Quotes about Self-deception

Almost every man wastes part of his life in attempts to display qualities which he does not possess, and to gain applause which he cannot keep.

It is one thing to insist on walking south when the compass is pointing north. But to "fix" the compass so that it tells you that the wrong way is the right way is far, far worse. You can correct a mistake. But once you tell yourself it wasn't a mistake there's no way back.

The indissoluble link between prideful self-love, aversion to truth, self-deception and hypocrisy is one of the great themes of the Bible—for example, the drumbeat repetition that "the way of a fool is right in his own eyes" (Prov 12:15). Sinful minds therefore claim both self-rightness in terms of truth and self-righteousness in terms of goodness.

Man's love of truth is such that when he loves something which is not the truth, he pretends to himself that what he loves is the truth, and because he hates to be proved wrong, he will not allow himself to be convinced that he is deceiving himself. So he hates the real truth for what he takes to his heart in its place.

It's not right to spend money you don't have to perpetuate a lie about who you are.

Weakness is not the problem, but my delusion of my strengths is.

There is no one we swindle more than we swindle ourselves. There is no one we run to defend more than we do ourselves. And like every other spiritually blind person, Joe was blind to his blindness.

One of the most dangerous delusions for each of us is the delusion of our own sovereignty. And one of our most dangerous idols is the idol of control.

The scary deception of sin is that, at the point of sinning, sin doesn't look all that sinful.

God knew that we would convince ourselves that we are okay when we're not okay. So he designed a means for us to be confronted again and again with the depth of our sin and the expansive glory of his provision in the person and work of the Lamb, the Savior, the Redeemer—the Lord Jesus Christ.

Not only does sin blind, but as sinners, we participate in our own blindness. We all swindle ourselves into thinking that we are better than we are, that what we're doing is okay when, in fact, it's not okay in the eyes of God. The spiritual reality is that we're like naked homeless people, but we see ourselves as affluent and well-dressed.

Let no one deceive himself. If any of you thinks he is wise in this age, he should become a fool, so that he may become wise.