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Illusion Quotes

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Illusion Quotes

“Life is invisible. The illusion is that what we perceive is in some way not a reflection of self. Life reflects the field of attention that we're in.”

Way Self Life Is Attention Awareness Fields Buddhism Illusion Reflection Invisible Perceive

Author:Frederick Lenz

“The idea that positive illusions are in the service of sef-esteem virtually requires that they stay in check. If one develops substantially unrealistic expectations regarding the future that greatly exceed what one is actually able to accomplish, then one is set up for failure and disappointment, leading to lower self-esteem.”

Ifs Ideas Self Able Self Esteem Illusion Expectations Disappointment Accomplish Checks Esteem Exceed Unrealistic Expectations

Author:Shelley E. Taylor

“If you strive to find your Self by using your mind, you will strive and strive in vain, because the mind cannot give you the Truth. You are that Self. All else is illusion of the mind's creation.”

Ifs Giving Mind Self Creation Illusion Strive Vain

Author:Sathya Sai Baba

“The experience of love and the experience of death destroy the illusion of our self-sufficiency. The two are closely connected, and to become fully human we must experience both of them.”

Humans Two Self Illusion Experience Connected Self Sufficiency Sufficiency

Author:David Steindl-Rast

“Being famous gives you a lot of illusions of false self, of self-importance, a grandiosity, it becomes difficult to stay humble and real. You see so many people who don't succeed.”

People Giving Real Self Difficult Succeed Illusion Importance Humble Being Famous Real You Self-importance Stay Humble

Author:Lili Taylor

“It is only when you have become that true Self consciously, when all these illusions have fallen away, that you will be perfectly free and perfectly happy.”

Self Illusion Yoga Fallen True Self Self Conscious

Author:Frederick Lenz

“If silence only conveys the Self, if all words and thoughts are illusions, why do we discuss it?”

Ifs Self Silence Illusion Yoga

Author:Frederick Lenz

“You have no fixed self. This is only an illusion that causes you to feel pain and suffering.”

Feels Self Pain Suffering Causes Illusion Yoga Karma Fixed Karma Yoga Pain And Suffering

Author:Frederick Lenz

“None of this is real. All of this is an illusion and your acceptance of that fact is the beginning of the pathway to self-knowledge.”

Real Self Facts Acceptance Illusion Self Knowledge Nothingness Pathways

Author:Frederick Lenz

“I'm an ambitious self-publicist out of necessity. I've never been one to miss an opportunity because I've never had any illusions about how hard it is to survive as a painter... It's been an extra driving force to be able to prove the sceptics wrong.”

Self Hard Able Opportunity Force Missing Prove Survival Illusion Driving Painter Extras Ambitious Driving Force Sceptic Publicists

Author:Stuart Pearson Wright

“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.”

“Consciousness," according to current scientific thought, was something the higher mammals had evolved in order to help them reproduce, much the way a garden slug secretes slime. It had no special ontological status. The "self" was a genetically modulated and biologically useful illusion.”

Way Self Helping Order Consciousness Special Higher Illusion Garden Currents Mammals Slugs Slime

Book:The Perseids and Other Stories

Source: The Perseids and Other Stories

“Most of us hide behind egocentric biases that generate the illusion that we are special. These self-serving protective shields allow us to believe that each of us is above average on any test of self-integrity. Too often we look to the stars through the thick lens of personal invulnerability when we should also look down to the slippery slope beneath our feet.”

“What the neurology tells us is that the self consists of many components, and the notion of one unitary self may well be an illusion.”

Wells May Self Illusion Notion Components Neurology

Author:Vilayanur S. Ramachandran

“Sexuality, for the person who practices tantra, is a marvelous way to experience illusion. Illusion is just another way of seeing things. There are no illusions because there is no self.”

Way Persons Self Philosophy Practice Seeing Illusion Sexuality Marvelous Another Way Tantra

Author:Frederick Lenz

“In our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever...listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot, It is all one vast awakened thing. We were never really born, we will never really die. It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea of a personal self, other selves, many selves everywhere: Self is only an idea, a mortal idea. That which passes into everything is one thing. It's a dream already ended.”

