I think the easiest people to fool are ourselves. Fooling ourselves may even be a necessary precondition for fooling others.
Iain BanksI'm saying with very few exceptions nothing lasts forever, and among those exceptions, no work or thought of man is numbered.
Iain BanksThere has seldom if ever a shortage of eager young males prepared to kill and die to preserve the security, comfort and prejudices of their elders, and what you call heroism is just an expression of this simple fact; there is never a scarcity of idiots.
Iain BanksThey speak very well of you". - "They speak very well of everybody." - "That so bad?" - "Yes. It means you canยดt trust them.
Iain BanksTruth, I have learned, differs for everybody. Just as no two people ever see a rainbow in exactly the same place - and yet both most certainly see it, while the person seemingly standing right underneath it does not see it at all - so truth is a question of where one stands, and the direction one is looking in at the time.
Iain Banks