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Illusion Quotes

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Illusion Quotes

“Stories hold power because they convey the illusion that life has purpose and direction. Where God is absent from the lives of all but the most blessed, the writer, of all people, replaces that ordering principle. Stories make sense when so much around us is senseless, and perhaps what makes them most comforting is that, while life goes on and pain goes on, stories do us the favor of ending.”

PeopleStoriesPainPurposePrinciplesGoes OnIllusionBlessedFavorsMake SenseComfortingAbsentLife Goes OnPurpose And Direction
Author:John Hodgman
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“People in general attach too much importance to words. They are under the illusion that talking effects great results. As a matter of fact, words are, as a rule, the shallowest portion of all the argument. They but dimly represent the great surging feelings and desires which lie behind. When the distraction of the tongue is removed, the heart listens.”

PeopleHeartMatterFactsFeelingsLyingDesireResultsBehindsTalkingToo MuchEffectsIllusionArgumentImportanceTongueDistractionPortionsMatter Of FactGreat Results
Book:Sister Carrie
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“Comedy is deemed inferior to tragedy primarily because of the social prevalence of narcissistic pathology. In other words people who are too self important to laugh at their own frequently ridiculous behavior have vested interest in gravity because it supports their illusions of grandosity.”

PeopleImportantSelfSocialInterestSupportLaughingComedyBehaviorIllusionTragedyRidiculousGravityInferiorsNarcissisticPathologyVested InterestsIt Support
Book:Wild Ducks Flying Backward
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“Of course I know that the twins are only words on a page, and I'm certainly not the sort of writer who talks to his characters or harbours any illusions about the creative process. But at the same time, I think it's juvenile and arrogant when literary writers compulsively remind their readers that the characters aren't real. People know that already. The challenge is to make an intelligent reader suspend disbelief, to seduce them into the reality of a narrative.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsWritingRealCharacterRealityCoursesProcessChallengesCreativeReaderPagesIllusionIntelligentNarrativeArrogantCreative ProcessTwinsDisbeliefSeducingJuvenileHarbour
Author:Michel Faber
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“If you look at history, even recent history, you see that there is indeed progress. . . . Over time, the cycle is clearly, generally upwards. And it doesn't happen by laws of nature. And it doesn't happen by social laws. . . . It happens as a result of hard work by dedicated people who are willing to look at problems honestly, to look at them without illusions, and to go to work chipping away at them, with no guarantee of success — in fact, with a need for a rather high tolerance for failure along the way, and plenty of disappointments.”

PeopleIfsWayNeedsLooksHardFactsProblemHappensLawSocialResultsProgressWillingHard WorkIllusionDisappointmentHonestlyTolerancePlentyGuaranteesCyclesDedicatedLaws Of NatureChipping AwayResults Of Hard Work
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically getting killed for the ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living (what is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying). I therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions.”

PeopleGivingIdeasReasonLife IsDiesDyingJudgingIllusionExcellentMeaning Of LifeThriveUrgentWorth LivingSisyphusLife Is Not Worth LivingMyth Of Sisyphus
Book:The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays
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“I had come to discover that "safe" was an illusion, a pretense that adults wrapped around their children- and sometimes themselves- to make the world seem comfortable. I had discovered that under that thin cover of let's-pretend, monsters and nightmares lay, and that not all of them came from places like the moonroads or the nightling cities. Some of the monsters were people we knew. People we thought we could trust.”

PeopleWorldChildrenSometimesSeemsCitiesSafeComfortableIllusionAdultsLaysMonstersNightmarePretense
Book:The Silver Door
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“When you are young, you think it's going to be solved by love. But it never is. Being close -- as close as you can get -- to another person only makes clear that impassable distance between you.' If being in love only made people more lonely, why would everyone want it so much?' Because of the illusion. You fall in love, it's intoxicating, and for a little while you feel like you've actually become one with the other person. Merged souls and so on. You think you'll never be lonely again.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWantFeelsLittlesPersonsMadeSoulYoungFallClearLike YouIllusionLonelyDistanceFalling In LoveBeing In Love
Author:Nicole Krauss
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“You have been professing yourself reluctant to throw off your load of illusion because truth was uncertain. Well, it is certain now, yet the burden still weighs you down, while other people are given wings on freer shoulders, people who have not worn themselves out with research, nor spent a decade and more reflecting on these questions.”

