Fulke Greville Quotes

What wild imaginations one forms where dear self is concerned! How sure to be mistaken!

There is this difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man, really is so; but he that thinks himself the wisest, is generally the greatest fool.

Nature never deceives us; it is we who deceive ourselves.

The art of living is the art of knowing how to believe lies.

It many times falls out that we deem ourselves much deceived in others because we first deceived ourselves.

MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be.

It's very hard to look in the mirror. We all know this. It's much easier to have illusions about yourself. And in particular, when you think, well, I'm going to believe what I like, but I'll say what the powerful want, you do that over time, and you believe what you say.

We lie best when we lie to ourselves.

One is never deceived; one deceives oneself.

We like to be deceived.

The most sure method of subjecting yourself to be deceived is to consider yourself more cunning than others.

We are our own aptest deceiver.

We strive as hard to hide our hearts from ourselves as from others, and always with more success; for in deciding upon our own case we are both judge, jury, and executioner, and where sophistry cannot overcome the first, or flattery the second, self-love is always ready to defeat the sentence by bribing the third.

I always knew I was an excellent liar; I just didn't know that I had it in me to fool myself.

To the generality of men you cannot give a stronger hint for them to impose upon you than by imposing upon yourself.

Usually we walk around constantly believing ourselves. "I'm okay" we say. "I'm alright". But sometimes the truth arrives on you and you can't get it off. That's when you realize that sometimes it isn't even an answer--it's a question. Even now, I wonder how much of my life is convinced.

The two biggest self-deceptions of all are that life has a 'meaning'and each of us is unique.

We do. Or re-create the ones we have, and project. My whole life is projection.

It is difficult to see ourselves as we are. Sometimes we are fortunate enough to have good friends, lovers or others who will do us the good service of telling us the truth about ourselves. When we don't, we can so easily delude ourselves, lose a sense of truth about ourselves, and our conscience loses power and purpose. Mostly, we tell ourselves what we would like to hear. We lose our way.

Can we ever break free of the devices and desires of our own hearts? Might not our conscience be telling us what we most want to hear?

In order to maintain our way of living, we must tell lies to each other, and especially to ourselves.

I do know that we have delusions about ourselves in what we sound like.

No, no, I am but shadow of myself: You are deceived, my substance is not here.

Those who are overreached by our cunning are far from appearing to us as ridiculous as we appear to ourselves when the cunning of others has overreached us.