Quotes About Reality

many people prefer the comfort of fantasy to the harshness of reality. They seem to reason this way: 'How can I arrange my beliefs so I'll feel most comfortable?' rather than arranging them to agree with reality.

Do days exist without calendars? Does time pass when there are no human hands left to wind the clocks?

Richard Bernstein's Beyond Objectivism and Relativism

The Web of Belief, second edition, coauthored with J. S. Ullian (New York: Random House, 1978)

If everyone likes it, it's probably because it has been doing well. Most people seem to think that outstanding performance to dates presages outstanding future performance. Actually, it's more likely that outstanding future performance to date has borrowed from the future and thus presages subpar performance from her on out.

All reality is iconoclastic. The earthly beloved, even in this life, incessantly triumphs over your mere idea of her. And you want her to; you want her with all her resistances, all her faults, all her unexpectedness. That is, in her foursquare and independent reality. And this, not any image or memory, is what we are to love still; after she is dead.

The religious mysteries direct us toward the true nature of reality that we are unaware of. Religion opens our mind and spirit to the greater reality. Much of what we call supernatural is only what we don't understand.

Only when we realize that there is no eternal, unchanging truth or absolute truth can we arouse in ourselves a sense of intellectual responsibility.

Ozour pourtant est las du voyage. On part découragé, en lâche ou en héros, dans l'illusion d'une autre vie, mais il n'y a pas d'issue. L'exil est une prison.

met mijn schijnbare trots als onmisbaar pantser voor mijn kwetsbaarheid in een al met al vrij crapuleuze wereld

Beiden schenen wij het gevoel te hebben de laatste bewoners te zijn van een uit haar voegen gerukte wereld waarover de tijd was stilgevallen.

Usually the space was dotted with people getting high, getting higher, or wondering why they werent high yet.

The summer sun continued to rise in the sky and propel shocks of heat down on the city and the heavy moisture moistened bodies and clothing, and people fanned and wiped at sweating faces trying to survive another bitch of a day as Harry and Marion peacefully passed the day sleeping in each others arms oblivious to the reality surrounding them.

Unfortunately, I suspect there never will be a requiem for the Dream, simply because it will destroy us before we have the opportunity to mourn its passing.

There was a sky somewhere above the tops of the buildings, with stars and a moon and all the things there are in a sky, but they were content to think of the distant street lights as planets and stars. If the lights prevented you from seeing the heavens, then perform a little magic and change reality to fit the need. The street lights were now planets and stars and moon.

I suspect there will never be a requiem for a dream, simply because it will destroy us before we have the opportunity to mourn it's passing.

There was a sky somewhere above the tops of the buildings, with stars and a moon and all the things there are in a sky, but they were content to think of the distant street lights as planets and stars. If the lights prevented you from seeing the heavens, then preform a little magic and change reality to fit the need. The street lights were now planets and stars and moon.

and he just sat back and stared at the tube, almost interested in what was happening, trying to find the ability to believe in that lie so he could believe the one within.

Necessity is the mother of self-delusion.

Don't go to Casablanca expecting it to be like the film. In fact, if you're not too busy, and your schedule allows it, don't go to Casablanca at all.

So unless we're going to get down on our knees and give thanks every time disaster misses, it makes no sense to moan when it strikes. Us, or anyone else. Because we're not comparing it with anything. And anyway, we're all dead, or never born, and the whole thing really is a dream. There, you see. That's a funny side.

Outside my window, the British public traded crack, slept with itself for money, and fought drunken battles it couldn't remember in the morning.

We are so easily baffled by appearances And do not realize that these stones are one with the stars.

When books sweep the world with characters and plots that seem unutterably grim...you have to ask whether we willingly incorperate such material into our lives because we need more shadows, clouds, drama, or perhaps because vicarious exposure to such material equips us, psychologically, for potential exposure to the real thing. [p35, Chapter 1 Taking the rough with the smooth]