Best Self Justification Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“What man ain't the honestest cove in his own eyes?" Grote's round face is a bronze moon in the dark. "'Tain't good intentions what paves the road to hell: it's self-justifyin's.”

Honesty Good Intentions Self Perception Self Justification

Book:The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

Source: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

“Lyndon Johnson was a master of self-justification. According to his biographer Robert Caro, when Johnson came to believe in something, he would believe in it “totally, with absolute conviction, regardless of previous beliefs, or of the facts in the matter.” George Reedy, one of Johnson’s aides, said that he “had a remarkable capacity to convince himself that he held the principles he should hold at any given time, and there was something charming about the air of injured innocence with which he would treat anyone who brought forth evidence that he had held other views in the past. It was not an act… He had a fantastic capacity to persuade himself that the ‘truth’ which was convenient for the present was the truth and anything that conflicted with it was the prevarication of enemies. He literally willed what was in his mind to become reality.” Although Johnson’s supporters found this to be a rather charming aspect of the man’s character, it might well have been one of the major reasons that Johnson could not extricate the country from the quagmire of Vietnam. A president who justifies his actions only to the public might be induced to change them. A president who has justified his actions to himself, believing that he has the truth, becomes impervious to self-correction.”

Vietnam War Self Deception Self Justification Lyndon Johnson

Author:Carol Tavris, Elliot Aronson

“Don’t I know by now that folk see their sins in the way they choose? There’s always a reason as to why selfishness is not really selfish and crimes are honest and waiting safely by while somefolk else is killed is really the more courageous choice.”

Sin Self Justification

Book:Sin Eater

Source: Sin Eater

“Edward: But I'm obsessed by the thought of my own significance. Rielly: Precisely. And I could make you feel important, And you would imagine it a marvelous cure; And you would go on, doing such amount of mischief As lay within your power -- until you came to grief. Half of the harm that is done in this world Is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm--but the harm does not interest them Or they do not see it, or they justify it Because they are absorbed in the endless struggle To think well of themselves.”

Harm Obsession Insignificance Self Justification Self Absorbtion

Book:The Cocktail Party

Source: The Cocktail Party

“I suppose this anger and manipulation was my pseudo-conscious method of giving the system, and all it entailed, the big fat birdie finger. What I failed to realize was that my inward disposition of fuming vindictiveness and self-justification only caused me to rob myself. I was giving myself the middle finger, not them.”

Manipulation Vindictiveness Self Justification The System

Book:Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”

“Most people, when directly confronted by evidence that they are wrong, do not change their point of view or course of action but justify it even more tenaciously. Even irrefutable evidence is rarely enough to pierce the mental armor of self-justification.”

People Self Enough Action Courses Views Evidence Point Of View Justify Justification Armor Pierce Self Justification

Author:Carol Tavris

“Possessed, as are all the fair daughters of Eve, of an hereditary propensity, transmitted to them undiminished through succeeding generations, to be 'soonmoved withtheslightesttouch of blame'; very little precept and practice will confirm them in the habit, and instruct them all the maxims, of self-justification.”

Littles Self Practice Generations Habit Succeed Daughter Fairs Blame Possessed Justification Maxims Propensity Hereditary Self Justification

Author:Maria Edgeworth

“it is not men that most women worry about when they rise to the defense of the status quo. Their apparent endorsement of male supremacy is, rather, a pathetic striving for self-respect, self-justification, and self-pardon. After fifteen hundred years of subjection to men, Western woman finds it almost unbearable to face the fact that she has been hoodwinked and enslaved by her inferiors - that the master is lesser than the slave.”

“To talk over a quarrel, with its inevitable accompaniment of self-justification, is too much like handling cobwebs to be very successful.”

Self Successful Too Much Inevitable Justification Quarrels Cobwebs Self Justification

Author:Margaret Deland

“There is as much vanity in self-scourgings as in self-justification.”

Self Vanity Justification Self Justification

Book:The Journal of Mary Hervey Russell

Source: The Journal of Mary Hervey Russell

“I haven't seen so much tippy-toeing around since the last time I went to the ballet. When members of the arts community were askedthis week about one of their biggest benefactors, Philip Morris, and its requests that they lobby the New York City Council on the company's behalf, the pas de deux of self- justification was so painstakingly choreographed that it constituted a performance all by itself.”

“Macbeth's self-justifications were feeble - and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb too. The imagination and the spiritual strength of Shakespeare's evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Because they had no ideology.”

Littles Self Spiritual Imagination Conscience Ideology Dozen Justification Corpses Lambs Spiritual Strength Self Justification

Author:Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“It is not his business to argue men into faith, for that cannot be done; but it is his business to demonstrate the intellectual adequacy of the biblical faith and the comparative inadequacy of its rivals, and to show the invalidity of the criticisms that are brought against it. This he seeks to do, not from any motive of intellectual self-justification, but for the glory of God and His gospel.”

