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Illusion Quotes

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Illusion Quotes

“Either Christianity is true or it's false. If you bet that it's true, and you believe in God and submit to Him, then if it IS true, you've gained God, heaven, and everything else. If it's false, you've lost nothing, but you've had a good life marked by peace and the illusion that ultimately, everything makes sense. If you bet that Christianity is not true, and it's false, you've lost nothing. But if you bet that it's false, and it turns out to be true, you've lost everything and you get to spend eternity in hell.”

IfsBelieveTurnsLostHeavenChristianityHellIllusionEternityBeing TrueMake SenseBelieve In GodGood LifeSubmitTrue YouLost Everything
Author:Blaise Pascal
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“We lost not only through death, but also by leaving and being left, by changing and letting go and moving on. And our losses include not only our separations and departures from those we love, but our conscious and unconscious losses of romantic dreams, impossible expectations, illusions of freedom and power, illusions of safety -- and the loss of our own younger self, the self that thought it would always be unwrinkled and invulnerable and immortal.”

SelfDreamMovingLostLeftLossImpossibleLetting GoIllusionExpectationsConsciousSafetyLeavingSeparationUnconsciousImmortalDepartureThose We LoveLetting Go And Moving OnConscious And UnconsciousYounger SelfIllusion Of Freedom
Author:Judith Viorst
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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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“What, then, is that incalculable feeling that deprives the mind of the sleep necessary to life? A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity.”

MenWorldFeelsMindReasonFeelingsHomeHandsLightUniverseActorsLostMemoriesSleepLandIllusionStrangerDivorceSettingFamiliarSettingsAliensRemedyAbsurdityExileDeprivedPromised LandMyth Of Sisyphus
Book:The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays
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“For me, it is as though at every moment the actual world had completely lost its actuality. As though there was nothing there; asthough there were no foundations for anything or as though it escaped us. Only one thing, however, is vividly present: the constant tearing of the veil of appearances; the constant destruction of everything in construction. Nothing holds together, everything falls apart.”

WorldMomentsTogetherFallLostOne ThingIllusionDestructionFoundationConstantAppearanceConstructionVeilsFalling ApartActualityEverything Falls Apart
Author:Eugene Ionesco
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“The langour of Youth - how unique and quintessential it is! How quickly, how irrecoverably, lost! The zest, the generous affections, the illusions, the despair, all the traditional attributes of Youth - all save this come and go with us through life...These things are a part of life itself; but languor - the relaxation of yet unwearied sinews, the mind sequestered and self-regarding, the sun standing still in the heavens and the earth throbbing to our own pulse - that belongs to Youth alone and dies with it.”

MindStillsSelfEarthDiesLostHeavenSunYouthDespairUniqueIllusionStandingAffectionTraditionalGenerousAttributesRelaxationPulseComes And GoesParts Of LifeZestStanding StillQuintessentialBrideshead Revisited
Author:Evelyn Waugh
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“The magician seemed to promise that something torn to bits might be mended without a seam, that what had vanished might reappear, that a scattered handful of doves or dust might be reunited by a word, that a paper rose consumed by fire could be made to bloom from a pile of ash. But everyone knew that it was only an illusion. The true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of things it contained to vanish, to become so thoroughly lost, that they might never have existed in the first place.”

WorldFirstsMadeMightLostBitsAbilityFireMagicBrokenPromisePaperIllusionLaysRoseDustAshesTornMagicianHandfulConsumedDoveReunitedBroken World
Author:Michael Chabon
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“He's lost something, some illusion I used to think was necessary to him. He's come to realize he too is human. Or is this a performance, for my benefit, to show me he's up-to-date? Maybe men shouldn't have been told about their own humanity. It's only made them uncomfortable. It's only made them trickier, slier, more evasive, harder to read.”

ThinkingMenHumansHas BeensMadeShowsUsedHumanityLostRealizingBenefitsIllusionPerformancesHarderUncomfortableShow MeUp To Date
Author:Margaret Atwood
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“When a man sleeps, he is steeped and lost in a limp toneless happiness: awake he is restless, tortured by his body and the illusion of existence. Why have men spent the centuries seeking to overcome the awakened body? Put it to sleep, that is a better way. Let it serve only to turn the sleeping soul over, to change the blood-stream and thus make possible a deeper and more refined sleep.”

MenWaySoulBodyTurnsLostSleepExistenceBloodCenturyIllusionOvercomingSeekingDeeperAwakeStreamsRestlessAwakenedBetter WaysRefined
Author:Flann O'Brien
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“The worst was relizing that I’d lost him for nothing because he’d been rght about all of it-- vampires, my parents, everything. He’d told me my parents lied. I yelled at him for it. He forgave me. He told me vampires were killers. I told him they weren’t, even after one stalked Raquel. He told me Charity was dangerous. I didn’t listen, and she killed Courtney. He told me vampires were treacherous, and did I get the message? Not until my illusions had been destroyed by my parents’ confession.”

LostParentWorstDangerousMessagesIllusionCharityDestroyedVampireKillersConfessionLiedTreacherousCourtney
Author:Claudia Gray
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“To be godless is probably the first step to innocence," he said, "to lose the sense of sin and subordination, the false grief for things supposed to be lost." So by innocence you mean not an absence of experience, but an absence of illusions." An absence of need for illusions," he said. "A love of and respect for what is right before your eyes.”

