Quotes About Reality

Success is full of promise till one gets it, and then it seems like a nest from which the bird has flown.

It seemed to him that there was nothing real in that religion, but that reality in presence of it was so paltry that it deserved not the time for thought.

for nightinggales - we know - can't live on fairytales.

It is as if I had been going downhill while I imagined I was going up. And that is really what it was. I was going up in public opinion, but to the same extent life was ebbing away from me. And now it is all done and there is only death.

I feel not only that I cannot disappear, as nothing disappears in the world, but that I will always be and have always been. I feel that, besides me, above me, spirits live, and that in this world there is truth.

the majority of men do not think in order to know the truth, but in order to assure themselves that the life which they lead, and which is agreeable and habitual to them, is the one which coincides with the truth.

Just when the question of how to live had become clearer to him, a new insoluble problem presented itself - Death.

All the stories and descriptions of that time without exception peak only of the patriotism, self-sacrifice, despair, grief, and heroism of the Russians. But in reality it was not like that...The majority of the people paid no attention to the general course of events but were influenced only by their immediate personal interests.

most men do not try] to recognize the truth, but to persuade themselves that the life they are leading, which is what they like and are used to, is a life perfectly consistent with truth.

Pure, perfect sorrow is as impossible as pure and perfect joy.

We should show life neither as it is or as it ought to be, but only as we see it in our dreams.

As though I had been going steadily downhill, imagining that I was going uphill. So it was in fact. In public opinion I was going uphill, and steadily as I got up it, life was ebbing away from me....And now the work's done, there's only death.

He had heard that women often did care for ugly and ordinary men, but he did not believe it, for he judged by himself, and he could not himself have loved any but beautiful, mysterious, and exceptional women.

The constant, obvious flattery, contrary to all evidence, of the people around him [Tsar Nicholas I] had brought him to the point that he no longer saw his contradictions, no longer conformed his actions and words to reality, logic, or even simple common sense, but was fully convinced that all his orders, however senseless, unjust, and inconsistent with each other, became sensible, just, and consistent with each other only because he gave them.

As often happens between people who have chosen different ways, each of them, while rationally justifying the other's activity, despised it in his heart. To each of them it seemed that the life he led was the only real life, and the one his friend led was a mere illusion.

Ivan Ilyich's life had been most simple and commonplace–and most horrifying.

Every man experiences what you call love for every pretty woman and least of all for his wife. That is what the proverb says, and it is a true one. "Another's wife is a swan, but one's own is bitter wormwood.

If a man lives, then he believes in something. If he didn't believe that one must live for something, then he wouldn't live. If he doesn't see and doesn't understand the illusoriness of the finite, he believes in the infinite; if he does understand the illusoriness of the finite, he must believe in the infinite without which one cannot live.

Even in the valley of the shadow of death, two and two do not make six.

If only [people] understood that every thought is both false and true! False by one-sidenedness resulting from man's inability to embrace the whole truth, and true as an expression of one fact of human endeavor.

One can only live while one is intoxicated with life; as soon as one is sober it is impossible not to see that it is all a mere fraud and a stupid fraud! That is precisely what it is: there is nothing either amusing or witty about it, it is simply cruel and stupid.

Ca era dimineata ori seara, vineri ori duminica ? ii era totuna; era la fel, aceeasi durere surda, chinuitoare, care nu-l lasa o clipa; mereu constiinta vietii care se stinge fara putinta de impotrivire, dar care mai dainuie; moartea care se apropia, cumplita si hada ? numai ea singura era realitatea, iar celelalte toate...minciuna. La ce bun sa mai tii socoteala zilelor, saptamanilor, ceasurilor ?

In town a man can live for a hundred years without noticing that he has long been dead and has rotten away.

Este incredibil cât de complet? este iluzia care ne face s? credem c? frumuse?ea este în genere bun?tate.