I had hardly dared to hope for her favor; for I had magnified her into something far beyond mortal desert; and to hear from her own lips an avowal of affection seemed more like the condescension of a pitying angel than the sympathy of a creature of passion and frailty like myself.

I was miserably self-deceived; and self-deception is of a nature most repugnant to the healthy operation of truth.

We suspect others, but seldom ourselves.

The deception becomes a part of our self-love; we hold back the error even when Reason would pluck it away from us.
"Our whole life may be considered as made up of earnest yearnings after objects whose value increases with the difficulties of obtaining them, and which seem greater and more desirable, from our imperfect knowledge of their nature, just as the objects of the outward vision are magnified and exalted when seen through a natural telescope of mist.

Imagination fills up and supplies the picture, of which we can only catch the outlines, with colors brighter, and forms more perfect, than those of reality.