F. Sionil Jose Quotes

With the passing of time, as well as the social evolution and genetic exchange, we ended up putting our conscience in the colour of blood and in the salt of tears, and, as if that were not enough, we made our eyes into a kind of mirror turned inwards, with the result that they often show without reserve what we are verbally trying to deny.

A dishonest yes is a no to yourself.

He [William Gladstone] made his conscience not his guide but his accomplice.

I could answer that the way you want, but I'd hate myself in the morning.

Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself

Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing

I think I wear my hypocrisy on my sleeve. I would never say I'm not a complete hypocrite.

If there were a being in the world whose eyes could look into other people's hearts, very few men or women would be able to face up to it.

Every one speaks well of his own heart, but no one dares speak well of his own mind.

The hardest thing is to tell the truth about oneself. One doesn't like to remember unpleasant details, but forgetting them makes one's life seem disorganized.

It's such a horrible feeling to not be honest to who you are.

I just know that I don't want cheating. I refuse. I deepened myself but I don't believe in myself because my thought is invented.

We sin because we see sin as a bargain. We unconsciously calculate that it’s worth it, that it pays.

The mistake ninety-nine percent of humanity made, as far as Fats could see, was being ashamed of what they were; lying about it, trying to be somebody else.

Consider the problem from the point of view of evil, evil being almost always pleasure's true and major charm; considered thus, the crime must appear greater when perpetrated upon a being of your identical sort than when inflicted upon one which is not, and this once established, the delight automatically doubles.

We are all afflicted by original sin; people succumbing to temptations to do and to be.

I have always been happy. Even if I had been more honest with regard to myself at that moment I should still have written La Nausee.

Men wish to be saved from the mischiefs of their vices, but not from their vices.

The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?

One of the most painfully inauthentic ways we show up in our lives sometimes is saying "yes" when we mean "no," and saying "no" when we mean "hell yes."

There's nothing worse than betraying yourself.

And is he honest who resists his genius or conscience only for the sake of present ease or gratification

The end does not justify the means. If we try to be someone we are not in order to achieve a result, then the result cannot help but be something other than what we intended.

Most of our platitudes notwithstanding, self-deception remains the most difficult deception. The tricks that work on others count for nothing in that very well-lit back alley where one keeps assignation with oneself: no winning smiles will do here, no prettily drawn lists of good intentions. One shuffles flashily but in vain through one's marked cards- the kindness done for the wrong reason, the apparent triumph which involved no real effort, the seemingly heroic act into which one had been shamed.

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.