#dec

But human beings are not machines, and however powerful the pressure to conform, they sometimes are so moved by what they see as injustice that they dare to declare their independence. In that historical possibility lies hope. ↗

— Howard Zinn

#conformity #declaration-of-independence #hope #individuality #non-conformity

People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception. ↗

— James Baldwin

#deception

The man who refuses to judge, who neither agrees nor disagrees, who declares that there are no absolutes and believes that he escapes responsibility, is the man responsible for all the blood that is now spilled in the world. Reality is an absolute, existence is an absolute, a speck of dust is an absolute and so is a human life. Whether you live or die is an absolute. Whether you have a piece of bread or not, is an absolute. Whether you eat your bread or see it vanish into a looter's stomach, is an absolute. There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist, who is willing to sit out the course of any battle, willing to cash in on the blood of the innocent or to crawl on his belly to the guilty, who dispenses justice by condemning both the robber and the robbed to jail, who solves conflicts by ordering the thinker and the fool to meet each other halfway. In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromise is the transmitting rubber tube. ↗

— Ayn Rand

#compromise #conflict-resolution #evil #indecisiveness #judgement

MAKING THE LIE MAKE SENSE: When denial (his or ours) can no longer hold and we finally have to admit to ourselves that we’ve been lied to, we search frantically for ways to keep it from disrupting our lives. So we rationalize. We find “good reasons” to justify his lying, just as he almost always accompanies his confessions with “good reasons” for his lies. He tells us he only lied because…. We tell ourselves he only lied because…. We make excuses for him: The lying wasn’t significant/Everybody lies/He’s only human/I have no right to judge him. Allowing the lies to register in our consciousness means having to make room for any number of frightening possibilities: • He’s not the man I thought he was. • The relationship has spun out of control and I don’t know what to do • The relationship may be over. Most women will do almost anything to avoid having to face these truths. Even if we yell and scream at him when we discover that he’s lied to us, once the dust settles, most of us will opt for the comforting territory of rationalization. In fact, many of us are willing to rewire our senses, short-circuit our instincts and intelligence, and accept the seductive comfort of self-delusion. ↗

— Susan Forward

#compulsive-liars #deceit #liar #lies #pathological-liars

He was a heavy breather. You could hear him puffing and blowing into the mike up there like some large and sweaty animal. I don't like that, never have. My father is like that on the telephone. A lot of heavy breathing in your ear, so you can almost smell the scotch and Pall Malls on his breath. It always seems unsanitary and somehow homosexual. ↗

— Richard Bachman

#breathing #charlie #decker #king #rage

Picture a place called the Karma Kafe and it'll save me the bother of describing it. There was nothing in it you wouldn't expect, from the Buddha flowerpots to the wallpaper decorated with symbols that probably said, "If you bought this just because it looked pretty, may Buddha piss in your coffee, you culturally ignorant moron. ↗

— Kelley Armstrong

#sarcasm #karma

Language is something you inherit, it's never just you doing the talking, which helps when you're pretending. ↗

— Cees Nooteboom

#fantasy #language #night-thoughts #self-deception #self-knowledge

My mother is a firm believer in the long pause, useful in interrogations, proclamations of truth, and the occasional cutting dead of someone without their knowing it. ↗

— Suzanne Finnamore

#divorce #infidelity #interrogations #truth #infidelity

Whatever others may say, they say it to deceive and comfort themselves, not help you. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#comfort #deceit #deceive #dejan-stojanovic #literature

Las personas luchan para salir, no para entrar en coma. Las personas luchan para vivir y no para cometer suicidio..." "Que es un loco?... La locura es la incapacidad de comunicar las propias ideas...Todos nosotros de una forma u otra, somos locos." "Pero la gran locura del hombre y de la mujer es exactamente esta: el amor. ↗

— Paulo Coelho

#amor