We err not because we cannot think properly, but because we lead bad lives.
Ignorance never does harm; delusion alone is fatal. People are deluded not because they do not know, but because they imagine that they do.
— Rousseau
Every delusion is a poison, which is why there cannot be such things as harmless delusions, not to speak of beautiful and sacrosanct delusions.
What do I need such consolations for, above which always hangs Damocles’ sword of disappointment? Only truth is safe. Only truth is steadfast, only truth can be relied on. It alone is a source of true consolation; it alone is adamantine. To free a human being from falsehood is not to take something away, but to give. The knowledge that falsehood is false is the truth. Delusion is always harmful. Sooner or later it will backfire on the one who clings to it.
— Schopenhauer
We see the world through our thoughts, we see it not as it is, but in the light of our thoughts. Hatred makes it appear as though we have put on black tinted glasses: gloomy and dark.
— Lucy Mallory
Some delusions cannot be refuted. We must communicate knowledge to a delusional mind that will enlighten it. Then the delusion will disappear by itself.
— Kant
One of the human being’s bad qualities consists in his loving and respecting himself and wishing the best for himself. But woe to him if he loves only himself: he will want to be great, and will discover that he is insignificant; he will want to be happy, and will find himself miserable; he will want to be perfect, and will find himself full of faults; he will want people to love and respect him, and will see that his shortcomings repulse others and make them despise him. Seeing that his wishes have not been realized, such a human being pursues the most criminal course of action: he begins to hate the truth that goes counter to his wishes; he wants to destroy this truth and, because he is unable to do so, he tries to distort the truth in both his and other people’s minds whenever he can; and thereby he hopes to hide his shortcomings not only from others, but also from himself.
— Pascal
The struggle between our spiritual and corporeal nature is the same in everyone, which is why people fall into the same delusions. Being under the same delusions, they grow more convinced of them, and, because the majority believes in them, they take them for undeniable truth.
To feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to care for the sick—these are all good deeds, but there is one good deed that is incomparable to all this: to free your brother from delusion.