World Mind Ideas Self Dream Remember Dies Born Silence Known Forever One Thing Lessons Illusion Essence Mortals Imaginary Awakened Alright

Author:Jack Kerouac

“The idea that money brings power and independence is an illusion. What money usually brings is the need for more money - and there is a shabby and pathetic powerlessness that comes with that need. The inability to risk new lives, new work, new styles of thought and experience, is more often than not tied to the bourgeois fear of reducing one's material standard of living. That is, indeed, to be owned by possessions, to be governed by a sense of property rather than by a sense of self.”

“The world is not the illusion. It's you who are the illusion.”

World Self Illusion

Book:Seeds for the Soul: Living as the Source of who You are

Source: Seeds for the Soul: Living as the Source of who You are

“Money by Martin Amis. I read it when I was 15, I read it hundreds of times since then and it always makes me laugh. Amis has managed to create a world that is both funny and abrasive. I'd love to play John Self, the depraved hero, who's without illusions, he created.”

World Self Play Laughing Hero Illusion Make Me Laugh Depraved

Author:Robert Pattinson

“Various kinds of self-forgetting, usually accompanied by illusions and myths, make it possible to live without the intransigent facing of death-in the sense of always thinking about it and what it means for life and the things dear in life-which is characteristic of a serious life.”

Thinking Kind Mean Self Forget Serious Illusion Dear Various Myth Characteristics Always Thinking Serious Life

Book:Closing of the American Mind

Source: Closing of the American Mind

“Forgiveness is key to enchanted love because it is key to living right, period. It is the capacity to see beyond the veil of personality and worldly illusions. No one is perfect or attractive every day. Forgiveness means we are capable of relating to someone on a deeper level than the ordinary self. And that we are committed to doing so no matter what the appearances are, no matter what the situation is.”

“The work of adult life is not easy. As in childhood, each step presents not only new tasks of development but requires a letting go of the techniques that worked before. With each passage some magic must be given up, some cherished illusion of safety and comfortably familiar sense of self must be cast off, to allow for the greater expansion of our distinctiveness.”

Source: Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life

“For most Northerners, Texas is the home of real men. The cowboys, the rednecks, the outspoken self-made right-wing millionaires strike us as either the best or worst examples of American manliness.... The ideal is not an illusion nor is it contemptible, no matter what damage it may have done. Many people who scorn it in conversation want to submit to it in bed. Those who believe machismo reeks of violence alone choose to forget it once stood for honor as well.”

“With all thy getting, get understanding, is the banner under which these Forbes editorials have appeared since the first issue of the publication. We have no illusions about what great wealth can do and what it cannot do. We believe in the worthwhileness of striving by all worthy means to attain success and to attain wealth. Simply because we are convinced that no amount of money is worth the sacrifice of one's better instincts, of one's self-respect-of one's soul, if you wish-simply because we are convinced that riches not gained legitimately and decently are not worth having.”

Ifs Firsts Believe Mean Soul Self Wish Understanding Can Do Wealth Issues Sacrifice Amount Illusion Instinct Strive Worthy Riches Convinced Self Respect Publication Banner Editorials Forbes

Author:B. C. Forbes

“If you awaken from this illusion, and you understand that black implies white, self implies other, life implies death - or shall I say, death implies life - you can conceive yourself. Not conceive, but feel yourself, not as a stranger in the world, not as someone here on sufferance, on probation, not as something that has arrived here by fluke, but you can begin to feel your own existence as absolutely fundamental. What you are basically, deep, deep down, far, far in, is simply the fabric and structure of existence itself.”

Ifs World Feels Self Black White Existence Illusion Fundamentals Structure Stranger Fabric Deep Down Flukes Probation

Author:Alan Watts

“When you surrender and release the illusion of control, you begin to free-fall toward your destiny of a grand reunion with your original-self; a self uncorrupted by the world's false lessons of fear and control.”

World Self Fall Destiny Lessons Illusion Originals Surrender Release Our Destiny Your Destiny Reunion Illusion Of Control

Author:Bryant H. McGill

“Even in an intensely mediated world, in a world that offers at least the illusion of radical self-invention and radical freedom of choice, I as a novelist am drawn to the things you can't get away from. Because much of the promise of radical self-invention, of defining yourself through this marvelous freedom of choice, it's just a lie. It's a lie that we all buy into, because it helps the economy run.”