PeopleWellsHas BeensStillsCertainGivenResearchIllusionWingsBurdenDecadesShouldersLoadWornUncertainReflectingReluctant
Book:The Confessions
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“The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.”

PeopleGivingRealConditionsTearsDemandGiving UpIllusionCriticismSighAbolitionIllusoryOpiumEmbryosHalosReal HappinessOpiatesSoullessCriticism Of Religion
Book:Early Writings
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“I learned a lot that night. For example, that part of being the magician's assistant means coming face-to-face with illusion. That invisibility is really just knotting your body in a certain way and letting the black curtain fall over you. That people don't vanish into thin air; that when you can't find someone, it's because you've been misdirected to look elsewhere.”

PeopleWayLooksMeanBodyFacesNightCertainFallBlackAirExampleIllusionYour BodyOver YouElsewhereCurtainsMagicianFace To FaceAssistantsInvisibilityThin Air
Book:Vanishing Acts
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“So now I'm going back again I got to get her somehow All the people we used to know They're an illusion to me now Some are mathematicians Some are carpenter's wives Don't know how it all got started I don't what they're doing with their lives But me I'm still on the road Heading for another joint We always did feel the same We just saw it from a different point of view Tangled up in Blue.”

PeopleKnowsFeelsStillsDifferentUsedViewsKnow HowSawsWifeIllusionBluePoint Of ViewMathematicianJointsHeadingsBack AgainTangledCarpenterDifferent Points Of View
Author:Bob Dylan
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“When you want to take over a city, you have to destroy the illusion of safety it provides. You have to hit the large well-protected establishments, find the powerful people who run them and are viewed as invincible, and kill them. You want to destroy the morale first. Once the people's resolve is gone and everyone is scared for their own skin, the city is yours.”

PeopleWantFirstsWellsRunningPowerfulCitiesGoneIllusionSkinsSafetyScaredResolveEstablishmentProtectedInvincibleMoraleMagic Bleeds
Author:Ilona Andrews
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“She wasn't, nor ever had been, under the illusion that marriage was a relationship characterized by endless bliss and romance. Throw any two people together, add the inevitable ups and downs, give the mixture a vigorous stir, and a few stormy arguments were inevitable, no matter how the couple loved each other.”

PeopleGivingTwoMatterTogetherRomanceCoupleIllusionArgumentAddEndlessInevitableBlissMixturesUps & DownsVigorousStormyBest Of Me
Author:Nicholas Sparks
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“The bonds between ourselves and another person exists only in our minds. Memory as it grows fainter loosens them, and notwithstanding the illusion by which we want to be duped and which, out of love, friendship, politeness, deference, duty, we dupe other people, we exist alone. Man is the creature who cannot escape from himself, who knows other people only in himself, and when he asserts the contrary, he is lying.”

PeopleKnowsMenWantMindPersonsLyingGrowsMemoriesDutyCreaturesIllusionContraryPolitenessFriendship LoveDeferenceDupesAlone Man
Book:In Search Of Lost Time, Vol 5: The Captive & The Fugitive
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“What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding. Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions — they are metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained of sensuous force.”

PeopleHumansLongHas BeensSeemsForceIllusionRelationForgottenMetaphorFixedHostWornHuman RelationsBindingUsageWorn OutTruth And LiesDrainedSensuousAnthropomorphismGerman Philosopher
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Illustrated): Friedrich Nietzsche
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“The man who fears to be alone will never be anything but lonely, no matter how much he may surround himself with people. But the man who learns, in solitude and recollection, to be at peace with his own loneliness, and to prefer its reality to the illusion of merely natural companionship, comes to know the invisible companionship of God. Such a one is alone with God in all places, and he alone truly enjoys the companionship of other men, because he loves them in God in Whom their presence is not tiresome, and because of Whom his own love for them can never know satiety.”

PeopleKnowsMenMayMatterWisdomRealityEnjoyNaturalLonelinessSolitudeIllusionLonelyInvisibleSurroundCompanionshipRecollectionTiresomeSatietyAlone With God
Author:Thomas Merton
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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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“One problem with people is that as soon as they fill a space it's them you see and not the space. Large, desolate landscapes stop being large, desolate landscapes once they have people in them. They define what the eye sees. And the human eye is almost always directed at other humans. In this way an illusion is created that humans are more important than those things on earth which are not human. It's a sick illusion.”

