David Ignatius Quotes

The most common lie is that which one lies to himself; lying to others is relatively an exception.

The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others.

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

Ask yourself: if I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn't I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now.

Nothing fools you better than the lie you tell yourself.

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

I'm not lying to myself like most people.

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

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.

We should never send another spy to the Soviet Union. Honesty is all that is necessary.

Espionage is largely separate from the mainstream of foreign policy … you nail the spy and you punish him, and you move on.

To give this activity [the Bay of Pigs] even covert support is of a piece with the hypocrisy and cynicism for which the United States is constantly denouncing the Soviet Union in the United Nations and elsewhere. This point will not be lost on the rest of the world-nor on our own consciences

I abhor this dirty work but when one is employed to sweep chimneys, one must black one’s fingers.

The trouble with writing a book about yourself is that you can’t fool around. If you write about someone else, you can stretch the truth from here to Finland. If you write about yourself the slightest deviation makes you realize instantly that there may be honor among thieves, but you are just a dirty liar.

A lover's a liar, To himself he lies, The truthful are loveless, Like oysters their eyes!

A lie may fool someone else, but it tells you the truth: you're weak.

Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.

If you're really successful at bullshitting, it means you're not hanging around enough people smarter than you.

We deceive and flatter no one by such delicate artificies as we do our own selves.

Nothing is easier than self-deceit.

I did not deceive you, mon ami. At most, I permitted you to deceive yourself.

The false man is more false to himself than to any one else. He may despoil others, but himself is the chief loser. The world's scorn he might sometimes forget, but the knowledge of his own perfidy is undying.

I've heard lots of people lie to themselves but they never fool anyone.

Only the liar knows he's lying

Wherever you go you will find people lying to you, and as your awareness grows, you will notice that you also lie to yourself. Do not expect people to tell you the truth because they also lie to themselves. You have to trust yourself and choose to believe or not to believe what someone says to you.