Quotes About Reality

We don't need other worlds. We need mirrors.

Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur

On the whole, people tend to trust too much in the evidence of their senses; if they should happen to see a deceased acquaintance in public, they would sooner believe in a resurrection than admit to their own insanity.

It was as if we knew goodness knows how many specimens, whereas in reality there was still only one, which admittedly weighted seventeen billion tons.

Of the two powers, the two categories that take possession of us when we enter the world (from where?), space is by far the less mysterious. . . . Space is, after all, solid, monolithic. . . . Time, on the other hand, is a hostile element, truly treacherous, I would even say against human nature.

I still believe that the world is arranged in our favor, since we can nevertheless gain mastery over things that run counter to our senses.

In his late thirties, pushing forty: the shadow line. Time to accept the terms of the unsigned contract, there without the asking; the knowledge that what binds others applies to you, too, that there are no exceptions to the rule: though it was contrary to nature, one had to grow old.

Lo que fue y pasó, no existe y es como si jamás hubiera existido, al igual que un pastel que te comiste ayer ya no te sirve para nada. Por eso, si uno logra creer en ello, uno podría inventarse un pasado que no tuvo y sería como si lo hubiera vivido de verdad».

We come into this world trusting that things are as we see them, that what our senses witness is happening, but later it turns out, somehow, that children grow up and grownups start to die.

We're not searching for anything except people. We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don't know what to do with other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is.

People do not want immortality," I continued. "They simply do not want to die. They want to live, Decantor. They want to feel the ground beneath their feet, see the clouds overhead, love other people, be with them, and think. Nothing more. Everything that has been said beyond that is a lie.

With the demise of imagination I inherited its residue, a kind of permanent disagreement with reality, more like an anger, though, than a rejection. My laughter had already been a denial, and a more effective kind, perhaps, than suicide.

This is another lie. We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is. We are searching for an ideal image of our own world: we go in quest of a planet, a civilization superior to our own but developed on the basis of a prototype of our primeval past.

We don't need other worlds, we need mirrors.

Excuse me, what does 'no appreciable relation' mean'? In what proportion is reality appreciable or not?

No buscamos nada, salvo personas. No necesitamos otros mundos. Necesitamos espejos. No sabemos qué hacer con otros mundos. Con uno, ya nos atragantamos. Aspiramos a dar con nuestra propia e idealizada imagen.

Hemos llegado aquí tal como somos en realidad y cuando la otra parte, la parte que silenciamos, nos muestra esa verdad ¡no somos capaces de aceptarlo!

To a real elephant, and not a sheep, wolf, or gnu in elephant's clothing, you are not there. There is no You. There is no Is. There is only the Elephant. Don't you see how silly that

Witchcraft has always been a religion of poetry, not theology. The myths, legends, and teachings are recognized as metaphors for "That-Which-Cannot-Be-Told," the absolute reality our limited minds can never completely know.

Our very dissatisfaction with our weaknesses and struggles points to the reality that continuing to live in them is not our destiny.

No one gets a pain-free life. I know some girls' lives look pretty perfect from a distance, but only from a distance. You get close and you learn the truth. A life without suffering is a fantasy life, and you don't live in a fantasy.

Ä°çinde bir parça kahkaha olmayan bir ciddiyet hakikaten hakiki olamaz.

Yes, there are women who report feeling madly in love with their babies the second they lay eyes on them. These women are either very lucky or lying or needy, and I don't trust them.

Probably the hardest thing in the world for a man is the simple observation and acceptance of what is. Always we warp our pictures with what we hoped, expected, or were afraid of. In Russia we saw many things that did not agree with what we had expected, and for this reason it is very good to have photographs, because a camera has no preconceptions, it simply sets down what it sees.