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Self-justification… will protect high self-esteem to avoid dissonance, but it will also protect low self-esteem if that is a default self-perception.

How do you get an honest man to lose his ethical compass? You get him to take one step at a time, and self-justification will do the rest.

A richer understanding of how and why our minds work as they do is the first step toward breaking the self-justification habit.

…our efforts at self-justification are all designed to serve our need to feel good about what we have done, what we believe, and who we are.

…once reciprocity kicks in, self-justification will follow… The power of the flower is unconscious.

We need a few trusted naysayers in our lives, critics who are willing to puncture our protective bubble of self-justifications and yank us back to reality when we veer too far off.

Parent blaming is a popular and convenient form of self-justification because it allows people to live less uncomfortably with their regrets and imperfections.

…an understanding of memory and self-justification leads us to a more nuanced perspective: a person doesn’t have to be lying to be wrong.

…the vast majority of couples who drift apart do so slowly, over time, in a snowballing pattern of blame and self-justification.

…misunderstanding, conflicts, personality differences, and even angry quarrels are not the assassins of love; self-justification is.