Life & Wisdom Quote by Laura Riding

Riding turns self-deception into sorcery, and the metaphor is doing more than adding color. “Misconceptions about oneself” sounds mild, almost therapeutic. Then she snaps it into “bad magic,” implying a force that doesn’t just mislead but actively warps reality. Magic here is not whimsy; it’s causation without accountability. If you hold a false story about who you are, you start casting spells on your choices, your relationships, your sense of what you deserve. The world begins to reorganize around the lie because you keep reenacting it.

The clause “that one does not correct where possible” is the moral hinge. Riding isn’t hunting for unattainable self-knowledge; she’s indicting neglect. Where possible means there are moments when truth is available: a pattern you can name, an apology you could make, a fear you could admit. Failing to correct isn’t just ignorance, it’s complicity. That’s the subtext: the self is not a private myth you’re entitled to; it’s an instrument that affects other people.

Context matters. Riding, a modernist poet who grew increasingly severe about language and truth, distrusts the consolations of artful illusion when they drift into self-mystification. Her phrasing carries a poet’s suspicion that words can enchant, even imprison. The line reads like a warning to writers and ordinary people alike: your personal mythology is never “just” a story. If you don’t edit it, it edits your life.