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Imaginary Quotes

Browse 724 quotes about Imaginary.

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Imaginary Quotes

“Civilization, in fact, grows more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary. Wars are no longer waged by the will of superior men, capable of judging dispassionately and intelligently the causes behind them and the effects flowing out of them. The are now begun by first throwing a mob into a panic; they are ended only when it has spent its ferine fury.”

MenFirstsWarWholeFactsGrowsCausesBehindsDemocracyEffectsJudgingCivilizationCapableAimSafetySeriesMerePracticalsEndlessSuperiorsCombatThrowingImaginaryPanicFuryDegeneratesHystericalSuperior ManCraze
Author:H. L. Mencken
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“We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel... is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become.”

PeopleThinkingInspirationalFeelsMayBookRealUnderstandingEssentialsDiscoveryGuidesSelf DiscoveryWho We AreFinding YourselfImaginaryKnow YourselfThyselfKnow ThyselfSelf UnderstandingDiscovering YourselfDiscovering The World
Book:The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction
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“Some discouragement, some faintness of heart at the new real future which replaces the imaginary, is not unusual, and we do not expect people to be deeply moved by what is not unusual. That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of mankind, and perhaps our frames could hardly bear much of it. If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.”

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Author:George Eliot
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“That raises a terrible question. How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with Pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious? I am afraid it means they are worshiping an imaginary God.”

PeopleBelieveMeanReligiousPrideTerribleRaisesBelieve In GodImaginary
Book:Mere Christianity: a revised and enlarged edition, with a new introduction, of the three books, The case for Christianity, Christian behaviour, and Beyond personality
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“I carried Rudy softly through the broken street...with him I tried a little harder at comforting. I watched the contents of his soul for a moment and saw a black-painted boy calling the name Jesse Owens as he ran through an imaginary tape. I saw him hip-deep in some icy water, chasing a book, and I saw a boy lying in bed, imagining how a kiss would taste from his glorious next-door neighbor. He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It's his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry.”

HeartLittlesDoeBookSoulMomentsLyingNextNamesBlackWaterStepsBoysSawsDoorsStreetsCryBrokenMy HeartCallingTasteBedKissingHarderNeighborHipsRanGloriousTapeImaginaryChasingComfortingIcyRudyNext Door Neighbors
Author:Markus Zusak
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“It seems priggish or pollyannaish to deny that my intention in writing the work was to titillate the nastier propensities of my readers. My own healthy inheritance of original sin comes out in the book and I enjoyed raping and ripping by proxy. It is the novelist’s innate cowardice that makes him depute to imaginary personalities the sins that he is too cautious to commit for himself.”

WritingBookSeemsMy OwnSinPersonalityReaderHealthyOriginalsIntentionDenyCommitEnjoyedNovelistsCowardiceImaginaryInheritanceInnateCautiousPropensityOriginal SinProxy
Author:Anthony Burgess
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“As we grow older we become more conscious of the complexity, incoherence, and unreasonableness of human beings; this indeed is the only excuse that offers for the middle-aged or elderly writer whose thoughts should more properly be turned to graver matters, occupying himself with the trivial concerns of imaginary people.”

PeopleIfsMenShouldHumansRealMatterGrowsHuman BeingsFictionStudyMiddleMankindFiguresOffersCreaturesConsciousConcernExcuseSignificantReal LifeComplexitySensibleImaginaryIrrationalElderlyMiddle AgedIncoherenceOccupy Yourself
Author:W. Somerset Maugham
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“The artist is a collector of things imaginary or real. He accumulates things with the same enthusiasm that a little boy stuffs his pockets. The scrap heap and the museum are embraced with equal curiosity. He takes snapshots, makes notes and records impressions on tablecloths or newspapers, on backs of envelopes or matchbooks. Why one thing and not another is part of the mystery, but he is omnivorous.”

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Author:Paul Rand
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“In all the houses keys to memorizing objects and feelings had been written. But the system demanded so much vigilance and moral strength that many succumbed to the spell of an imaginary reality, one invented by themselves, which was less practical for them but more comforting.”

