Not to compete with your bit of wisdom for the day but these are two quotes I like that add to what you have stated. Hope you don't mind. I have a huge collection of quotes.
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” Carl Sagan
"I have formed the opinion over the years this notion of false certainty is at the root of much human suffering and huge mistakes. Feelings of certainty on a subject stops people from learning more, questioning assumptions, and leads to simplemindedness." Thinking on RFM
"And I have been drunk now for over two weeks I passed out and I rallied and I sprung a few leaks But I got stop wishing, got to go fishing, down to rock bottom again"
It is very hard sometimes to resist the urge to "throw good money after bad," as another similar saying goes. There is a point though where you just have to admit that you made a bad investment and "cut your losses"--another good saying.
I would be inclined to think that this quote applies to the mindset of the 11 "Witnesses" who played along with Joseph Smith's scam.
On days when I'm less charitable, I'm inclined to think that they knew from day one that it was a scam and were willing co-collaborators.
TBMs often ask, as a rhetorical question, why none of the "witnesses" ever retracted or denied their testimonies as witnesses.
I always ignore the fact that TBMs usually intend this only as a rhetorical question and give them the obvious answer. The answer is that they never publicly and formally retracted their witness testimonies because if they had it would have been tantamount to confessing that: (1) they were liars and cheats who were only now trying to come clean; or (2) they were extremely gullible and foolish men who fell for what should have easily been detected as a scam.
Neither confession would be appealing to those men--especially in an age when having reputations for honesty and intelligence were of the utmost importance. While they could have gotten brownie points for belatedly coming clean after there was no longer any possibility for them to profit from the scam, the damage to their reputations would have been worse than just continuing with the pretense of sincerity about what they thought they witnessed.
Cherish your doubts, for doubt is the attendant of truth. Doubt is the key to the door of knowledge; it is the servant of discovery. A belief which may not be questioned binds us to error, for there is incompleteness and imperfection in every belief. Doubt is the touchstone of truth; it is an acid which eats away the false. Let no one fear for the truth, that doubt may consume it; for doubt is a testing of belief. The truth stands boldly and unafraid; it is not shaken by the testing; For truth, if it be truth, arises from each testing stronger, more secure. Those that would silence doubt are filled with fear; their houses are built on shifting sands. But those who fear not doubt, and know its use; are founded on rock. They shall walk in the light of growing knowledge; the work of their hands shall endure. Therefore let us not fear doubt, but let us rejoice in its help: It is to the wise as a staff to the blind; doubt is the attendant of truth. – Robert Weston, Unitarian Universalist minister