World Self Helping Running Lying Choices Economy Promise Offers Illusion Invention Radical Novelists Get Away Marvelous Defining Freedom Of Choice Define Yourself

Author:Jonathan Franzen

“I invite you, wholeheartedly, to read books that remind you of your highest self and emancipate you from mental slavery or false beliefs and illusions. The more you invest in attracting books that resonate with the frequency of your true self, the more light you will bring to the world.”

World Book Self Light Belief Highest Illusion Slavery Invites True Self Frequency Wholeheartedly Mental Slavery

Author:Carlos Santana

“To our real, naked selves there is not a thing on earth or in heaven worth dying for. It is only when we see ourselves as actors in a staged (and therefore unreal) performance that death loses its frightfulness and finality and becomes an act of make-believe and a theatrical gesture. It is one of the main tasks of a real leader to mask the grim reality of dying and killing by evoking in his followers the illusion that they are participating in a grandiose spectacle, a solemn or lighthearted dramatic performance.”

Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer

“Free will and consciousness is an illusion, and the self is a complex of memes.”

Self Consciousness Illusion Complexes Free Will Memes

Author:Susan Blackmore

“All suffering is caused by the illusion of separateness, which generates fear and self-hatred, which eventually causes illness. You are the master of your life. You can do much more than you thought you could, including cure yourself of a "terminal illness".”

Self Suffering Causes Can Do Masters Illusion Hatred Including Illness Cures Self Hatred Terminal Separateness Terminal Illness

Book:Hands of Light: A Guide to Healing Through the Human Energy Field

Source: Hands of Light: A Guide to Healing Through the Human Energy Field

“But at any rate, the point is that God is what nobody admits to being, and everybody really is. If you awaken from this illusion, and you understand that black implies white, self implies other, life implies death - or shall I say, death implies life - you can conceive yourself.”

Ifs Self Black White Illusion Rate

Author:Alan Watts

“Refuse to think in terms of this or that. All pain needs investigation. The mind is nothing else but the self. Assumption obscures reality without destroying it. All separation, every kind of estrangement and alienation is false..Your being a person is due to the illusion of space and time.The mind creates time and space and takes its own creations for reality.”

Thinking Needs Mind Kind Persons Self Reality Pain Term Space Creation Illusion Refuse Dues Separation Assumption Destroying Investigation Time And Space Alienation Estrangement

Author:Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“When self-important people and powerful institutions are governed by illusion, history has a way of biting back.”

People Way Important Self Powerful Illusion Institutions Biting

Author:William Greider

“Self-defense is only an illusion, a dark cloak beneath which lurks a razor-sharp dagger waiting to be plunged into the first unwary victim. Whoever declares that any weapon manufactured today, whether it be a nuclear missile or a .38 special, is created for self-defense should look a little more closely at his own image in the mirror. Either he is a liar or is deceiving himself.”

Should Firsts Looks Littles Self Today Waiting Dark Special Weapons Illusion Mirrors Victim Defense Nuclear Liars Deceiving Missiles Self Defense Cloaks Razors Daggers Nuclear Missiles

Author:Wong Shun Leung

“Through being "right", you feel superior and through feeling superior you strengthen your sense of self. In reality, of course, you are only strengthening the illusion of ego.”

Feels Self Feelings Reality Courses Ego Illusion Superiors Sense Of Self Strengthening

Book:Stillness Speaks

Source: Stillness Speaks

“The self divided is precisely where the self is authentically located. . . We all have identity crises because a single identity is a delusion of the monotheistic mind. . . Authenticity is in the illusion, playing it, seeing through it from within as we play it, like an actor who sees through his mask and can only see in this way.”

Way Mind Self Play Actors Seeing Identity Illusion Crisis Authenticity Mask Delusion Divided Identity Crisis

Book:Healing fiction

Source: Healing fiction

“There is no more self-contradictory concept than that of idle thoughts. What gives rise to the perception of a whole world can hardly be called idle. Every thought we have either contributes to truth or to illusion.”

World Giving Self Whole Perception Illusion Concepts Whole World Idle Contradictory

Author:Gautama Buddha

“The most important enemy for everyone is their own illusion that makes them unrealistic or exaggerates their sense of self-importance in the world. Ironically, you're the super secret enemy. Whether lay or householder, everyone has that internal enemy.”

