Tips for Trying Times

tip #36:
Beware Self-Deception

Everybody had a ready-made phrase: “That cannot last long.” But I remembered a conversation with my publisher in Leningrad on my short trip to Russia. He had been telling me how rich he had once been, what beautiful paintings he had owned and I asked him why he had not left Russia immediately on the outbreak of the revolution as so many others had done. “Ah,” he answered, “who would have believed that such a thing could last longer than a fortnight?” It was the self deception that we practice because of reluctance to abandon our accustomed life.” 

— Stefan Zweig, The World Yesterday