Love Quote by Mika Waltari

Waltari’s line is a cold little X-ray of self-deception: the “heart” isn’t framed as a noble compass, but as a master that tightens the leash. The sentence moves with the logic of a trap. First comes “slave,” a word that strips away the comforting modern idea that feelings are authentic guides. Then comes the double action - “shut his eyes” and “believe” - pairing denial with credulity. We don’t just ignore inconvenient facts; we actively manufacture a reality sturdy enough to hold our hopes.

The intent feels less like moral scolding than diagnosis. Waltari, writing from a Europe that watched ideology harden into faith and faith harden into catastrophe, understands how private emotion scales into public disaster. “What does not please him” is deceptively domestic language; it could be a lover’s betrayal or a politician’s lie. That’s the point. The mechanism is the same: displeasure triggers blindness, hope triggers belief. Desire doesn’t merely bias perception; it recruits perception into its service.

The subtext is bracingly anti-romantic. Waltari refuses to flatter the heart as pure. He treats it as a persuasive propagandist, skilled at editing the world until it matches the story we want to inhabit. The cynicism lands because it’s intimate: you can feel yourself doing it. The line’s elegance is its cruelty - it makes complicity sound ordinary, almost automatic, which is exactly how self-deception survives.