FeelingsRealityHouseMoralWrittenObjectsKeysPracticalsSpellsImaginaryComfortingVigilanceMemorizingOne Hundred Years Of SolitudeMoral Strength
Book:Gabriel Garcia Marquez Ebook Library
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“The contract between the author and the reader is a game. And the game . . . is one of the greatest invetions of Western civilization: the game of telling stories, inventing characters, and creating the imaginary paradise of the individual, from whence no one can be expelled because, in a novel, no one owns the truth and everyone has the right to be heard and understood.”

CharacterStoriesGamesIndividualNovelHeardReaderCivilizationCreatingUnderstoodWesternParadiseContractsImaginaryInventingTelling StoriesWestern Civilization
Author:Carlos Fuentes
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“The imaginary is not formed in opposition to reality as its denial or compensation; it grows among signs, from book to book, in the interstice of repetitions and commentaries; it is born and takes shape in the interval between books. It is the phenomena of the library.”

BookRealityGrowsBornImaginationShapesLibraryDenialOppositionImaginaryRepetitionCompensationCommentaryIntervals
Book:Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology
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“Gods, religions and national boundaries are absolutely imaginary. They don't tend to exist. As soon as you pull back half a mile and look down at the Earth there are no national boundaries. There aren't even national boundaries when you get down and walk around. They're just imaginary lines we draw on maps. I just get fascinated by people who assume that things that are imaginary have no relevance to their lives.”

PeopleLooksEarthLinesWalksHalfDrawsDown AndAssumingMilesBoundariesMapsFascinatedImaginaryRelevanceImaginary Lines
Author:Neil Gaiman
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“the Twelve Apostles are the most evident sign of Jesus' will regarding the existence and mission of his Church, the guarantee that between Christ and the Church there is no opposition: despite the sins of the people who make up the Church, they are inseparable. Therefore, a slogan that was popular some years back, 'Jesus yes, Church no,' is totally inconceivable with the intention of Christ. This individualistically chosen Jesus is an imaginary Jesus.”

PeopleYearsJesusChristChurchSinExistenceIntentionMissionsChosenDespiteGuaranteesOppositionTwelveImaginaryEvidentSlogansApostlesInseparableGuarantees That
Book:Jesus, the Apostles, and the Early Church
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“'You hate America, don't you?' 'That would be as silly as loving it,' I said. 'It's impossible for me to get emotional about it, because real estate doesn't interest me. It's no doubt a great flaw in my personality, but I can't think in terms of boundaries. Those imaginary lines are as unreal to me as elves and pixies. I can't believe that they mark the end or the beginning of anything of real concern to a human soul. Virtues and vices, pleasures and pains cross boundaries at will.'”

ThinkingBelieveHumansSaidI CanRealSoulEndsWould BePainAmericaHateTermInterestLinesPleasureVirtueDoubtImpossibleEmotionalPersonalityConcernCrossesMarkVicesSillyBoundariesNo DoubtFlawsImaginaryEstatesHuman SoulUnrealPain And PleasurePixiesMother NightImaginary Lines
Author:Kurt Vonnegut
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“We have inhabited both the actual and the imaginary realms for a long time. But we don't live in either place the way our parents or ancestors did. Enchantment alters with age, and with the age. We know a dozen Arthurs now, all of them true. The Shire changed irrevocably even in Bilbo's lifetime. Don Quixote went riding out to Argentina and met Jorge Luis Borges there. Plus c'est la même chose, plus ça change.”

KnowsWayLongAgeParentChangedMetsLong TimeLifetimeRealmsPlusDozenAncestorRidingImaginaryArthurEnchantmentArgentinaBorgesShire
Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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“Pride... is a very common failing, I believe. By all that I have ever read, I am convinced that it is very common indeed; that human nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality or the other, real or imaginary. Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.”

ThinkingBelieveHumansMayPersonsDifferentRealSelfFeelingsUsedI BelieveCommonQualityOpinionFailingHuman NaturePrideProudConvincedVanityRelateVainScoreDifferent ThingsCherishImaginaryBe ProudComplacencyVanity And Pride
Author:Jane Austen
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