NeedsFirstsMeanSaidEyeLostLosesSinGriefStepsIllusionAbsenceSupposed To BeInnocenceFirst StepsSubordinationLestatVampire Lestat
Author:Anne Rice
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“Imagine: you've spent all day traipsing round London, lost in a maze of chaos, trying to find a hidden illusion; you've been living on hope, ignoring reality, fuelled only by feelings you don't understand. You've been looking for a dream, never truly believing you'd find it, but now – incredibly – you have. It's right there in front of you – just behind that off-white door. It's there ...”

TryingBelieveFeelingsDreamRealityLostWhiteBehindsImagineDoorsFrontsIllusionChaosLondonLiving OnMazes
Author:Kevin Brooks
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“There are only shades of gray. Black and white are nothing more than lofty ideals in our minds, the standards by which we try to judge things, and map out our place in the world in relevance to them. Good and evil, in their purest form, are as intangible and forever beyond our ability to hold in our hand as any Fae illusion. We can only aim at them, aspire to them, and hope not to get so lost in the shadows that we can no longer aim for the light.”

WorldTryingMindHandsLightFormEvilLostBlackAbilityWhiteForeverJudgingStandardsIllusionShadowIdealsAimGood And EvilMapsGrayShadeBlack And WhiteAspireRelevanceFaeLoftyPlaces In The WorldIntangibleShades Of Gray
Book:Bloodfever: Fever Series
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“How often, you wonder, has the direction of your life been shaped by such misunderstandings? How many opportunities have you been denied--or, for that matter, awarded--because someone failed to see you properly? How many friends have you lost, how many have you gained, because they glimpsed some element of your personality that shone through for only an instant, and in circumstances you could never reproduce? An illusion of water shimmering at the far bend of a highway.”

MatterOpportunityLostWaterWonderPersonalityCircumstancesElementsIllusionInstantDeniedMisunderstandingHighwaysMany Friends
Book:The View from the Seventh Layer: Stories
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“Something I tried to hold onto, to touch if only for a moment, but it slipped away from me like the air, like an illusion, or a dream that floats away and is lost. I wept in my sleep as though it was something I was losing now; a loss I was experiencing for the first time, and not something I had lost a long time ago.”

IfsFirstsLongMomentsDreamLostLossSleepAirLong TimeLosingIllusionFirst TimeFloatsLong Time Ago
Book:Woman at Point Zero
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“Truth is a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, anthropomorphisms, in short a sum of human relations which have been subjected to poetic and rhetorical intensification, translation and decoration […]; truths are illusions of which we have forgotten that they are illusions, metaphors which have become worn by frequent use and have lost all sensuous vigour […]. Yet we still do not know where the drive to truth comes from, for so far we have only heard about the obligation to be truthful which society imposes in order to exist" from, "On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense".”

KnowsHumansHas BeensStillsUseLyingOrderLostMoralHeardTruth IsIllusionArmyRelationForgottenMetaphorObligationPoeticTruthfulWornTranslationsMobileHuman RelationsDecorationBeing TruthfulSensuousRhetoricalAnthropomorphism
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
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“The 'I' casts off the illusion of the 'I' and yet remains 'I'. Such is the paradox of Self-realization. The Realized do not see any paradox in it. Consider the case of the worshipper. He approaches God and prays to be absorbed in Him. He then surrenders himself in faith and by concentration. And what remains afterwards? In the place of the original 'I', self-surrender leaves a residuum of God in which the 'I' is lost. That is the highest form of devotion or surrender and the peak of detachment.”

SelfFormLostCasesPrayingQuietApproachHighestIllusionOriginalsRemainsCastsSurrenderDevotionSelf RealizationRealizationConcentrationParadoxDetachmentWorshippers
Author:Ramana Maharshi
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“And once again I believe that nothing that's important really becomes lost. We just delude ourselves, thinking that we own the things, the moments and the others. Still with me are all the dead persons who I loved, all the friends who turned away, all the happy days that faded. I lost nothing but the illusion that everything could be mine forever.”

ThinkingBelievePersonsStillsImportantMomentsLostI BelieveForeverMinesIllusionFadedHappy Day
Author:Miguel Sousa Tavares
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“Tears and fears and feeling proud To say I love you, right out loud Dreams and schemes and circus crowds I've looked at life that way. But now old friends are acting strange They shake their heads, they say I've changed Something's lost, but something's gained In living every day I've looked at life from both sides now From win and lose, and still somehow It's life's illusions I recall I really don't know life at all”

KnowsWayStillsFeelingsDreamSongWinningLostSidesLosesActingLove YouChangedTearsStrangeProudIllusionCrowdsLoudShakesRecallsSchemesBoth SidesCircusOld FriendsWinning And LosingSay I Love YouI've Changed
Author:Joni Mitchell
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“It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideals which have been instilled in them, and each time they come into contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded.”

KnowsHas BeensRealTruthYoungLostYouthIllusionIdealsContactWoundedBondageWretchedBruisedHuman Bondage
Book:The Essential W. Somerset Maugham Collection
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