Quotes About Reality

No rose without a thorn. But many a thorn without a rose.

Every fulfilled wish we wrest from the world is really like alms that keep the beggar alive today so that he can starve again tomorrow.

The greatest wisdom consists in enjoying the present and making this enjoyment the goal of life, because the present is all that is real and everything else merely imaginary. But you could just as well call this mode of life the greatest folly: for that which in a moment ceases to exist, which vanishes as completely as a dream, cannot be worth any serious effort.

As Epictetus says, Men are not influenced by things, but by their thoughts about things.

Tutti prendono i limiti della loro visione per i limiti del mondo.

Consideration of the kind, touched on above, might, indeed, lead us to embrace the belief that the greatest wisdom is to make the enjoyment of the present the supreme object of life; because that is the only reality, all else being merely the play of thought. On the other hand, such a course might just as well be called the greatest folly: for that which in the next moment exists no more, and vanishes utterly, like a dream, can never be worth a serious effort.

the ancient wisdom of the Indian philosophers declares, "It is Mâyâ, the veil of deception, which blinds the eyes of mortals, and makes them behold a world of which they cannot say either that it is or that it is not: for it is like a dream; it is like the sunshine on the sand which the traveller takes from afar for water, or the stray piece of rope he mistakes for a snake.

While illusion distorts reality for a moment, error can reign for a millennia in abstractions, throw its iron yoke over whole peoples and stifle the noblest impulses of humanity; those it cannot deceive are left in chains by those it has, by its slaves.

We learn by experience that happiness and pleasure are a fata morgana, which, visible from afar, vanish as we approach; that, on the other hand, suffering and pain are a reality, which makes its presence felt without any intermediary, and for its effect, stands in no need of illusion or the play of false hope.

Since everything which exists or happens for a man exists only in his consciousness and happens for it alone, the most essential thing for a man is the constitution of this consciousness, which is in most cases far more important than the circumstances which go to form its contents.

Time is that by which at every moment all things become as nothing in our hands, and thereby lose all their true value.

En büyük bilgelik ÅŸu andan zevk almay? hayat?n en büyük amac? k?lmakt?r, çünkü tek gerçek budur, baÅŸka her ÅŸey düÅŸünce oyunudur. Ama bunun en büyük budalal???m?z olduÄŸunu da söyleyebiliriz, çünkü yaln?zca k?sa bir süre için var olan ve bir rüya gibi kaybolan içinde bulunduÄŸumuz bu an asla ciddi bir çabaya deÄŸmez.

There is only one inborn error, and that is the notion that we exist in order to be happy.

The more clearly you become conscious of the frailty, vanity and dream-like quality of all things, the more clearly will you also become conscious of the eternity of your own inner being; because it is only in contrast to this that the aforesaid quality of things becomes evident, just as you perceive the speed at which a ship is going only when looking at the motionless shore, not when looking into the ship itself.

It would be a great advantage to a young man if his early training could eradicate the idea that the world has a great deal to offer him. But the usual result of education is to strenghten this delusion; and our first ideas of life are generally taken from fiction rather than from fact.

Evil is just what is positive; it makes its own existence felt.

Because appearance remains appearance and does not become thing in itself.

The cause of laughter is simply the sudden perception of the incongruity between a concept and the real project.

Only the carrying out stamps the resolve; till then, it is always a mere intention that can be altered; it exists only in reason, in the abstract. Only in reflection are willing and acting different; in reality they are one.

Descartes] And so it was he who discovered the gulf between the subjective or ideal and the objective or real. He clothed this insight in the form of a doubt concerning the existence of the external world; but by his inadequate solution of such doubt, namely that God Almighty would surely not deceive us, he has shown how profound the problem is and how difficult it is to solve.

It then becomes clear and certain to him that he does not know a sun and an earth, but only an eye that sees a sun, a hand that feels an earth; that the world around him is there only as representation, in other words, only in reference to another thing, namely that which represents, and this is himself.

This is in the highest degree the case with many of Goethe's and Byron's poems, which are obviously founded upon actual facts; where it is open to a foolish reader to envy the poet because so many delightful things happened to him, instead of envying that mighty power of phantasy which was capable of turning a fairly common experience into something so great and beautiful.

The truth is that we ought to be wretched, and are so.

Thus, flowers cannot be preserved, but their ethereal oil, their essence, with the same smell and the same virtues, can. The conduct that has had correct concepts for its guidance will, in the result, coincide with the reality intended.