self-flattering

Updated: May 14, 2025

S. therefore surrendered himself, as under a coercion that was none of his creating, to a passive acquiescence and a blindness that soothed his constitutional indolence; and he reconciled his feelings to a tyranny which he tolerated, under some self-flattering idea of submitting with resignation to a calamity that he suffered.

Thomas De Quincey - Autobiographical Sketches