Delude

Don't delude yourself.

I underestimated teenagers' ability to delude themselves.

It is an old strategy of tyrants to delude their victims into fighting their battles for them.

My life is a mess of numerous inchoate pursuits which I continuously delude myself into thinking I will complete.

Ralph Wiggum is generally employed as a bottomless fount of glorious non sequiturs, but in “I Love Lisa” he stands in for every oblivious chump who ever deluded himself into thinking that with persistence, determination, and a pure heart he can win the girl of his dreams.

To delude the nation by an airy phantom.

It deludes thy search.