Quotes on Delusion

It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the malady of self-delusion

Speaking of Self-realizatio n is a delusion. It is only because people have been under the delusion that the non-Self is the Self and the unreal the Real that they have to be weaned out of it by the other delusion called Self-realizatio n; because actually the Self always is the Self and there is no such thing as realizing it.

It is a very solemn delusion when ministers think they are prospering, and yet do not hear of conversions.

As words are not the things we speak about, and structure is the only link between them, structure becomes the only content of knowledge. If we gamble on verbal structures that have no observable empirical structures, such gambling can never give us any structural information about the world. Therefore such verbal structures are structurally obsolete, and if we believe in them, they induce delusions or other semantic disturbances.

Sincerity is not a test of truth. We must not make this mistake: He must be right; he's so sincere. Because, it is possible to be sincerely wrong. We can only judge truth by truth and sincerity by sincerity.

Realization is to get rid of the delusion that you have not realized.

Temporary delusions, prejudices, excitements, and objects have irresistible influence in mere questions of policy. And the policy of one age may ill suit the wishes or the policy of another. The constitution is not subject to such fluctuations. It is to have a fixed, uniform, permanent construction. It should be, so far at least as human infirmity will allow, not dependent upon the passions or parties of particular times, but the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.

You are the Children of God, the sharers of immortal bliss, holy and perfect beings. You divinities on earth. Come up, O lions, and shake off the delusion that you are sheep; you are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal; you are not matter, you are not bodies; matter is your servant,not you the servant of matter.

Many have made a trade of delusions and false miracles, deceiving the stupid multitudes.

It is a great delusion in those whose understanding has been darkened by self-love, to think that there is any obedience in the subject who tries to draw the superior to what he wishes.

Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downwards through the mud and slush of opinion and tradition, and pride and prejudice, appearance and delusion, through the alluvium which covers the globe, through poetry and philosophy and religion, through church and state, through Paris and London, through New York and Boston and Concord, till we come to a hard bottom that rocks in place which we can call reality and say, "This is and no mistake.

There are a lot of people who are doing wonderful things, quietly, with no motive of greed, or hostility toward other people, or delusions of superiority.

...for whether we want to or not, we belong to our time and we share in its opinions, its feelings, even its delusions.

To travel is very useful, it makes the imagination work, the rest is just delusion and pain. Our journey is entirely imaginary, which is its strength.

Prominence is cool, but when the delusion kicks in it can be a drag. Especially if you choose to surround yourself with friends and not acolytes.

For the photograph's immobility is somehow the result of a perverse confusion between two concepts: the Real and the Live: by attesting that the object has been real, the photograph surreptitiously induces belief that it is alive, because of that delusion which makes us attribute to Reality an absolute superior, somehow eternal value; but by shifting this reality to the past ("this-has-been"), the photograph suggests that it is already dead.

If I could give you only one advice, I would say: Don't identify with anything. Be completely empty - no one. Be no-body and see if you lose anything but delusion.

...the self-satisfied dogmatism with which mankind at each period of its history cherishes the delusion of the finality of existing modes of knowledge.

Man's chief delusion is his conviction that there are causes other than his own state of consciousness.

Innocence ends when one is stripped of the delusion that one likes oneself.

The greatest obstacle to pleasure is not pain; it is delusion.