Delusion (n.) contains a piece of forgotten truth, distorted on its return; the delusion's compulsive conviction flows from that core of truth and spreads to the errors wrapped around it.
A Delusion (n.) that cannot even in principle be unmasked is no delusion.
A Delusion (n.) is a patch laid over the place where the ego's tie to reality first tore.
A Delusion (n.) can exist for years without harm; what decides is how much energy it draws, not whether it is there.
A Fallacy (n.) can be the Capitol: when Epictetus pleaded that a missing step was hardly burning down the Capitol, Rufus answered that here the missing step was the Capitol.
Fallacy (n.) given free play in consciousness is comic, because a preconscious cathexis costs more to set up than an unconscious one.
A Fallacy (n.) is not less of a fallacy for being fashionable.
Folly (n.) grows more grass for the philosopher in its green valleys than cleverness does on its barren heights, and one should always come down from those heights.
Folly (n.) is the ego bending itself out of shape to avoid a break with its masters, which is why human follies look like the perversions.
Folly (n.) is men's choicest treasure: Socrates said they grew so angry they wanted to bite him whenever he took a stupid idea from them, for they regarded as love what confirmed them in their folly.
Folly (n.) pursues its perpetrator with consequences: the revenge is that only when it is too late does he perceive what he has done.
A Gaffe (n.) is judged less by what was said than by who clipped it.
A Gaffe (n.) is a sentence that works harder for your opponent than anything his staff wrote.
A Gaffe (n.) gets quoted more often than the speech it interrupted.
A Gaffe (n.) is like a zipper that fails one tooth and takes the whole front with it.