John D. Rockefeller Quotes

Never confuse wishes with facts.

I've found that people who look at things as they are, and not as they wish them to be, are the ones who succeed.

I try to deny myself any illusions or delusions, and I think that this perhaps entitles me to try and deny the same to others, at least as long as they refuse to keep their fantasies to themselves.

Since we think about ourselves so much of the time, it is comforting to assume ... that we really know the score.... [But] this is not an easy assignment. [As] Santayana wrote, 'Nothing requires a rarer intellectual heroism than willingness to see one's equation written out.'

He that is his owne Counsellor knowes nothing sure but what hee hath laid out.

wrongness always seems to come at us from left field - that is, from outside ourselves. But the reality could hardly be more different. Error is the ultimate inside job. Yes, the world can be profoundly confusing; and yes, other people can mislead or deceive you. In the end, though, nobody but you can choose to believe your own beliefs.

If you want to stay in a state of illusion, stay in it. But you can always wake up.

As we practice, we begin to know the difference between our fantasy and reality.

The truth isn't going to bend itself to suit you.

A more conscious life is one in which a man is conscious not only of what he sees, but of the prejudices with which he sees it.

You see 'awesome' and I see 'lost.' It's very easy to lose touch with reality when you've got that many people thinking you are more than you really are.

An essential part of seeing clearly is finding the willingness to look closely and to go beyond our own ideas.

Approach each new problem not with a view of finding what you hope will be there, but to get the truth, the realities that must be grappled with. You may not like what you find. In that case you are entitled to try to change it. But do not deceive yourself as to what you do find to be the facts of the situation.

[Freud's] sense of reality is less clouded by wishful thinking than is the case with other people and [he combines] the qualities of critical judgment, earnestness and responsibility.

The biggest problem we have as human beings is that we confuse our beliefs with reality.

I'm not living under false delusions myself.

If the image one holds of one's self contains elements that don't square with reality, one is best advised to let go of them, however difficult that may be.

First, what does truth require? It requires us to face the facts as they are, not to involve ourselves in self-deception; to refuse to think merely in slogans. If we are to work for the future of the city, let us deal with the realities as they actually are, not as they might have been, and not as we wish they were.

Just because you believe it doesn't make it so.

Most times we only see things for the way we are. But we're good at lying to ourselves. Sometimes we need somebody who's not living in our skin to point out how things really are.

Rob the average man of his life-illusion, and you rob him of his happiness at the same stroke.

The worst derangement of the spirit is to believe things because we want them to be so, not because we have seen them for what they are.

Therefore do not deceive yourself! Of all deceivers fear most yourself!

Regain your senses, call yourself back, and once again wake up. Now that you realize that only dreams were troubling you, view this 'reality' as you view your dreams.

Few men survey themselves with so much severity as not to admit prejudices in their own favor.