Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the…

Granted, we may try to help our own family members because they share our DNA. Or help someone else in expectation that they will…

— Richard Dawkins

If tempted by something that feels 'altruistic,' examine your motives and root out that self-deception. Then, if you still want to do it, wallow…

— Robert A. Heinlein

We feel lonely now and then and long for friends and think we should be quite different and happier if we found a friend…

— Vincent Van Gogh

The most transformative experiences people have - bliss, devotion, self transcendence - are currently anchored to the worst parts of culture and to ways…

— Sam Harris

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

Meditation is not a matter of trying to achieve ecstasy, spiritual bliss, or tranquillity, nor is it attempting to become a better person. It…

— Pema Chodron

The English language has 112 words for deception, according to one count, each with a different shade of meaning: collusion, fakery, malingering, self-deception, confabulation,…

— Robin Marantz Henig

People always have been the foolish victims of deception and self-deception in politics, and they always will be, until they have learned to seek…

— Vladimir Lenin

I think that there is an ongoing conspiracy in the philosophical community, an organized form of self-deception, as in a cult, to simply all…

— Thomas Metzinger

I worry about anthropomorphism as a form of self-deception. (The Christian religion is an anthropomorphic account of the universe.)

— Anonymous

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 visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others.

— Friedrich Nietzsche

Love of another is merely empty flattery and self-deception for one who cannot accept himself without pretense.

— L.E. Modesitt Jr

The statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing…

— Mark Twain

“We all practice self-deception to a degree; no man can handle complete honesty without being cut at each turn. There's not enough room in…

— Mark Lawrence