity for self-development. Equally, he has an infinite capacity for self-destruction. A human being may be clinically alive and yet, despite all appearances, spiritually dead.

Idries Shah

The only thing infinite is our capacity for self-deception

Robert Todd Carroll

Only one deception is possible in the infinite sense, self-deception.

Soren Kierkegaard

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

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

Our capacity for self-deception has no known limits

Michael Novak

We have an infinite capacity for self interest, yet the infinite has absolutely no interest in us

Dean Cavanagh

What destroys us most effectively is not a malign fate but our own capacity for self-deception and for degrading our own best self.

George Eliot

[The human mind] finds more facility in assenting to the self-existence of an invisible cause possessing infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, than in the self-existence of the universe, visibly destitute of these attributes, and which may be the effect of them.

James Madison

You know, your species [humans] has the most amazing capacity for self-deception, matched only by its ingenuity in trying to destroy itself.

Ben Aaronovitch

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 humans, you see, have an infinite capacity for self-rationalization.

Charles Colson

The human mind has infinite capacity to rationalize, and evil characters just push that boundary a bit. Whatever they're doing, they think it makes sense to do it, and they think they have a good reason to do it. In short, they feel justified.

Paul S. Kemp

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

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

A Quote by Gertrude Atherton

Quote Topics

Quote Author

Related Quotes

Related Authors