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Mirages Quotes

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Mirages Quotes

“He’d learned that what besets the eye is often a mirage, and that there exists a grander truth beyond the world of appearances; one of which the mind can only access when it surrenders the inexplicable to the imagination, a force he’d learned was far more powerful than every last assembled star across the universe.”

TruthImaginationMiragesAppearances
Book:Commendable Delusions: Tales of Meaning and Imagination
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“To the man of science, on his unassuming and laborious travels, which must often enough be journeys through the desert, there appear those glittering mirages called 'philosophical systems'; with bewitching deceptive power they show the solution of all enigmas and the freshest draught of the true water of life to be near at hand; his heart rejoices, and it seems to the weary traveller that his lips already touch the goal of all the perseverance and sorrows of the scientific life... Other natures again, may well grow exceedingly ill-humoured and curse the salty taste which these apparitions leave behind in the mouth and from which arises a raging thirst – without one having been brought so much as a step nearer to any kind of spring.”

ScienceKnowledgeSolutionsGoalsDeceptionEnigmaSystemsMirages
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
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“The air in Africa is more significant in the landscape than in Europe, it is filled with loomings and mirages, and is in a way the real stage of activities. In the heat of the midday the air oscillates and vibrates like the string of a violin, lifts up long layers of grass-land with thorn-trees and hills on it, and creates vast silvery expanses of water in the dry grass.”

ObservationAfricaBiographyMemoirsMiragesFine Writing
Author:Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen)
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“Nous sommes prisonniers des images, des représentations, dirait Sarah, et seuls ceux qui, comme elle ou comme le colporteur, font le choix de se défaire de leur vie (si une telle chose est réellement possible) peuvent parvenir à autrui. Je me rappelle le bruit de mon urine tombant sur les pierres dans le silence enivrant du désert ; je me rappelle mes petites pensées, bien futiles au regard de l'infinité des êtres ; je n'avais pas conscience des fourmis et des araignées que je noyais dans l'urée. Nous sommes condamnés, comme dit Montaigne dans son dernier Essai, à penser comme on pisse, en chemin, vite et furtivement, en espions. Seul l'amour, pensai-je en regagnant la tente, en frémissant de froid et de désir au souvenir de la nuit précédente, nous ouvre vers autrui ; l'amour comme renoncement, comme fusion - rien d'étonnant à ce que ces deux absolus, le désert et l'amour, se soient rencontrés pour donner un des monuments les plus importants de la littérature universelle, la folie de Majnoun qui hurla sa passion pour Leyla aux cailloux et aux vipères à cornes, Leyla qu'il aima, aux environs de l'an 750, dans une tente toute pareille.”

AmourMiragesImagesLeylaMajnoun
Author:Mathias Énard
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“It's strange how deserts turn us into believers. I believe in walking in a landscape of mirages, because you learn humility. I believe in living in a land of little water because life is drawn together. And I believe in the gathering of bones as a testament to spirits that have moved on. If the desert is holy, it is because it is a forgotten place that allows us to remember the sacred. Perhaps that is why every pilgrimage to the desert is a pilgrimage to the self.”

IfsBelieveLittlesSelfTogetherRememberLife IsSpiritTurnsI BelieveWaterLandHumilityStrangeWalkingHolySacredMovedForgottenI Believe InBonesBelieverDesertLandscapeTestamentGatheringPilgrimageMoved OnMiragesDrawn Together
Book:Red: passion and patience in the desert
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“Thought, stumbling, plods Past fallen temples, vanished gods, Altars unincensed, fanes undecked, Eternal systems flown or wrecked; Through trackless centuries that grant To the poor trudge refreshment scant, Age after age, pants on to find A melting mirage of the mind.”

MindAgePastPoorCenturyEternalFallenTemplesGrantsPantsAltarsMeltingStumblingMiragesRefreshments
Book:At the Gate of the Convent: And Other Poems
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“Las Vegas was like that. There was a visceral attraction here. The bold promise of money and sex. But the first was a broken promise, a mirage, and the second was fraught with danger, expense, physical and mental risk. It was where the real gambling took place in this town.”

FirstsRealSexRiskDangerBrokenPromiseTownsAttractionGamblingExpensesVegasLas VegasRisk ItBroken PromisesVisceralMirages
Book:Michael Connelly - The Harry Bosch Collection (ebook)
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“People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand.”

PeopleWantPresidentWaterLeadershipStepsListeningDrinkDiscoveryDrinkingAbsenceGenuineDesertSandStep UpThirstyMicrophonesCrawlingAmerican PresidentMiragesDesert Sand
Author:Michael J. Fox
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“The upshot of pervasive public belief in the uncontrollable sexuality of teenagers, and even of pre-teenagers, is that parents arehalf-hearted in their efforts to supervise and control their children, even when they are filled with anxiety as to their children's ability to cope with a full-fledged sexual relationship. "How can we buck the tide?" parents say helplessly, often without making quite certain that the ocean they see is a real one and not a mirage.”

ChildrenRealCertainBeliefParentAbilityEffortAnxietyOceanFilledSexualityTeenagerTidesHeartedBucksUncontrollableMiragesReal Ones
Author:Marie Winn
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“The joy of a party is the newness of people to each other, renewed strikingness of humanity. They love each other, to distraction. Really to distraction. Before they fall into conversation and separate. ... The strangeness, and the hopes aroused by strangeness, are illusions. Mirages arising wherever people gather expectantly together.”