PeopleWayHumansImportantProblemEyeEarthSpaceIllusionSickLandscapeDesolateHuman Eyes
Author:Erlend Loe
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“What is illusion? M.: To whom is the illusion? Find it out. Then illusion will vanish. Generally people want to know about illusion and do not examine to whom it is. It is foolish. Illusion is outside and unknown. But the seeker is considered to be known and is inside. Find out what is immediate, intimate, instead of trying to find out what is distant and unknown.”

PeopleKnowsWantTryingKnownIllusionFoolishIntimateSeekers
Book:Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
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“They were not friends. They didn't know each other. It struck Tom like a horrible truth, true for all time, true for the people he had known in the past and for those he would know in the future: each had stood and would stand before him, and he would know time and time again that he would never know them, and the worst was that there would always be the illusion, for a time, that he did know them, and that he and they were completely in harmony and alike. For an instant the wordless shock of his realization seemed more than he could bear.”

PeopleKnowsPastKnownWorstBearsIllusionHarmonyHorribleAll TimeRealizationInstantShockTomsNot Friends
Book:Talented Mr. Ripley ; Ripley under ground ; Ripley's game
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“There are no perfect human beings! Persons can be found who are good, very good indeed, in fact, great. There do in fact exist creators, seers, sages, saints, shakers, and movers...even if they are uncommon and do not come by the dozen. And yet these very same people can at times be boring, irritating, petulant, selfish, angry, or depressed. To avoid disillusionment with human nature, we must first give up our illusions about it.”

PeopleIfsGivingFirstsHumansPersonsFactsFoundHuman BeingsPerfectHuman NatureGiving UpIllusionPerfectionAngryVery GoodSaintCreatorBoringSelfishDozenSageUncommonDisillusionmentIrritatingSeersShakers
Author:Abraham Maslow
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“I wish that one would be persuaded that psychological experiments, especially those on the complex functions, are not improved [by large studies]; the statistical method gives only mediocre results; some recent examples demonstrate that. The American authors, who love to do things big, often publish experiments that have been conducted on hundreds and thousands of people; they instinctively obey the prejudice that the persuasiveness of a work is proportional to the number of observations. This is only an illusion.”

PeopleGivingHas BeensBigsWould BeScienceWishResultsNumbersStudyExampleIllusionFunctionPrejudiceMethodComplexesExperimentsPsychologicalObservationMediocrePublishAmerican Author
Author:Alfred Binet
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“I realized that if I was going to achieve anything in life I had to be aggressive. I had to get out there and go for it... I know fear is an obstacle for some people, but it's an illusion to me.”

PeopleIfsKnowsLifeSportsChallengesAchieveIllusionObstaclesI RealizedAfrican AmericanAggressiveAnything In Life
Book:I can't accept not trying: Michael Jordan on the pursuit of excellence
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“Reality, for all intents and purposes, is just life - the real world, pure and uncut, shot straight to the vein of our souls every day we draw breath. Whether it's good or bad, it's still reality; the opposite of illusion, the foe of fantasy, and the anchor that keeps us stuck on this plane. And thank Buddha it does, because some people need it in huge doses.”

PeopleWorldNeedsDoeStillsRealSoulRealityPurposeFantasyHugePureDrawsIllusionShotsOppositesBreathsStuckPlanesMemorableReal WorldVeinsFoeAnchorsDose
Author:Corey Taylor
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“It helps to resign as the controller of your fate. All that energy we expend to keep things running right is not what's keeping things running right. We're bugs struggling in the river, brightly visible to the trout below. With that fact in mind, people like me make up all these rules to give us the illusion that we are in charge. I need to say to myself, they're not needed, hon. Just take in the buggy pleasures. Be kind to the others, grab the fleck of riverweed, notice how beautifully your bug legs scull.”

PeopleInspirationalNeedsGivingMindKindFactsHelpingRunningEnergyPleasureStruggleFateNeededIllusionRiversLegsLike MeVisibleBe KindBugsTroutControllers
Author:Anne Lamott
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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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