Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

There are certain ways you have to delude yourself. Self-delusion is important, for instance in family life. You know what I mean? If you're in love with your wife you have to go in there with blind faith. You have to support everything. And with your kids, you have to believe that you're doing something that has higher purpose; even though you don't have any evidence that that's the way it's going to turn out.

The oblique paradox of propaganda is that the lie in the throat becomes, by repetition, the truth in the heart.

People make the mistake of drinking the Kool-Aid, believing your own hype, letting people tell you you're this or you're that or you're too this.

People do not believe lies because they have to, but because they want to.

I'm not conceited. Conceit is a fault and I have no faults.

There is a holy mistaken zeal in politics as religion. By persuading others, we convince ourselves.

They are most deceived that trusteth most in themselves.

Even intelligent people succumb to their own propaganda.

The nationalist does not go on the principle of simply ganging up with the strongest side. On the contrary, having picked his side, he persuades himself that it is the strongest, and is able to stick to his belief even when the facts are overwhelmingly against him.

There is a danger in believing your own hype.

Between believing a thing and thinking you KNOW is only a small step and quickly taken.

Failure is really a matter of conceit. People don't work hard because, in their conceit, they imagine they'll succeed without ever making an effort. Most people believe that they'll wake up some day and find themselves rich. Actually, they've got it half right, because eventually they do wake up.

It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the malady of self-delusion. They are always surrounded by worshipers. They are constantly, and for the most part sincerely, assured of their greatness.

It is to escape the responsibility for failure that the weak so eagerly throw themselves into grandiose undertakings.

Believing your own bullshit is always a perilous activity, but never more fatal than for the owner of a start-up venture.

Everyone in Annawadi talks like this: 'Oh, I will make my child a doctor, a lawyer, and he will make us rich'. It's vanity, nothing more. Your little boat goes west and you congratulate yourself, 'what a navigator I am!' And then the wind blows you east.

Mass delusion is the result of the effort. Propaganda is one of the techniques. But it mentioned things like you create a consensus of something that's totally absurd. You get people believing something totally absurd, however that's done, and then the people with common sense come along and say, "No, no, no. That's totally wrong," and they end up being the new kooks and weirdos. They are the ones society thinks are cockeyed and weird.

It doesn't take much convincing to make someone believe they're better than everyone else.

men are so conceited they’ll believe anything that flatters them

Finally, the illusions of validity and skill are supported by a powerful professional culture. We know that people can maintain an unshakeable faith in any proposition, however absurd, when they are sustained by a community of like-minded believers. Given the professional culture of the financial community, it is not surprising that large numbers of individuals in that world believe themselves to be among the chosen few who can do what they believe others cannot.

I look upon the too good opinion that man has of himself, as the nursing mother of all false opinions, both public and private.

What God declares the believing heart confesses without the need of further proof. Indeed, to seek proof is to admit doubt, and to obtain proof is to render faith superfluous.

The most common of all follies is to believe in the palpably untrue.

Like kids who only ever get socks for Christmas, but still believe with all their hearts in Santa.