self-lie

From self- +‎ lie.

self-lie (plural self-lies)

1. (rare) A lie told to oneself.
   • 1910, Alan Durward Mickle, The Great Longing: A Book for Vain People, page 161:

     And there comes even to the thinker an hour when he believes at last, that never will he be a social star nor great in anything but his thoughts, and he becomes resigned, which means convinced of the truth of the self-lie that all the lonely days he has been telling.

   • 1998, Judy Simons, Kate Fullbrook, Writing, a woman's business, page 139:

     At the same time I want to hold on to the fact that each modality of the self-lie also performs the presence, albeit as an obscene underside, of a traumatic truth.

   • 2019 May 22, Rachel Shenhav-Goldberg, “By going vegan, Israelis can avoid talking about human rights”, in +972 Magazine‎:

     When people are exposed to information they cannot cope with, they steer away from that information. This state of denial may be an unintentional self-lie. It is a state of knowing and simultaneously not knowing.

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