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Illusion Quotes

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Illusion Quotes

“At the end of 'Illusions,' readers should see the inevitable coming.”

Should Ends Reader Illusion Inevitable

Author:Aprilynne Pike

“Whatever happens in the world is real, what one thinks should have happened is projection. We suffer more from our fictitious illusion and expectations of reality.”

Thinking World Should Real Reality Happens Suffering Happened Illusion Expectations Should Have Projection Whatever Happens

Author:Jacque Fresco

“The spiritual life is the real life; all else is illusion and deception. Only those who are attached to God alone are truly free. Only those who live up to the highest light live in harmony. All who act upon their highest motivations become a power for good. It is not important that others be noticeably affected: results should never be sought or desired. Know that every right thing you do - every good word you say - every positive thought you think - has good effect.”

“In order to put meaning back into our lives, we should recognize illusions for what they are, and we should reach out and touch the fabric of reality.”

Should Reality Order Our Lives Illusion Reach Out Fabric

Author:Walker Evans

“Everyone should know--there's no such thing as a decent human being. It's just an illusion. And when it's gone, it's really gone.”

Knows Should Humans Human Beings Gone Illusion Decent

Book:What Goes Around: Two Books In One: Cracked Up to Be & Some Girls Are

Source: What Goes Around: Two Books In One: Cracked Up to Be & Some Girls Are

“Symons remarked that the most common and unhelpful illusion plaguing those who came to see him was the idea that they ought somehow, in the normal course of events, to have intuited long before they had finished their degrees, started families, bought houses and risen to the top of law firms - what they should properly be doing with their lives. They were tormented by a residual notion of having through some error or stupidity on their part missed out on their true calling.”

Should Long Ideas Law Courses House Common Events Ought Calling Degrees Normal Illusion Errors Notion Stupidity Finished Firm Risen Residual Law Firms

Author:Alain de Botton

“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.”

“[T]hus one should not think that desire is repressed, for the simple reason that the law is what constitutes both desire and the lack on which it is predicated. Where there is desire, the power relation is already present: an illusion, then, to denounce this relation for a repression exerted after the event.”

Thinking Should Reason Law Desire Simple Events Illusion Relation Repression Repressed

Book:The History of Sexuality: An Introduction

Source: The History of Sexuality: An Introduction

“Whatever may be your desire to accomplish great deeds, the deep silence of pregnancy never comes to you! The event of the day sweeps you along like straws before the wind whilst ye lie under the illusion that ye are chasing the event,-poor fellows! If a man wishes to act the hero on the stage he must not think of forming part of the chorus; he should not even know how the chorus is made up.”

Ifs Thinking Knows Men Should May Made Lying Desire Wish Poor Silence Know How Stage Events Wind Hero Illusion Fellows Deeds Accomplish Pregnancy Chasing Chorus Straws

Book:The Dawn of Day

Source: The Dawn of Day

“I have no use whatsoever for projections or forecasts. They create an illusion of apparent precision. The more meticulous they are, the more concerned you should be. We never look at projections, but we care very much about, and look very deeply at, track records. If a company has a lousy track record, but a very bright future, we will miss the opportunity.”

Ifs Should Looks Use Care Opportunity Company Records Missing Illusion Concerned Investing Track Projection Precision Very Deep Forecasts Track Record Bright Future Meticulous

Author:Warren Buffett

“I think horror should have occult elements, not as its subject but as its ambition. It is a machine that destroys illusion. I, of course, never achieve this, but I always act as if I can.”

Ifs Thinking Should I Can Courses Achieve Subjects Horror Elements Ambition Illusion Should Have Machines Occult

Author:Tony Burgess

“We insist that society should conform to our own subjective illusion of reality.”

Should Reality Perspective Illusion Conform Subjective

Author:Robert Anthony

“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.”

“Government [is] an illusion the governed should not encourage.”

Should Government Illusion

Book:Couples: A Novel

Source: Couples: A Novel

“The latest trade of a security creates a dangerous illusion that its market price approximates its true value. This mirage is especially dangerous during periods of market exuberance. The concept of "private market value" as an anchor to the proper valuation of a business can also be greatly skewed during ebullient times and should always be considered with a healthy degree of skepticism.”

