Denis Diderot Quotes

We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter.

All lies and jests, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.

If people tell an untruth long enough and loud enough, they begin to believe it themselves.

Someone once said to me, 'Some of us choose to live with a lifeboat just a little bit out of our reach.' I'd like to reach a point where I no longer bullshit myself. I think that's the natural human condition - to lie to yourself. Because the truth is painful.

The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves.

No matter what it is, I think people want the answer they want, they don't want the truth.

The more you defend a lie, the angrier you become.

We all talk about how much we hate lies. Yet we prefer, so often, to be lied to....because it allows us to dodge all those painful truths we'd rather not hear.

We seem to prefer a comfortable lie to the uncomfortable truth. We punish those who point out reality, and reward those who provide us with the comfort of illusion. Reality is fearsome .. but experience tells us that more fearsome yet is evading it.

When we successfully deceive others, they are not aware of it; the same is true with self-deception.

In order to maintain our way of living, we must tell lies to each other, and especially to ourselves.

You can fool yourself, you know. You'd think it's impossible, but it turns out it's the easiest thing of all.

The fool tries to adjust the truth so he does not have to adjust to it.

If you tell them what they want to hear, they don't bother to try to see.

There is such a thing as truth, but we have a vested interest in not seeing it, in avoiding it.

I'm interested in such things as the difference between how we perceive the world and what the world turns out to be. The difference is between the stories we tell others and the stories we tell ourselves. There is a wonderful Russian saying, which I use as the epigraph of one of my novels, which goes, He lies like an eyewitness. Which is very sly, clever and true.

Deception is mostly a game we play with ourselves.

Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it.

Truth is not always the best basis for happiness. There are certain lies which may constitute a far better and more secure foundation of happiness. There are people who perish when their eyes are opened.

Once you start thinking about the lies people tell when they don't know they're telling them, the truths people reveal when they think they're lying, then you can start to build a world.

We do not always remember the things that do no credit to us. We justify them, cover them in bright lies or with the thick dust of forgetfulness.

Lie until even you believe it - that's the real secret of lying

A man may think an untruth as well as speak one.

The truth is still the truth whether or not you believe it. Can we say the same about lies? No, lies only exist because we believe them. If we don't believe in lies, they simply disappear.

I think the easiest people to fool are ourselves. Fooling ourselves may even be a necessary precondition for fooling others.