World Important Self Secret Enemy Illusion Importance Lays Internals Sense Of Self Self-importance

Author:Robert Thurman

“It's a very important process of self-recognition, self-introspection, by just daily accepting our creation, accepting what is right in front of us, breathing, letting go, and coming into the heart space and knowing that that fear or the struggle is part of the illusion. Just breathe that truth, because as you breathe, it filters through and you'll find that that tightness, that intensity, the fear, the worry, will dissolve. Just allow yourself not to get stuck in that.”

“...boredom speaks the language of time, and it is to teach you the most valuable lesson in your life--...the lesson of your utter insignificance. It is valuable to you, as well as to those you are to rub shoulders with. 'You are finite,' time tells you in a voice of boredom, 'and whatever you do is, from my point of view, futile.' As music to your ears, this, of course, may not count; yet the sense of futility, of limited significance even of your best, most ardent actions is better than the illusion of their consequence and the attendant self-satisfaction.”

“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.”

“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.”

People Important Self Social Interest Support Laughing Comedy Behavior Illusion Tragedy Ridiculous Gravity Inferiors Narcissistic Pathology Vested Interests It Support

Book:Wild Ducks Flying Backward

Source: Wild Ducks Flying Backward

“They were still in the happier stage of love. They were full of brave illusions about each other, tremendous illusions, so that the communion of self with self seemed to be on a plane where no other human relations mattered. They both seemed to have arrived there with an extraordinary innocence as though a series of pure accidents had driven them together, so many accidents that at last they were forced to conclude that they were for each other. They had arrived with clean hands, or so it seemed, after no traffic with the merely curious and clandestine.”

Source: The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Articles, Letters, Plays & Screenplays: From the author of The Great Gatsby, The Side of Paradise, Tender Is the Night, The Beautiful and Damned, The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and many other notable works

“Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion.”

Love Self Identity Illusion Beloved True Self Christian Love Define Yourself Ragamuffin Gospel Christ Love

Book:Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging

Source: Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging

“And that is enough to raise your thoughts to what may happen when the redeemed soul, beyond all hope and nearly beyond belief, learns at last that she has pleased Him whom she was created to please. There will be no room for vanity then. She will be free from the miserable illusion that it is her doing. With no taint of what we should now call self-approval she will most innocently rejoice in the thing that God has made her to be, and the moment which heals her old inferiority complex forever will also drown her pride… Perfect humility dispenses with modesty.”

“The source of wisdom and power, of love and beauty, is within ourselves, but not within our egos. It is within our consciousness. Indeed, its presence provides us with a conscious contrast which enables us to speak of the ego as if it were something different and apart: it is the true Self whereas the ego is only an illusion of the mind.”

Ifs Mind Different Self Wisdom Speak Understanding Consciousness Source Ego Illusion Conscious Contrast True Self Power Of Love

Book:The Notebooks of Paul Brunton: The ego. From birth to rebirth

Source: The Notebooks of Paul Brunton: The ego. From birth to rebirth

“Making reality real is art's responsibility. It is a practical assignment, then, a self-assignment: to achieve, by a cultivated sensitivity for observing life, a capacity for receiving impressions, a lonely, unremitting, unaided, unaidable vision, and transferring this vision without distortion to it onto the pages of a novel, where, if the reader is so persuaded, it will turn into the reader's illusion.”

Ifs Art Real Self Reality Turns Responsibility Vision Novel Achieve Reader Pages Illusion Capacity Lonely Practicals Impression Receiving Sensitivity Observing Distortion Assignments

Book:On Writing

Source: On Writing

“Giving importance to what we think because we thought it, taking our own selves not only (to quote the Greek philosopher) as the measure of all things but as their norm or standard, we create in ourselves, if not an interpretation, at least a criticism of the universe, which we don't even know and therefore cannot criticize. The giddiest, most weak-minded of us then promote that criticism to an interpretation that's superimposed, like a hallucination; induced rather than deduced. It's a hallucination in the strict sense, being an illusion based on something only dimly seen.”

Source: The Education of the Stoic: The Only Manuscript of the Baron of Teive

“Change from the inside out involves a steadfast gaze upon our Lord that's life changing because it reflects a deep turning from a commitment to self-sufficiency. Without repentance, a look at Christ provides only the illusion of comfort.”

Looks Self Christ Lord Comfort Illusion Commitment Life Changing Repentance Our Lord Steadfast Self Sufficiency Sufficiency

Author:Larry Crabb