Should Values Security Dangerous Periods Healthy Degrees Illusion Concepts Trade Skepticism Anchors Mirages Exuberance Valuation True Value

Author:Seth Klarman

“We should have to abandon our vested illusions, our irrational religions and patriotisms.”

Should Illusion Should Have Abandon Irrational

Book:The Life of Reason Or The Phases of Human Progress: Reason in Art, Volume VII, Book Four

Source: The Life of Reason Or The Phases of Human Progress: Reason in Art, Volume VII, Book Four

“When you finally realize that peace is your natural state of being then you will know that any form of non-peace is a belief in illusion. Illusion that anything should be something other than what it is which can never be so. What if instead of waiting for what isn't to become your version of what is, why don't you be peaceful right now while you alter what isn't for you if you so choose? Is it ever worth it to wear a cloak of non-peacefulness over God Brilliance?”

Ifs Knows Should States Form Belief Waiting Realizing Natural Right Now Illusion Versions Peaceful What If Worth It Brilliance Cloaks Peacefulness

Author:John Phillips

“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

“That's the rational premise behind my spending hours of billable time adjusting my Facebook preferences. The real reason, of course, for all this stuff, is that it provides a way to blow off work you should be doing, while creating the illusion that you are achieving something.”

Way Should Real Reason Courses Stuff Hours Behinds Achieve Creating Illusion Blow Spending Rational Preference Premises Adjusting

Author:Jeffrey Zeldman

“After a crisis we tell ourselves we understand why it happened and maintain the illusion that the world is understandable. In fact, we should accept the world is incomprehensible much of the time.”

World Should Facts Accepting Happened Illusion Crisis

Author:Daniel Kahneman

“I think people should have no illusions that Hillary [Clinton] is going to solve the climate crisis for us. We are in as much trouble with fracking as we are with coal. They both need to be stopped.”

People Thinking Needs Should Trouble Illusion Should Have Crisis Clinton Climate Solve Coal Fracking

Author:Jill Stein

“I'm in show business. I believe in illusion and delusions and in holding aloft the bubble of a dream of some sort because, really, there are lots of reasons to look at the chasm. But art and music, these ineffables, they're just - they're the consolations of what human beings can create and make, and delight is accessible, you know, should you care to find it.”

Knows Should Believe Humans Looks Art Reason Shows Dream Care I Believe Human Beings Illusion Delight I Believe In Delusion Bubbles Consolation Show Business Chasms Art And Music

Author:Meryl Streep

“A picture story just doesn't run like a film. It doesn't have 24 frames per second. It doesn't deal with this illusion of movement. It's more like if you did an illuminated novel. I think both of those things should be running at full blast, not less of both so it becomes an easier thing. I think it should be twice as dense. That's just what interests me.”

Ifs Thinking Should Stories Running Film Interest Deals Novel Movement Easier Illusion Blast Dense

Author:Ben Katchor

“Perhaps I am doomed to retrace my steps under the illusion that I am exploring, doomed to try and learn what I should simply recognize, learning a mere fraction of what I have forgotten.”

Should Trying Steps Fate Illusion Mere Forgotten Self Discovery Finding Yourself Doomed Exploring Fractions Surrealism

Author:Andre Breton

“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.”

“Anything beyond the limits and grasp of the human mind is either illusion or futility; and because your god having to be one or the other of the two, in the first instance I should be mad to believe in him, and in the second a fool.”

Should Mind Firsts Believe Humans Two Fool Limits Illusion Mad Instance Human Mind Futility

Book:Dialogue Between a Priest and a Dying Man

Source: Dialogue Between a Priest and a Dying Man

“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.”

