Quotes About Reality

Devi avere paura degli uomini, non dei mostri.

Many have imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or known to exist in reality; for how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather bring about his own ruin than his preservation.

For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearance, as though they were realities and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are

How we live is so different from how we ought to live that he who studies what ought to be done rather than what is done will learn the way to his downfall rather than to his preservation.

What's right and what's true are different.

You have noticed that truth comes into this world with two faces. One is sad with suffering, and the other laughs; but it is the same face, laughing or weeping.

Google is neither God nor Satan, and if there are shadows in the Googleplex they're no more than the delusions of grandeur. What's disturbing about the company's founders is not their boyish desire to create an amazingly cool machine that will be able to outthink its creators, but the pinched conception of the human mind that gives rise to such a desire.

lead us to perceive minds where no minds exist, even in "inanimate objects.

Man is the measure of all things', meaning that there is no truth except that which man perceives.

If canines can be conditioned to salivate over nonexistent food, may not men one day be likewise taught to salivate at the prospect of nonexistent facts?

Huxley believed that anyone "with a gift for the knowledge of ultimate reality" could do far more good "by sticking to his curious activities on the margin of society than by going to the centre and trying to improve matters there.

Selfhood is a heavy, hardly translucent medium, which cuts off most of the light of reality and distorts what little it permits to pass.' This is Huxley's central notion [of Grey Eminence], that we should 'stand out of our own light' in order to see the eternal truths.

Huxley believed tat anyone "with a gift for the knowledge of ultimate reality" could do far more good "by sticking to his curious activities on the margin of society than by going to the centre and trying to improve matters there.

It is true, mountains everywhere are mountains, water everywhere is water, sky everywhere is sky, and men everywhere are men. But nevertheless, if seated before the Alps, you attempt to picture the Himalayas, something inexplicable but convincing will be lacking.

Tell me. You're a man who understands history," I said. "If you want to start a revolution, why not issue a manifesto? Why not show the people who you are, what you're doing?" He leaned back, grateful to explain. "That's perfectly understandable. Socrates wrote nothing down. Neither did Jesus. The problem with text is that it assumes it's own reality. It cannot answer, and it cannot explain.

Nicholas Shakespeare

Believe me, I'm no romantic, and while I've heard all about love at first sight, I've never believed in it, and I still don't. But even so, there was something there, something recognizably real, and I couldn't look away.

It's impossible to protect your kids against disappointment in life.

I'm sure you think that I don't understand what you're going through, but I do. It's just that sometimes, our future is dictated by what we are, opposed to what we want.

that the human brain expects permanence. The cup is where you put it. The car is where you parked it (if it hasn't been towed away). The wine is still in the refrigerator where you left it. It's only people, the most complex, important, influential, life-changing elements of our lives, who are there and then are shockingly not-there. And it's surprisingly hard to get one's brain around that. So

every person's biggest trauma is still that person's biggest trauma. There is no relativity within the realm of one's own subconscious.

It doesn't look poor. The place looks

Even now, I struggle to convince myself that I'm a fully grown adult, doing fully adult things. I'm not sure the ageing, wrinkled exterior ever quite convinces the innocent inner child that this is the real deal, that this is what's really happening.

Maybe she has wasted her life dreaming about something that was never entirely real.