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Illusion Quotes

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Illusion Quotes

“While we only look at Nature it is fair to say that Autumn is the end of the year; but it is still more true that Autumn is the beginning of the year.... Autumn is the time when in fact the leaves bud. Leaves wither because winter begins; but they also wither because spring is already beginning, because new buds are being made, as tiny as percussion caps out of which the spring will crack.... It is only an optical illusion that my flowers die in autumn; for in reality they are born.”

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Author:Karel Capek
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“But deepest of all illusory Appearances, for hiding Wonder, as for many other ends, are your two grand fundamental world-enveloping Appearances, SPACE and TIME. These, as spun and woven for us from before Birth itself, to clothe our celestial ME for dwelling here, and yet to blind it, lie all-embracing, as the universal canvas, or warp and woof, whereby all minor Illusions, in this Phantasm Existence, weave and paint themselves. In vain, while here on Earth, shall you endeavor to strip them off; you can, at best, but rend them asunder for moments, and look through.”

WorldLooksTwoEndsMomentsEarthLyingSpaceExistenceWonderBirthIllusionUniversalFundamentalsBlindPaintAppearanceVainEndeavorHidingMinorsCanvasTime And SpaceDwellingCelestialWovenIllusorySpunWarp
Book:Carlyle Reader
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“It is easy to remove the mind from harping on the lost illusion of immortality. The disciplined intellect fears nothing and craves no sugar-plum at the day's end, but is content to accept life and serve society as best it may. Personally I would not care for immortality in the least. There is nothing better than oblivion, since in oblivion there is no wish unfulfilled. We had it before we were born, yet did not complain. Shall we whine because we know it will return? It is Elysium enough for me, at any rate.”

KnowsMindMayEndsEnoughCareLostWishEasyBornAcceptingAtheismReturnIllusionRateIntellectPositive AtheismComplainingImmortalityRemoveSugarOblivionCraveFear NotFear NothingPlumsElysium
Author:H. P. Lovecraft
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“Those who had been riding the upward wave decide now is the time to get out. Those who thought the increase would be forever find their illusion destroyed abruptly, and they, also, respond to the newly revealed reality by selling or trying to sell. And thus the rule, supported by the experience of centuries: the speculative episode always ends not with a whimper but with a bang.”

TryingEndsRealityWould BeForeverCenturyIllusionIncreaseSellsInvestingWaveSellingDestroyedRidingEpisodesBangs
Book:A Short History of Financial Euphoria
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“I have never had illusions about the value of my individual contribution! I realized early that what a man or a woman does is built on what those who have gone before have done, that its real value depends on making the matter in hand a little clearer, a little sounder for those who come after. Nobody begins or ends anything. Each person is a link, weak or strong, in an endless chain. One of our gravest mistakes is persuading ourselves that nobody has passed this way before.”

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Author:Ida Tarbell
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“Love is what's left when being in love is gone, okay? It's when you care about someone and you hope they're happy, but you're not under any illusions about them. Maybe that kind of love is not exciting and passionate and all those things that fade with time. All those things that you're so keen on. But in the end it's the only kind of love that really matters.”

KindEndsMatterCareLeftLove IsGoneIllusionOkayExcitingPassionateFadesBeing In LoveKinds Of LoveCares About Someone
Book:Man and Boy: A Novel
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“To let go of the illusion that I'm in control is an important lesson, because I tend to be a person who likes to be in control, not only of my art but of my life and things around me, and it can be healthy up to a certain point, but at the end of the day, we have to go on faith and learn to let go and ride the wave.”

PersonsArtImportantEndsCertainGoes OnHealthyLessonsLetting GoIllusionWaveLikesThe End Of The DayImportant LessonsLearn To Let Go
Author:Lenny Kravitz
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“Either the material order is the whole of being, wherein all transcendence is an illusion, or it is the phenomenal surface - mysterious, beautiful, terrible, harsh, and haunting - of a world of living spirits.... One should... be able to recognize that it is only the latter view that has ever had the power - over centuries and in every realm of human accomplishment - to summon desire beyond the boring limits marked by mortality, to endow the will with constancy and purpose, and to shape imagination towards ends that should not be possible within the narrow economies of the flesh.”

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Author:David Bentley Hart
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“That has been a very strong message, and I feel that is going to continue, but there is a shift coming and they bring that into their messages. This time on the planet is changing for us. Yes, we've lived lifetimes as a human being in this illusion and this separated space, but that phase is coming to an end now and we are beginning to be launched into a new phase on the Earth plane where we will start waking up.”

FeelsHumansHas BeensEndsEarthStrongHuman BeingsSpacePlanetsMessagesIllusionWake UpLifetimePlanesWakingVery StrongPhasesComing To An End
Author:Christine McCormick Day
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“There are lots of signs that average Israelis want peace. But after such a long war - this conflict has been going on now for 120 years - you have a fifth generation being born into it on both sides. Such a conflict creates hatred, fears, stereotypes, and demonizations of the other. It would be an illusion to believe you can put an end to this overnight.”

