Quotes About Reality

The main difference between the pursuit of knowledge in science versus the same pursuit in Buddhism is their ultimate goals. In Buddhism, knowledge is acquired essentially for therapeutic purposes. The objective is to free ourselves from the suffering that is caused by our undue attachment to the apparent reality of the external world and by our servitude to our individual egos, which we imagine reside at the center of our being.

The search for happiness is not about looking at life through rose-colored glasses or blinding oneself to the pain and imperfections of the world. Nor is happiness a state of exaltation to be perpetuated at all costs; it is the purging of mental toxins, such as hatred and obsession, that literally poison the mind. It is also about learning how to put things in perspective and reduce the gap between appearances and reality. To

When they hypnotize us, ammonia becomes rose water, charcoal becomes chocolate, a top hat becomes a baby to be cradled. We drink, we eat, we rock our long-lost babies from the before. Their questions are never to do with the before. What before? What is the question? We are never sure, only that they have one and they have an answer, too. To be hypnotizable is proof of the invisible lesion on our brains and so proof of our hysteria.

The older I get the more mixed up life seems. When you're little, it's all so plain. It's all laid out like a game ready to play. You think you know exactly how it's going to go. But things happen...

I'm not the white-picket-fence kind of guy. So don't go building castles in the air. You'll get trapped in the rubble when they collapse.

Young people can get very discouraged and get hooked on drugs or on alcohol because of problems they perceive as insurmountable. It is important that they realize a mistake need not ruin their future, but they must also know that not everything in life is a bed of roses.

Why does no one tell you that work, not love, is the real salvation? Because if we told young people how life really was, they would beat us with their fists and ask why we brought them into this world. [Édouard Manet]

I believe he meant that my little ink sketch was a good approximation of reality--which is exactly how we appraise art when we are young. We want our horses to look like living beings, a loaf of bread to look edible, and a woman's dress to look like satin. We want a painting or a sketch of a thing to replicate it faithfully. The closer a work of art is to reality, the greater the power of the artist. All of that is perfectly acceptable and right--in children. [Édouard Manet]

The idea that old men become peaceful or philosophical--what shit. One learns to endure, that is all. [Édouard Manet]

One person's crazy is another person's sane, I guess.

You have to take things as they are, not how you hear they're supposed to be.

To name the cat is, if you like, to make it into a non-cat, a cat that has ceased to exist, has ceased to be a living cat, but this does not mean one is making it into a dog, or even a non-dog.

The awareness at each moment of what is intolerable in the world (tortures, oppression, unhappiness, hunger, the camps) is not tolerable: it bends, sinks, and he who exposes himself to it sinks with it. The awareness is not awareness in general. All knowledge of what everywhere is intolerable will at once lead knowledge astray. We live thus between straying and a half-sleep. To know this is already enough to stray.

Mis kõige enam lugemist ohustab, on see: lugeja reaalsus, tema isiksus, pretensioonikus ja põikpäisus loetu ees aina iseendaks jääda - inimeseks, kes üldiselt teab, kuidas lugeda. Lugeda luuletust ei tähenda lugeda lihtsalt järjekordset luuletust, see ei tähenda isegi sisenemist luule olemusse selle luuletuse kaudu. Luuletuse lugemine on see luuletus ise, mis ennast lugemises kinnitab.

How long this lasted I can't imagine, it wasn't an imaginary time, it also didn't belong to the time  of things that happen.

Kebiasaan untuk menerjemahkan teks dari perspektif para penafsir sebelumnya – yang pandangannya atas realitas tidak sesuai dengan penemuan-penemuan masa kini – memainkan peranan penting dalam kesalahpahaman atas Kitab Suci.

The final delusion is the belief that one has lost all delusion.

The final delusion is the belief that one has lost all delusions.

worse than amnesia, the loss of all memory. It is the chaotic falsification of memory. Dementia.

Unless we close our eyes we are always deceived.

Our real life is not the life we live, and we feel that our deepest, nay, our most intimate thoughts are quite apart from ourselves, for we are other than our thoughts and our dreams. And it is only at special moments – it may be by merest accident – that we live our own life. Will the day ever dawn when we shall be what we are? …

Each man has to seek out his own special aptitude for a higher life in the midst of the humble and inevitable reality of daily existence. Than this there can be no nobler aim in life. It is only by the communications we have with the infinite that we are to be distinguished from each other.

We are face to face with reality now; let us look at it well and pronounce our sentence; for this is the moment when we hold the proofs in our hands, when the elements of crime are hot before us and shout out the truth that soon will fade from our memory.

We believe we have dived down to the most unfathomable depths, and when we reappear on the surface, the drop of water that glistens on our trembling finger-tips no longer resembles the sea from which it came. We believe we have discovered a grotto that is stored with bewildering treasure; we come back to the light of day, and the gems we have brought are false – mere pieces of glass – and yet does the treasure shine on, unceasingly, in the darkness!