“When I look back on my life nowadays, which I sometimes do, what strikes me most forcibly about it is that what seemed at the time most significant and seductive, seems now most futile and absurd. For instance, success in all of its various guises; being known and being praised; ostensible pleasures, like acquiring money or seducing women, or traveling, going to and fro in the world and up and down in it like Satan, exploring and experiencing whatever Vanity Fair has to offer. In retrospect all these exercises in self-gratification seem pure fantasy, what Pascal called “licking the earth.” WorldLooksSelfSometimesSeemsEarthPleasureKnownFantasyExerciseOffersPureFairsVariousStrikesSignificantAbsurdInstanceVanitySatanExploringUp And DownGratificationSeductiveSeducingRetrospectGuiseLickingPascalVanity FairSelf Gratification Author:Malcolm Muggeridge
“The time will come when a spacecraft carrying human beings will leave the earth and set out on a voyage to distant planets - to remote worlds. Today this may seem only an enticing fantasy, but such in fact is not the case. The launching of the first two Soviet Sputniks has already thrown a sturdy bridge from the earth into space, and the way to the stars is open” WorldWayFirstsHumansMayTwoFactsSeemsTodayEarthStarsHuman BeingsSpaceCasesFantasyPlanetsBridgesThrownSovietWorld TodayVoyagesLaunchingSturdyEnticingSpacecraftSputnik Author:Sergei Korolev
“The capacity for loving strangers, whether one thinks of them as fictional beings or stars one will never meet, is a profound reflection on the new consciousness whereby every individual leads his or life while aware of all the billions of other people on Earth. Perhaps it is a fantasy or a fallacy that we can feel for so many strangers. Perhaps it is a mask for selfishness. But no matter the modern stress on special effects, there isn't a sight in movies as momentous as shots of a face as its mind is being changed. And only movies have allowed that.” PeopleThinkingFeelsMindMatterEarthFilmFacesIndividualStarsConsciousnessFantasyModernSpecialEffectsChangedReflectionShotsCapacityHollywoodSightStressProfoundStrangerBillionsSelfishnessMaskFallacySpecial Effects Author:Edward Jay Epstein
“The average daydream is about fourteen seconds long and we have about two thousand of them per day. In other words, we spend about half of our waking hours - one-third of our lives on earth - spinning fantasies.” LongTwoEarthHoursHalfFantasyOur LivesThousandThirdsAverageSecondsWakingSpinningDaydreamingFourteen Book:The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human Source: The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human
“There are some people who can never see a little cloud of fantasy float across the horizon of their dreams without building a heavy castle in the air upon it, and bringing it to earth.” PeopleLittlesDreamEarthFantasyAirBuildingCloudsHeavyHorizonFloatsCastlesCastles In The Air Book:I Pose Source: I Pose
“Civilization, that great fraud of our times, has promised man that by complicating his existence it would multiply his pleasures. ... Civilization has promised man freedom, at the cost of giving up everything dear to him, which it arrogantly treated as lies and fantasies. ... Hour by hour needs increase and are nearly always unsatisfied, peopling the earth with discontented rebels. The superfluous has become a necessity and luxuries indispensable.” MenNeedsGivingEarthLyingHoursPleasureExistenceFantasyCivilizationCostGiving UpIncreaseDearTreatedLuxuryOur TimeFraudRebelIndispensableSuperfluousUnsatisfied Author:Isabelle Eberhardt