35 Quotes About Delusion

In the realm of human thought, the line between reality and imagination often blurs, giving birth to the fascinating phenomenon of delusion. Throughout history, thinkers and writers have pondered the nature of delusion, capturing its essence in words that both intrigue and provoke. This collection of 35 quotes delves into the complexities of self-deception and misconception, inviting reflection and awareness. Whether serving as an introspective mirror or a critique of society's grander illusions, these quotes offer insights that challenge our perceptions and inspire deeper understanding. Join us on a journey through the minds of those who have eloquently articulated the enigma of delusion.

1. “For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” - Carl Sagan

2. “All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.” - Ambrose Bierce

3. “It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.” - Leo Tolstoy

4. “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” - Rachel Caine

5. “I saw my reflection in their eyes, but not the men themselves, not clearly. This preserved the idea that all intelligent and even vaguely attractive men were essentially good. Delusion detest focus and romance provides the veil.” - Suzanne Finnamore

6. “The European reaction to Obama is a European delusion.” - Noam Chomsky

7. “How people themselves perceive what they are doing is not a question that interests me. I mean, there are very few people who are going to look into the mirror and say, 'That person I see is a savage monster'; instead, they make up some construction that justifies what they do. If you ask the CEO of some major corporation what he does he will say, in all honesty, that he is slaving 20 hours a day to provide his customers with the best goods or services he can and creating the best possible working conditions for his employees. But then you take a look at what the corporation does, the effect of its legal structure, the vast inequalities in pay and conditions, and you see the reality is something far different.” - Noam Chomsky

8. “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.” - Alan Moore

9. “We live, I suppose, in the unconfessed hope that the rules will at some point be broken, along with the normal course of things and custom and history, and that this will happen to us, that we will experience it, that we — that is, I alone — will be the ones to see it. We always aspire, I suppose, to being the chosen ones, and it is unlikely otherwise that we would be prepared to live out the entire course of an entire life, which, however short or long, gradually gets the better of us.” - Javier Marías

10. “In reading The History of Nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities, their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.” - Charles Mackay

11. “The end of an delusion is invariably sadness or tears” - Pop Samuel

12. “Truth about tears is that , most tears are the result of a delusion” - Pop Samuel

13. “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 New Left Review. 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.” - Christopher Hitchens

14. “We dream — it is good we are dreaming —It would hurt us — were we awake —But since it is playing — kill us,And we are playing — shriek —What harm? Men die — externally —It is a truth — of Blood —But we — are dying in Drama —And Drama — is never dead —Cautious — We jar each other —And either — open the eyes —Lest the Phantasm — prove the Mistake —And the livid SurpriseCool us to Shafts of Granite —With just an Age — and Name —And perhaps a phrase in Egyptian —It's prudenter — to dream —” - Emily Dickinson

15. “It's not that girls are delusional, per se. It's just that they have this subtle ability to warp actual circumstances into something different.” - Rebecca Serle

16. “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.” - Christopher Hitchens

17. “If I told you to wish for good health, you would think I'm ridiculous; but when I exchange the word "wish" for the word "pray", you believe it can work. That is the disempowering delusion religions have brought us.” - Steve Maraboli

18. “The Council of Scholars has said that we all know the things which exist and therefore the things which are not known by all do not exist.” - Ayn Rand

19. “In many ways, life is about managing your delusions; keeping the ones that nourish and eliminating the ones that poison.” - Steve Maraboli

20. “There was a time he’d heard tales of Dab Sweet and he’d stuck thumbs in his belt and chin to the sky and tricked himself that was how his life had been. But the years scraped by hard as ever and he got less and the stories more ’til they were tales of a man he’d never met succeeding at what he’d never have dreamed of attempting.” - Joe Abercrombie

21. “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.” - David Simon

22. “But the lack of faith could just as well be a crutch for non-believers, allowing them to live their lives without any concept of accountability and giving them some sort of false confidence. The different is that while Catholicism has an abundance of intellectual underpinnings to support its arguments, anti-Catholicism and atheist have few if any.” - Michael Coren

23. “Any titles, money, or privilege you inherit are actually hindrances. They delude you into believing you are owed respect.” - Robert Greene

24. “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.” - James Baldwin

25. “You have to quit confusing a madness with a mission.” - Flannery O'Connor

26. “I find it strange how some men simply give up their soul to a woman, and act in obedience to their will. I find it stranger that those same women, are ignorant to the belief that this isn't his real face. Most women don't know what their man looks like when he's not in-love with them. But when that mystical spell is broken, it's like a person seeing the true face of God; only realizing that you simply never understood...their real self.” - Lionel Suggs

27. “Feminists amuse me more than illusionists. They are the only type of people that can make an illogical argument seem even more illogical with paintings of delusions.” - Lionel Suggs

28. “The victim mindset produces a delusion of fault and blame that blinds you from the simple truth of cause and effect.” - Steve Maraboli

29. “The only thing that makes life unfair is the delusion that it should be fair.” - Steve Maraboli

30. “. . . in no instance has a system in regard to religion been ever established, but for the purpose, as well as with the effect of its being made an instrument of intimidation, corruption, and delusion, for the support of depredation and oppression in the hands of governments.” - Jeremy Bentham

31. “The sad truth about bigotry is that most bigots either don't realize that they are bigots, or they convince themselves that their bigotry is perfectly justified.” - Wayne Gerard Trotman

32. “Oh, wait a minute, I was supposed to be cutting back on the self-delusion, wasn't I? Whoops.” - Jason Krumbine

33. “I'm not crying because of you; you're not worth it. I'm crying because my delusion of who you were was shattered by the truth of who you are.” - Steve Maraboli

34. “There was somewhere, if you knew where to find it, some place where money could be made like drawing water from a well, some Big Rock Candy Mountain where life was effortless and rich and unrestricted and full of adventure and action, where something could be had for nothing.” - Wallace Stegner

35. “It seems sometimes that people take a deliberately myopic and fill their eyes with things seen microscopically in order not to see macrosopically.” - Marilyn Frye