Men Self Done Shows Intellectual Glory Criticism Arguing Motive Justification Biblical Rivals Glory Of God Inadequacy Adequacy Self Justification Biblical Faith

Book:Fundamentalism

Source: Fundamentalism

“An idol is something that we look to for things that only God can give. Idolatry functions widely inside religious communities when doctrinal truth is elevated to the position of a false god. This occurs when people rely on the rightness of their doctrine for their standing with God rather than on God himself and his grace. It is a subtly but deadly mistake. The sign that you have slipped into this form of self-justification is that you become what the book of Proverbs calls a 'scoffer'.”

“When your sin is exposed, you will run toward confession and forgiveness or self-righteousness and self-justification.”

Self Running Sin Righteousness Exposed Confession Justification Self Righteousness Self Justification

Author:Paul David Tripp

“As water and fire oppose one another when combined, so are self-justification and humility opposed to one another.”

Inspirational Self Christian Water Religious Fire Humility Orthodox Justification Self Justification Water And Fire

Author:Marcus Eremita

“An explanation of cause is not a justification by reason.”

Reason Literature Causes Explanation Justification Self Justification

Author:C. S. Lewis

“People often say that humans have always eaten animals, as if this is a justification for continuing the practice. According to this logic, we should not try to prevent people from murdering other people, since this has also been done since the earliest of times.”

“The truth is, narratives of self-justification burble beneath more of our relationships and endeavors than we would care to admit.”

Self Care Truth Is Narrative Endeavor Our Relationship Justification Self Justification

Author:Tullian Tchividjian

“Self-justification, therefore, is not only about protecting high self-esteem; it's also about protecting low self-esteem if that is how a person sees himself.”

Ifs Persons Self Self Esteem Lows Esteem Justification Low Self Esteem High Self Esteem Self Justification

Author:Elliot Aronson

“A man can go from being a lover to being a stranger in three moves flat but a woman under the guise of friendship will engage in acts of duplicity which come to light very much later. There are different species of self-justification.”

Men Love Different Self Light Moving Three Women Friendship Lovers Species Stranger Flats Justification Greatest Love Guise Duplicity Self Justification

Author:Anita Brookner

“The break from the supposedly culturally-narrow religious bases of knowledge in favor of supposedly trans-cultural scientific bases of knowledge served as the self-justification of a particularly pernicious form of cultural imperialism.”

Self Form Religious Break Capitalism Bases Favors Justification Imperialism Trans Pernicious Self Justification

Author:Immanuel Wallerstein

“Our enemy is not lack of preparation; it’s not the difficulty of the project or the state of the marketplace or the emptiness of our bank account. The enemy is our chattering brain, which, if we give it so much as a nanosecond, will start producing excuses, alibis, transparent self-justifications and a million reasons why we can’t/shouldn’t/won’t do what we know we need to do.”

“Even irrefutable evidence is rarely enough to pierce the mental armor of self-justification.”

Self Enough Evidence Justification Armor Pierce Self Justification

Author:Carol Tavris

“Eradicate self-justification. Then alone can you annihilate your ego.”

Self Ego Justification Self Justification

Author:Sivananda

“Self-justification is a treacherous servant.”

Self Servant Justification Treacherous Self Justification

Author:Wellington Mara

“The talent for self-justification is surely the finest flower of human evolution, the greatest achievement of the human brain. When it comes to justifying actions, every human being acquires the intelligence of an Einstein, the imagination of a Shakespeare, and the subtlety of a Jesuit.”

Source: The Age of Absurdity: Why Modern Life makes it Hard to be Happy

“Self-justification and judging others go together, as justification by grace and serving others go together.”

Self Together Grace Judging Serving Justification Serving Others Judging Others Self Justification

Book:Life Together

Source: Life Together

“The most tragic consequence of our criticism of a man is to block his way to humiliation and grace, precisely to drive him into the mechanisms of self justification and into his faults instead of freeing him from them. For him, our voice drowns the voice of God.”

Men Way Self Voice Grace Consequence Criticism Faults Block Tragic Mechanism Justification Humiliation Voice Of God Self Justification

Author:Paul Tournier

“God's designs may be frequent justification for our actions, but it is we, the "self-made men", who take the credit.”

Men May Made Self Action Artist Design Credit Justification Our Actions Self Made Self Made Man Self Justification

Author:Arthur Erickson

“Psychoanalysis is an attempt to examine a person's self-justifications. Hence it can be undertaken only with the patient's cooperation and can succeed only when the patient has something to gain by abandoning or modifying his system of self-justification.”

Persons Self Succeed Gains Patient Cooperation Justification Psychiatry Psychoanalysis Modifying Self Justification

Author:Thomas Szasz