Quotes About Reality

Spirituality is experienced in our Listening, in our Forgiveness, in our Dark places, in our Confusions, in our stories—not so much in what we "do," but in what and how we be . . . by how we experience the realities that we meet. Spirituality is, in briefest description, a way of life—a way of being.

Humility is just as much the opposite of self-abasement as it is of self-exaltation. To be humble is not to make comparisons. Secure in its reality, the self is neither better nor worse, bigger nor smaller, than anything else in the universe. It is—is nothing, yet at the same time is one with everything. DAG HAMMARSKJÖLD

The search for spirituality is, first of all, a search for reality, for honesty, for true speaking and true thinking. At least from the time of the Delphic oracle's first admonition, Know thyself, the arch-foe of spirituality has been recognized to be "denial"—the self-deception that rejects self by attempting to repudiate the essential paradox that is our human be-ing.

For women and men, for alcoholics and non-alcoholics, spirituality is one of those realities that we have only so long as we seek it; as soon as we stop seeking, we stop finding; as soon as we think we've got it, we've most certainly lost it.

Many people, not least those people who come to therapy, convince themselves that there are alternative options to choose where none exist.

ich aufrichtender Mensch und noch nicht ausdeterminierte reale Möglichkeit, das sind für die Entwicklung unseres Lebens, unserer Literatur, Philosophie, Praxis sicher die unabdingbarsten Kategorien.

The course of the world constantly and inevitably frustrates our moral demands.

Common consensus is not thought but wishful thinking.

There seems to be no agent more effective than another person in bringing a world for oneself alive or, by a glance, a gesture, or a remark, shriveling up the reality in which one is lodged.

We all know the old adage about why an elephant with all its power can be held in place by a small rope and peg. This is because elephants remember when they were babies and did not have the strength to pull the peg out of the ground. In short, elephants remain captive because their memories lie to them. They tell them that their past is their future—that what they experienced before will always be the reality that is before them.

We do not see the world as it is; we see the world as we are.

If he's just watching, then we're all unwilling participants in the universe's biggest reality show—the original Survivor.

Worry projects a negative view of the world around us. Worry projects a negative future. Worry is an act of faith. It is a deep-seated belief in worst-case scenarios. Worry is not rooted in reality but does affect our reality.

We have no control over the reality that in this world we will have trouble, but we have control over whether we decide to allow our hearts to be troubled.

However authentic the feelings of love, the dalliance was only ever meant to be a beautiful fiction.

The ability to go anywhere in our imagination is a pure expression of individual freedom. It is a creative force that can help us transcend reality.

When we imbue our partner with godly attributes and we expect him or her to uplift us from the mundane to the sublime, we create, as Johnson puts it, an "unholy muddle of two holy loves"4 that cannot help but disappoint.

predictability is a mirage. Our need for constancy limits how much we are willing to know the person who's next to us. We are invested in having him or her conform to an image that is often a creation of our own imagination, based on our own set of needs.

But, for many of us, renouncing the illusion of safety, and accepting the reality of our fundamental insecurity, proves to be a difficult step.

Looking back, he asks himself, "How could I not see?" But it is human nature to cling to our sense of reality, to resist its possible shattering even in the face of irrefutable evidence. I assure him that his "cluelessness" is not something to be ashamed of. This kind of avoidance is not an act of idiocy but an act of self-preservation.

As soon as we conform anything to language, we've changed it. Use a word and you've altered the world. The poets know this. It's what they try so hard to avoid.

Optimism is an attempt to circumvent the truth.

Happy isn't even a real idea, he said. It's just like love. A reasonably skeptical person doesn't even know what it means.

People love to apply themselves to games, jobs, relationships, politics, to create the illusion of meaning...If I can just heal my shoulder, then I could be a quarterback! If only I could finish this documentary and tell the story of my great-uncle to the world; then I would matter . If I was a movie star, then I would exist . People will light a crack pipe or steal a television just to try and feel that they exist