WantYearsBelieveLongHas BeensWarEndsWould BeSidesBornGenerationsConflictIllusionHatredAverageStereotypeBoth SidesFifthBelieve You Can
Author:Uri Avnery
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“I don't want to fool people. If I wanted to do that, I would be working with virtual reality. I want to operate on the other level, the other end of the illusion spectrum. I want to create the worst possible illusions so it doesn't really fool people, but instead give people a measure of their own belief. It makes them aware of how much they need to be fooled in order to understand the world around them.”

PeopleIfsWorldWantNeedsGivingEndsRealityWould BeWantedOrderBeliefLevelsWorstFoolIllusionSpectrumFooledVirtual Reality
Author:Vik Muniz
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“For ever and ever, we say when we are young, or in our prayers. Twice, we say it. Old One, do we not? For ever and ever ... so that a thing may be for ever, a life or a love or a quest, and yet begin again, and be for ever just as before. And any ending that may seem to come is not truly an ending, but an illusion. For Time does not die, Time has neither beginning nor end, and so nothing can end or die that has once had a place in Time.”

MayDoeEndsSeemsYoungDiesPrayerIllusionQuestsOur PrayersBegin Again
Book:Silver on the Tree
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“Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control. We can love and care for others but we cannot possess our children, lovers, family, or friends. We can assist them, pray for them, and wish them well, yet in the end their happiness and suffering depend on their thoughts and actions, not on our wishes.”

WellsChildrenEndsCareActionSufferingWishDependsPrayingLoversIllusionOur ChildrenSurrenderThoughts And ActionsLove And CareIllusion Of Control
Author:Jack Kornfield
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“We are here among you as seekers of refuge from our present-your future-a time of worldwide famine, exhausted fuel supplies, terminal poverty-the end of the capitalistic experiment. Once we came to understand the simpl...truth that earth's resources were limited, in fact soon to run out, the whole capitalistic illusion fell to pieces. Those of us who spoke this truth were denounced as heretics, as enemies of the prevailing economic faith. Like religious Dissenters of an earlier day.”

EndsWholeFactsRunningEarthReligiousEnemyPovertyPiecesEconomicIllusionResourcesExperimentsFuelSpokesRefugeExhaustedYour FutureSeekersFamineSuppliesPrevailingHereticTerminal
Author:Thomas Pynchon
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“The New Testament is a brutal destroyer of human illusions. If you follow Jesus and don't end up dead, it appears you have some explaining to do. The stark signifier of the human condition is one who spoke up for love and justice and was done to death for his pains. The traumatic truth of human history is a mutilated body.”

IfsHumansEndsDoneBodyPainJesusJusticeConditionsIllusionSpokesHuman ConditionBrutalTestamentHuman HistoryExplainingNew TestamentStarksDestroyers
Book:Reason, Faith, & Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate
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“You know, when I was in love, I was always inventing things. A whole array of tricks, illusions and optical effects to amuse my lady friend. I think she'd had enough of my inventions by the end... I wanted to create a voyage to the moon just for her, but what I should have given her was a real journey on earth.”

ThinkingKnowsShouldRealEndsEnoughWholeWantedEarthGivenJourneyEffectsMoonIllusionShould HaveTricksInventionVoyagesInventingHad EnoughInventing Things
Author:Mathias Malzieu
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“Of all the islands he'd visited, two stood out. The island of the past, he said, where the only time was past time and the inhabitants were bored and more or less happy, but where the weight of illusion was so great that the island sank a little deeper into the river every day. And the island of the future, where the only time was the future, and the inhabitants were planners and strivers, such strivers, said Ulises, that they were likely to end up devouring one another.”

LittlesSaidTwoEndsPastIllusionRiversWeightDeeperBoredIslandsOnly TimePlannersDevouringStrivers
Author:Roberto Bolano
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“Only later did I come to understand that to be a mother is to be an illusion. No matter how vigilant, in the end a mother can't protect her child - not from pain, or horror, or the nightmare of violence, from sealed trains moving rapidly in the wrong direction, the depravity of strangers, trapdoors, abysses, fires, cars in the rain, from chance.”

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Book:Great House: A Novel
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“It is the Land of Truth (enchanted name!), surrounded by a wide and stormy ocean, the true home of illusion, where many a fog bank and ice, that soon melts away, tempt us to believe in new lands, while constantly deceiving the adventurous mariner with vain hopes, and involving him in adventures which he can never leave, yet never bring to an end.”

BelieveEndsHomeNamesLandAdventureOceanIllusionWideIceVainDeceivingFogAdventurousInvolvingEnchantedStormyMarinersTrue Home
Author:Immanuel Kant
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“When we were small, Rose and I used to play a game called connect the dots. I loved it. I loved drawing a line from dot number 1 to dot number 2 and so on. Most of all, I loved the moment when the chaotic sprinkle of dots resolved itself into a picture. That's what stories do. They connect the random dots of life into a picture. But it's all an illusion. Just try to connect the dots of life. You'll end up with a lunatic scribble.”

