Selected denial quotes

1. History records no more gallant struggle than that of humanity against the truth.

2. I have killed no one and I have ordered no one to be killed.

3. Middle age is the time when a man is always thinking that in a week or two he will feel as good as ever.

4. We see time's furrows on another's brow, And death intrench'd, preparing his assault; How few themselves in that just mirror see!

5. I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future.

6. I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it.

7. And while blood's the only language that your deaf old ears can hear And still you will not answer with that message coming clear Does it mean there's no more ripples in your tired old glory stream And the buzzards own the carcass of your dream?

8. Mel Gibson's father doesn't think there was a Holocaust? Great. I don't think there's a movie. We're even.

9. The truth is that we live out our lives putting off all that can be put off; perhaps we all know deep down that we are immortal and that sooner or later all men will do and know all things.

10. Like all real heroes, Charley had a fatal flaw. He refused to believe that he had gonorrhea, whereas the truth was that he did.

11. Pretend hard enough and maybe it will go away.

12. Yet still we hug the dear deceit.

13. Yesterday I parked my car in a tow-away zone...when I came back the entire area was missing.

14. Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.

15. Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the state has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied.

16. All men think all men mortal but themselves.

17. To most of us nothing is so invisible as an unpleasant truth. Though it is held before our eyes, pushed under our noses, rammed down our throats - we know it not.

18. 'Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.'

19. 'The rock is gonna fall on us,' he stood and told the class The professor put his chalk down and peered out through his glasses But he went on and said; 'I've seen it, high up on the hill If it doesn't fall this year then very soon it will!'

20. If you wish to attain holy recollection, you will do so not by receiving but by denying.

21. Ivan Ilych saw that he was dying, and he was in continual despair. In the depth of his heart he knew he was dying, but not only was he not accustomed to the thought, he simply did not and could not grasp it. The syllogism he had learnt from Kiesewetter's Logic: 'Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal,' had always seemed to him correct as applied to Caius, but certainly not as applied to himself. That Caius - man in the abstract - was mortal, was perfectly correct, but he was not Caius, not an abstract man, but a creature quite, quite separate from all others.

22. There are none so blind as those who will not see.

23. You don't know things anywhere! You live in a dream; you manufacture illusions!

24. I don't have a drinking problem 'cept when I can't get a drink.

25. TRUE! - nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?

26. I have loved my German people and my fatherland with a warm heart. I have done my duty by the laws of my people and I am sorry this time my people were led by men who were not soldiers and that crimes were committed of which I had no knowledge. Germany, good luck.

27. Your Englishman, confronted by something abnormal will always pretend that it isn't there. If he can't pretend that, he will look through the object, or round it, or above it or below it, or in any direction except into it. If, however, you force him to look into it, he will at once pretend that he sees the object not for what it is but for something that he would like it to be.

28. When the wayfarer whistles in the dark, he may be disavowing his timidity, but he does not see any more clearly for doing so.

29. Sanity can take one of two forms: That of either ignorance, or denial.

30. My life is in denial, and when I die, baptized in eternal fire I'll shed so many tears

31. 'Hello Rabbit, is that you?' 'Let's pretend it isn't', said Rabbit, 'and see what happens.'

32. I did not hang Calhoun and shoot Clay.

33. First silence. Then denial. Then support of the insupportable. Then vilification of the dissenters. The pattern is as old as time.

34. Ahern has had his speaking style described as 'Bertispeak 'It is not correct, and if I said so, I was not correct -- I cannot recall if I said it, but I did not say, or if I did, I did not mean to say it -- ' [6]

35. I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I'm gonna say this again. I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinski. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time, never. These allegations are false, and I need to go back to work for the American people.

36. Because I beat the Jews in chess. I beat them badly too, I beat them very badly... Plus, on top of that I exposed them as cheating in chess! As outright crooks. Plus, I exposed the holocaust as never happened. Totally made up. The Jews are goddamn liars. There is not a shred of truth to this holocaust.