PeopleTogetherJoyHumanityFallPartyConversationIllusionDistractionLove Each OtherStrangenessNewnessMirages
Book:Pilgrimage
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“Besides, the sense of safety offered by bottled water is a mirage. It turns out that breathing, not drinking, constitutes our main route of exposure to volatile pollutants in tap water, such as solvents, pesticides, and byproducts of water chlorination. As soon as the toilet is flushed or the faucet turned on-or the bathtub, the shower, the humidifier, the washing machine-these contaminants leave the water and enter the air. A recent study shows that the most efficient way of exposing yourself to chemical contaminants in tap water is to turn on a dishwasher.”

WayShowsTurnsWaterStudyAirMachinesSafetyDrinkingEnvironmentalBreathingChemicalsEfficientShowersRoutesExposureToiletsTurn-onWashingExposingMiragesBathtubsPesticidesDishwashersWashing MachinesBottled WaterTap WaterExposing Yourself
Author:Sandra Steingraber
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“Men are tending to materialism. Houses, lands, and worldly goods attract their attention, and as a mirage lure them on to death. Christianity, on the other hand leads only the natural body to death, and for the spirit, it points out a house not built with hands, eternal in the heavens... Let me urge you to follow Him, not as the Nazarene, the Man of Galilee, the carpenter's son, but as the ever living spiritual person, full of love and compassion, who will stand by you in life and death and eternity.”

MenPersonsBodyHandsSpiritualSpiritHouseHeavenNaturalAttentionCompassionChristianityLandHe ManSonEternalBuiltLet MeEternityLife And DeathUrgesMaterialismGoodsWorldlyLureLove And CompassionCarpenterMiragesNazarene
Author:James A. Garfield
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“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.”

ShouldValuesSecurityDangerousPeriodsHealthyDegreesIllusionConceptsTradeSkepticismAnchorsMiragesExuberanceValuationTrue Value
Author:Seth Klarman
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“Bill Clinton gives the appearance of taking stands-for some sort of tax cut, some sort of welfare reform, some sort of balanced budget-but these are ploys, mirages: they exist only to undermine positions taken by the Republicans. He doesn't fight for anything substantive-except of course, re-election. ...He has fallen into the dangerous habit of lip synching the presidency: he gives the appearance of leadership, but not the substance.”

GivingFightingCoursesTakenCuttingDangerousPositionHabitRepublicanTaxesElectionBillsClintonLipsAppearanceReformSubstanceBudgetsWelfareFallenBalancedPresidencyTax CutsMiragesBalanced BudgetPloyWelfare Reform
Author:Joe Klein
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“...quite simply, I was in love with New York. I do not mean “love” in any colloquial way, I mean that I was in love with the city, the way you love the first person who ever touches you and you never love anyone quite that way again. I remember walking across Sixty-second Street one twilight that first spring, or the second spring, they were all alike for a while. I was late to meet someone but I stopped at Lexington Avenue and bought a peach and stood on the corner eating it and knew that I had come out out of the West and reached the mirage.”

WayFirstsMeanPersonsRememberCitiesStreetsNew YorkWalkingLateEatingSpringWestCornersTwilightSixtyAvenuesFirst PersonPeachesMiragesMean LoveLexington
Book:We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction
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“And I despise your books, I despise wisdom and the blessings of this world. It is all worthless, fleeting, illusory, and deceptive, like a mirage. You may be proud, wise, and fine, but death will wipe you off the face of the earth as though you were no more than mice burrowing under the floor, and your posterity, your history, your immortal geniuses will burn or freeze together with the earthly globe.”

WorldMayBookEarthTogetherFacesWiseThis WorldFineProudGeniusBlessingImmortalDespiseGlobesMiceBe ProudWorthlessFleetingPosterityWipeFreezeDeceptiveIllusoryMiragesBurrowing
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated)
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“Non...I am DANCING IN MY NUDDY-PANTS!!!' And we both laughed like loons on loon tablets. I danced for ages round the house in my nuddy-pants. Also, I did this brilliant thing-I danced in the front window just for a second whilst Mr. Across the Road was drawing his curtains. He will never be sure if he saw a mirage or not. That is the kind of person I am. Not really the kind of person who goes and raises elks in Whakatane.”

IfsKindPersonsAgeHouseSawsFrontsWindowRaisesDancingRoundsBrilliantDrawingLaughedPantsCurtainsTabletsMirages
Author:Louise Rennison
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“The world is a wonderfully weird place, consensual reality is significantly flawed, no institution can be trusted, certainty is a mirage, security a delusion, and the tyranny of the dull mind forever threatens -- but our lives are not as limited as we think they are, all things are possible, laughter is holier than piety, freedom is sweeter than fame, and in the end it's love and love alone that really matters.”

ThinkingWorldMindEndsMatterRealityForeverOur LivesSecurityFameLaughterAll ThingsAnd LoveInstitutionsTyrannyCertaintyDullDelusionTrustedFlawedPietyMiragesAlone In LoveWeird PlacesDull Minds
Author:Tom Robbins
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