Thinking Knows Should Real Ends Enough Whole Wanted Earth Given Journey Effects Moon Illusion Should Have Tricks Invention Voyages Inventing Had Enough Inventing Things

Author:Mathias Malzieu

“What we see as death, empty space, or nothingness is only the trough between the crests of this endlessly waving ocean. It is all part of the illusion that there should seem to be something to be gained in the future, and that there is an urgent necessity to go on and on until we get it. Yet just as there is no time but the present, and no one except the all-and-everything, there is never anything to be gained - though the zest of the game is to pretend that there is.”

Should Seems Games Space Goes On Future Ocean Illusion Empty Nothingness Urgent Empty Space Zest Trough

Author:Alan Watts

“Yes, victors are our strongest. They're the ones who survived the arena and slipped the noose of poverty that strangles the rest of us. They, or should I say we, are the very embodiment of hope where there is no hope. And now twenty-three of us will be killed to show how even that hope was an illusion.”

Should Shows Three Poverty Illusion Twenties Strongest Should I Survived Arena No Hope Embodiment Nooses

Book:The Hunger Games Trilogy

Source: The Hunger Games Trilogy

“Do not mistake me. I am not yet weak enough to yield to fearful imaginings, which are almost as absurd as illusions of hope, and are certainly harder to bear. If I must deceive myself, I should prefer to stay on the side of confidence, for I shall lose no more there and shall suffer less.”

Ifs Should Enough Suffering Sides Loses Mistake Bears Illusion Weak Harder Absurd Yield Fearful Deceiving

Book:Hadrian's Memoirs

Source: Hadrian's Memoirs

“We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin. I have heard others, and I have heard myself, recounting cruelties and falsehoods committed in boyhood as if they were no concern of the present speaker's, and even with laughter. But mere time does nothing either to the fact or to the guilt of a sin. The guilt is washed out not by time but by repentance and the blood of Christ: if we have repented these early sins we should remember the price of our forgiveness and be humble.”

Source: A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis

“If we were all given by magic the power to read each other’s thoughts, I suppose the first effect would be almost all friendships would be dissolved; the second effect, however, might be excellent, for a world without any friends would be felt to be intolerable, and we should learn to like each other without needing a veil of illusion to conceal from ourselves that we did not think each other absolutely perfect.”

Ifs Thinking World Should Firsts Might Would Be Given Felt Friendship Perfect Magic Effects Friends Illusion Excellent Socialist Veils Concealing Nobody's Perfect

Book:The Conquest of Happiness

Source: The Conquest of Happiness

“Even strong as they are today, rich countries should have no illusion: nobody is safe in aworld of injustices.War will never bring security.War can only generate monsters: bitterness, intolerance, fundamentalism, and the damaging denial of current hegemonies.The poor must be given reasons to live, not to kill or die.”

“Every age is fed on illusions, lest men should renounce life early and the human race come to an end.”

Men Should Humans Ends Age Race History Youth Illusion Human Race Feds Cynicism Altruism Renounce

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)

Source: 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)

“The first part of the spiritual journey should properly be called psychological rather than spiritual because it involves peeling away the myths and illusions that have misinformed us.”

Should Firsts Soul Spiritual Journey Illusion Myth Psychological Spiritual Journey Peeling

Book:Hymns to an Unknown God: Awakening the Spirit in Everyday Life

Source: Hymns to an Unknown God: Awakening the Spirit in Everyday Life

“A woman should be an illusion”

Should Women Illusion Maturity

Author:Ian Fleming

“That the fundamental aspects of heredity should have turned out to be so extraordinarily simple supports us in the hope that nature may, after all, be entirely approachable. Her much-advertised inscrutability has once more been found to be an illusion due to our ignorance. This is encouraging, for, if the world in which we live were as complicated as some of our friends would have us believe we might well despair that biology could ever become an exact science.”

Source: The Physical basis of heredity

“If a fox is unable to befriend a tiger, then the fox should create an illusion of close association with the tiger by carefully trailing behind the cat while boasting of the deep friendship they share. In this way, he creates an impression that his well being is of great concern to the tiger.”

Source: Thick Face, Black Heart: The Warrior Philosophy for Conquering the Challenges of Business and Life

“Being a star doesn't last. That's not what life should be about. It's a complete illusion that really has nothing to do with you. For me, finding out about life is the most important thing.”