TryingEndsPlayMomentsStoriesUsedGamesLinesNumbersIllusionRoseDrawingChaoticLunaticDotsSprinklesScribblesNumber 2
Book:Chime
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“For a man’s life would become intolerable, if he knew what was going to happen to him. He would be made aware of future evils, and would suffer their agonies in advance, while he would get no joy of present blessings since he would know how they would end. Ignorance is the necessary condition of human happiness, and it has to be admitted that on the whole mankind observes that condition well. We are almost entirely ignorant of ourselves; absolutely of others. In ignorance, we find our bliss; in illusions, our happiness.”

IfsKnowsMenHumansWellsMadeEndsWholeHappensWould BeJoySufferingEvilKnow HowConditionsMankindIgnoranceBlessingIllusionIgnorantBlissAgonyHuman Happiness
Author:Anatole France
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“They stared at her curiously, and she caught snatches of conversation in two or three languages. It wasn't hard to guess their content, and she smiled a bit primly. Youth, it appeared, was full of illusions as to how much sexual energy two people might have to spare while hiking forty or so kilometers a day, concussed, stunned, diseased, on poor food and little sleep, alternating caring for a wounded man with avoiding becoming dinner for every carnivore within range - and with a coup to plan for the end.”

PeopleMenLittlesTwoEndsHardMightThreeEnergyLanguageBitsSleepPoorPlansYouthBecomingConversationIllusionCaughtCaringDinnerRangeFortyHikingWoundedSparesAvoidingStunnedDiseasedCoupsCarnivores
Author:Lois McMaster Bujold
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“It was a part of myself that was my enemy; I still had a childish illusion that the flesh on my own bones was somehow unique and precious to the universe, in some obscure corner of my mind I wanted the others to love me and make exceptions for me simply because I felt heat and cold, pain and loneliness as they did. Now this was gone once and for all, and I understood there were no exceptions and on one was invulnerable, we all had to share the same conditions and in the end this was simply mortality, the mortality of things as well as ourselves. After that I didn't expect anybody to love me.”

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Author:MacDonald Harris
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“It is often tragic to see how blatantly a man bungles his own life and the lives of others yet remains totally incapable of seeing how much the whole tragedy originates in himself, and how he continually feeds it and keeps it going. Not consciously, of course—for consciously he is engaged in bewailing and cursing a faithless world that recedes further and further into the distance. Rather, it is an unconscious factor which spins the illusions that veil his world. And what is being spun is a cocoon, which in the end will completely envelop him.”

MenWorldEndsWholeCoursesSeeingIllusionTragedyRemainsDistanceFactorsEngagedUnconsciousTragicIncapableVeilsLives Of OthersSpunCursingCocoonsFaithless
Book:pt. 1. The archetypes and the collective unconscious
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“Every age is fed on illusions, lest men should renounce life early and the human race come to an end.”

MenShouldHumansEndsAgeRaceHistoryYouthIllusionHuman RaceFedsCynicismAltruismRenounce
Book:Greatest Works of Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness, Nostromo, The Duel, Lord Jim, Victory, The Shadow-Line, The Arrow of Gold, The Secret Agent, The Nigger of the Narcissus & Under Western Eyes: Classics of World Literature from One of the Greatest English Novelists (Including Author’s Memoirs, Letters & Critical Essays)
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“Birth leads to death, death precedes birth. So if you want to see life as it really is, it is rounded on both the sides by death. Death is the beginning and death is again the end, and life is just the illusion in between. You feel alive between two deaths; the passage joining one death to another you call life. Buddha says this is not life. This life is dukkha - misery. This life is death.”

IfsWantFeelsTwoEndsLife IsDeathSidesAliveBirthIllusionMiseryThis LifePassagesJoining
Author:Rajneesh
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“People with autism never, ever feel at ease, wherever we are. Because of this, we wander off - or run away - in search of some location where we do feel at ease. While we're on this search, it doesn't occur to us to consider how or where we're going to end up. We get swallowed up by the illusion that unless we can find a place to belong, we are going to be all alone in the world.”

PeopleWorldFeelsEndsRunningIllusionWanderEaseRunning AwayAutismLocationAll Alone
Book:The Reason I Jump: one boy's voice from the silence of autism: one boy's voice from the silence of autism
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“I've got my laptop, but it troubles me in many ways. I don't have Twitter or Facebook or anything like that. It ruins a romantic idea, which might just be an illusion, a sense of depth or continuity. I know there are lots of positives in the evolution of technology, but I also think it will be responsible for the end of a unique character, of a specific kind of geographical culture. The world is getting so small, and mass production is getting so big. Everything is in danger of becoming the same.”

ThinkingKnowsWorldWayKindIdeasEndsCharacterBigsMightCultureTechnologyTroubleDangerEvolutionBecomingMassUniqueIllusionResponsibleDepthProductionsRuinsContinuityBeing ResponsibleLaptopsMass ProductionEvolution Of Technology
Author:Laura Marling
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“Life is one, said the Buddha, and the Middle Way to the end of suffering in all its forms is that which leads to the end of the illusion of separation, which enables man to see, as a fact as clear as sunlight, that all mankind, and all other forms in manifestation, are one unit, the infinitely variable appearance of an indivisible Whole.”

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Book:An Invitation to the Buddhist Way of Life for Western Readers
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