37. [R Kelly]'s got a lot of balls. Talking about 'it ain't me'. Got a damn sex tape out; 'it ain't me'. Motherfucker, we know what you look like. That's you, okay? There's a damn Soul Train award right next to the bed.

38. Let us retrace our steps: I have deceived you: Nothing is here I could not frankly tell you: No hint of guilt, or faithlessness, or threat. Dreams-they are madness. Staring eyes-illusion. Let us return, hear music, and forget . . .

39. I'm not paranoid. I'm not a dope. I'm not like a lot of these... paranoid dopes.

40. Laugh if you want to / Or say you don't care / If you cannot see it / You think it's not there / It doesn't work that way.

41. When an official declares something false, chances are that it is. When he or she says it is absolutely false, chances are it is true. ... The overemphasis sticks out like Pinocchio's nose.

42. Your denial is beneath you, and thanks to the use of hallucinogenic drugs, I see through you.

43. I heard somebody say that the war ended today, but everybody knows it's going still.

44. ?Que no quiero verla! Dile a la luna que venga, que no quiero ver la sangre de Ignacio sobre la arena. ?Que no quiero verla!

45. What is art but the denial of life?

46. People don't like reality, they don't like common sense, until age forces it on them.

47. A man has only one way of being immortal on earth: he has to forget he is a mortal.

48. Denial was a weapon; it killed truth, numbed the mind, and I was a junkie.

49. The last thing in my head was a relationship, a girlfriend, anything. I remember the first few days hanging out with Vanessa; in the front of my brain I'm thinking, No way. A real guy thing, you know? No fucking way, man. But somewhere in the back is the real truth, and you know you're fucked. It was practically like I'd said 'Never' - and boom. You know? Boom. (2003)

50. I accept responsibility for U-boat warfare from 1933 onward, and of the entire navy from 1943 on, but to make me responsible for what happened to Jews in Germany, or Russian soldiers on the east front - it is so ridiculous all I can do is laugh.

51. I don't believe this man has any notion of what is going on in the world. He is acute, in no ways dull, but his mind seems to have blocked out the salient features of the trials thus far. He rejects the atrocities, the killing of millions of Jews, the barbarism of the SS, the entire criminal modus operandi of the Nazi Party. He sees only that he was innocent of any crime, past or present, and that any attempt to incriminate him or any of the others on trial with him is political connivery. He feels Germany's actions were the result of oppression after the last war, on the one hand, and on the other takes no cognizance of his own culpability in being a faithful servant to Hitler and his regime. He denies atrocities at sea and is still doubtful about them on land.

52. I accept responsibility for the camps, but as far as measures against the Jews, I had nothing to do with them. Those orders came from the RSHA. Himmler sent orders to Kaltenbrunner, who transmitted them to Mueller of the Gestapo, and the latter had the entire extermination program under him. That was the way all of Himmler's orders went. I did not participate in the murder of the Jews.

53. Himmler chose certain camps and, together with Kaltenbrunner and Mueller, ordered the commandants of these camps to carry out the extermination program. This was done in the chain of command as I have just told you. I emphasize that it was Himmler to Kaltenbrunner to Mueller to Gluecks, who was also one of my subordinate generals, to the individual concentration camp commandants, who had been selected by Himmler to perform the exterminations. Otherwise, Himmler would have had to give the orders to me because I was technically in charge of the concentration camps. What I am trying to bring out is that although I am responsible for the camps, and the extermination program took place within these camps, I am not responsible for the extermination program itself, because these orders did not go through me, but went through the chain of individuals I have just mentioned.

54. Ach! If Hitler had given me an immoral order I would have refused. Think of it! To break teeth out of a dead body! Think of it! Why, if I had been only a simple soldier, I would not have obeyed. I would have said that it was against my religious conviction. That dog Pohl knew all about it.

55. If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done.

56. There wasn't any shoot to kill order. That was a fabrication.

57. Since it is the Other within us who is old, it is natural that the revelation of our age should come to us from outside - from others. We do not accept it willingly.

58. Eppur si muove