Should Important Lasts Life Is Stars Findings Illusion Important Things

Author:Jake Gyllenhaal

“Men should never marry their muse. It ruins the illusion.”

Men Should Illusion Ruins Muse

Author:Stana Katic

“The theatre should be treated with respect. The theatre is a wonderful place, a house of strange enchantment, a temple of illusion. What it most emphatically is not and never will be is a scruffy, ill-lit, fumed-oak drill hall serving as a temporary soap box for political propaganda.”

Should Political House Wonderful Strange Illusion Ill Boxes Theatre Treated Propaganda Temples Serving Halls Temporary Lit Soap Oaks Enchantment Drills Wonderful Places

Author:Noel Coward

“Nobody seems more obsessed by diet than our antimaterialist, otherworldly, New Age, spiritual types. But if the material world is merely illusion, an honest guru should as content with Budweiser and bratwurst as with raw carrot juice, tofu, and seaweed slime.”

Source: A Voice Crying in the Wilderness

“When I speak of the aspiration towards the beautiful, of the ideal as the ultimate aim of art, which grows from a yearning for that ideal, I am not for a moment suggesting that art should shun the 'dirt' of the world. On the contrary! the artistic image is always a metonym, where one thing is substituted for another, the smaller for the greater. To tell of what is living, the artist uses something dead; to speak of the infinite, he shows the finite. Substitution... the infinite cannot be made into matter, but it is possible to create an illusion of the infinite: the image.”

“The problem is one of opposition between subjective and objective points of view. There is a tendency to seek an objective account of everything before admitting its reality. But often what appears to a more subjective point of view cannot be accounted for in this way. So either the objective conception of the world is incomplete, or the subjective involves illusions that should be rejected.”

World Way Should Problem Reality Views Illusion Accounts Point Of View Objectives Tendencies Opposition Conception Rejected Subjective Incomplete Admitting

Book:Mortal Questions : Canto

Source: Mortal Questions : Canto

“Knowledge can be heady stuff, but it easily leads to an excess of zeal! -- to illusions of grandeur and a desire to impress others and achieve eminence . . . Our search for knowledge should be ceaseless, which means that it is open-ended, never resting on laurels, degrees, or past achievements.”

Should Mean Past Desire Stuff Achieve Degrees Achievement Illusion Excess Impress Zeal Grandeur Laurels Eminence Search For Knowledge Illusions Of Grandeur

Book:Approaching Zion

Source: Approaching Zion

“A mind now clouded by the illusions of the innate darkness of life is like a tarnished mirror, but when polished, it is sure to become like a clear mirror, reflecting the essential nature of phenomena and the true aspect of reality. Arouse deep faith, and diligently polish your mirror day and night. How should you polish it? Only by chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo”

Should Mind Reality Life Is Night Darkness Clear Essentials Illusion Aspect Mirrors Innate Reflecting Polish Life Is Like Day And Night Polished Chanting Clouded

Book:The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin

Source: The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin

“I believe there should be no arbitrary date set for withdrawal and yet no permanent, unending deployment. No cut and run, yet measured progress in helping a people who want to be free without an illusion of overnight success.”

People Want Should Believe Helping Running I Believe Cutting Progress Illusion Permanent Arbitrary Withdrawal Unending Deployment Overnight Success

Author:Rick Renzi

“An art of expression should begin with childhood, and the lucid use of one's mother tongue should be typical of that art. The sense of reality should be strengthened from the beginning, yet by no means at the cost of those lofty illusions we call patriotism, veneration, love.”

Should Mean Art Use Reality Mother Childhood Expression Cost Illusion Tongue Typical Lofty Veneration Mother Tongue

Book:The Public Papers

Source: The Public Papers

“Had it been published by a voice from heaven, that twelve poor men, taken out of boats and creeks, without any help of learning, should conquer the world to the cross, it might have been thought an illusion against all reason of men; yet we know it was undertaken and accomplished by them.”

Source: The Existence and Attributes of God