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Magical Thinking Quotes

Browse 44 quotes about Magical Thinking.

Magical Thinking Quotes

“Enlightenment humanism, then, is far from being a crowd-pleaser. The idea that the ultimate good is to use knowledge to enhance human welfare leaves people cold. Deep explanations of the universe, the planet, life, the brain? Unless they use magic, we don't want to believe them! Saving the lives of billions, eradicating disease, feeding the hungry? Bo-ring. People extending their compassion to all of humankind? Not good enough—we want the laws of physics to care about us! Longevity, health, understanding, beauty, freedom, love? There's got to be more to life than that!”

EnlightenmentHumanismMagical ThinkingAnti Intellectualism
Book:Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
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“Magical realism is a rain of flowers falling during a funeral, no one asking why. It is finding a dull reference to a non-existent country in an old encyclopedia, and then finding an explanation which leads to a further secret deeper in. It's a bridge bursting into fire after you cross. In pure form it is never explained, which means that just possibly it is not even unnatural.”

BeautifulMagical RealismMagical ThinkingBeautiful Thinking
Book:The Origin of Birds in the Footprints of Writing
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“I nodded sagely, pretended to be making some sort of useful observation of the white surfaces and clear tubes and gray machines that I lacked the doctorates to comprehend, and thought about dualism. Good and evil. Man and woman. All forces and powers and principalities equal and opposite. The notion that we live in a universe with that kind of comforting, obvious ledger. That is the kind of thinking that makes people believe that the moon controls menstrual cycles, that vaginas are magic, when all they really are is blood and tissue and, in the instance of one particularly ugly case that I drink to forget about, teeth. They're impressively versatile and under the right circumstances a lot of fun, but no more or less miraculous than your twenty-ninth vertebra.”

FeminismDualismMagical ThinkingVaginas
Book:Monsters in a Mirror: Strange Tales from the Chapel Perilous
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“There was no need for a term like ‘magical thinking’ in the Golden Age of Man...there was only genuine everyday magic and mysticism. Children were not mocked or scolded in those days for singing to the rain or talking to the wind.”

ImaginationCreativityFantasyPsychologyMagicTraditionalMysticismBeliefsSelf ExpressionReligious FreedomMagickGolden AgeAncestorsFree ThinkingChild DevelopmentAncient WisdomMagical ThinkingEsoteric WisdomPsychology SpiritualityReligion And ScienceAncient CultureCultural HistoryPrimitive Religion
Book:Divine Living: The Essential Guide To Your True Destiny
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“Escape from reality. In some instances, dissociation induces people to imagine that they have some kind of mastery over intractable environmental difficulties. Dissociation is often implicated in magical thinking or self-induced trance states. This aspect of dissociation is frequently found in abuse survivors. It is not uncommon for abused children to engage in magical thinking to retain an illusion of control over the situation (e.g., believing that they "cause" the perpetrator to act out).”

RealityPowerIllusionBlameChild AbusePowerlessEscapeDissociative Identity DisorderDissociationPowerlessnessTranceTraumatizedDissociative DisordersMagical ThinkingAbused ChildrenEscape From RealitySelf BlameIllusion Of ControlEscaping From RealityTrance States
Author:Marlene Steinberg
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“We should be cautiously open to the spiritual and non-rational, and skeptical of the more invisible magical thinking—what we might call “magical reason”—pervading secular thought and experience in modern society. Science and technology are for most people a new religion, and their orthodoxies are believed with the same fervor.”

ScienceReligionBeliefSkepticismMagical Thinking
Book:Against the Megamachine: Essays on Empire & Its Enemies
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“She believed in magic—the magic of places, the magic of people, the magic of coincidences, serendipity, and fortune. She enjoyed wandering through the world with the open mind and curiosity of a four-year-old child. In her world the mystical, mythical, and magical inhabited the same space and time as the ordinary and the practical. At Bethesda Terrace, she always felt close to a source of magic and creativity. It was as if she was tapping into the place where dragons, angels, gods, sorceresses, and demons came to life.”

FantasyMagicDragonsAngelsDemonsMagical RealismMagical ThinkingSorceresses
Book:Beginnings
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“Play, Incorporating Animistic and Magical Thinking Is Important Because It: Fosters the healthy, creative and emotional growth of a child; Forms the best foundation for later intellectual growth. Provides a way in which children get to know the world and creates possibilities for different ways of responding to it. Fosters empathy and wonder.”

ThinkingKnowsWorldWayChildrenImportantDifferentPlayFormGrowthWonderCreativePossibilityEmotionalHealthyIntellectualEmpathyFoundationDifferent WaysRespondingIncorporatingEmotional GrowthMagical ThinkingIntellectual Growth
Author:Rachel Carson
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“People often say that you should never work with child actors. I think that's all wrong. Children have not had the imagination kicked out of them by life experience and adulthood. So, they still are very much alive with that kind of magical thinking which enables an actor to believe they're in these circumstances and make them real to you.”

PeopleThinkingShouldBelieveKindChildrenStillsRealActorsImaginationAliveCircumstancesLife ExperienceAdulthoodChild ActorsMagical Thinking
Author:Nicolas Cage
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“It's magical thinking to imagine that the reason unspeakable things are being perpetrated by younger and younger people is that they've fallen under the influence of seductive, lascivious, prurient, and violent material in books, films, television. A great deal of this type of censorship has to do with absolving parents of responsibility - parents who just plop their kids in front of the television and leave them there hour upon hour.”

PeopleThinkingBookReasonKidsFilmParentHoursDealsResponsibilityImagineInfluenceFrontsTelevisionMaterialsTypeViolentFallenCensorshipImagine ThatSeductiveUnspeakableMagical Thinking
Author:John Irving
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“I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsMindWellsUsedNightTurnsTermCompanyDoorsDemandSurpriseUsed To BeAttractiveBetrayedYour PastDesertedAmendsNoddingBethlehemMagical ThinkingBad NightMaking Amends
Author:Joan Didion
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“In reality, genuine epiphanies are extremely rare. In contemporary adult life maturation & acquiescence to reality are gradual processes. Modern usage usually deploys epiphany as a metaphor. It is usually only in dramatic representations, religious iconography, and the 'magical thinking' of children that insight is compressed to a sudden blinding flash.”

ThinkingChildrenRealityProcessReligiousModernAdultsMetaphorInsightGenuineContemporaryDramaticFlashRepresentationEpiphanyUsageAcquiescenceIconographyMagical Thinking
Author:David Foster Wallace
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“The willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life is the source from which self-respect springs.”

LifeSelfCharacterLife IsBeliefResponsibilityAcceptingSelf EsteemSourceSpringRespectEthicsHard TimesSelf RespectWillingnessSocial ResponsibilityTaking ResponsibilityPersonal ResponsibilityLoving LifeGood CharacterGreat CharacterRespect YourselfIntegrity And CharacterIntegrity CharacterSelf ResponsibilityResponsibility For Your LifeInspirational CharacterMagical ThinkingAccepting ResponsibilityLove And ResponsibilityResponsibilities In LifeWomen Self RespectResponsibility Of Leadership
Author:Joan Didion
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