Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quotes

It is in the nature of human beings to bend information in the direction of desired conclusions.

People readily believe what they want to believe.

The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.

What a man wishes, he will believe.

With how much ease believe we what we wish!

Nothing is so easy as to deceive oneself; for what we wish, we readily believe.

One of the mistakes we'll make because we're human beings is to believe that your vision is a fact. That's the natural optimism of human beings.

For what a man would like to be true, that he more readily believes.

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.

Human beings have an almost unlimited capacity for self-delusion. We can justify any amount of sadness if it fits our own particular standard of reality.

We are all very ready to believe what we like.

Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.

But we all recognise the primary foible of frail humanity - our propensity for embracing hope and shunning logic, our tendency to believe what we desire rather than what we observe.

If you want something to be true badly enough, you can rewrite it that way, in your head. You can even start to believe it.

The things that we want we willingly believe, and the things that we think we expect everyone else to think.

Man's ability to delude himself is infinite.

Men gladly believe what they wish. -Libenter homines id quod volunt credunt

So much is man the slave of his heart that he will shut his eyes to what does not please him and believe all that he hopes.

Our nature is to desperately want to believe and to take what we believe is the quickest path there even against our better judgment.

Men who cannot deceive others are very often successful at deceiving themselves.

I told myself it was the snow—she couldn’t possibly get to Philadelphia on the roads. I told myself a hundred lies. Children do that. It’s amazing the sorts of things you’ll make yourself believe.

Things we wish to be true are apt to gain too ready credit with us.

What ardently we wish, we soon believe.

This is how humans are: We question all our beliefs, except for the ones that we really believe in, and those we never think to question.