Quotes About Reality

Freedom was a children's fantasy, a game for women to play. No man was ever free.

and as he aged and the world became less real he began to doubt his own beliefs, so that by the time he saw the God in whom he had never been able to believe or disbelieve he was probably expecting to do so.

You see, captain,  here is the truth of the business: some persons are better, others are less.  But it may be nice for you to think otherwise.

reality was not something given, not an absolute, but something that men made up, and that values, too, changed according to who was doing the valuing. A world that did not cohere, in which truth did not exist and was replaced by warring versions trying to dominate or even eradicate their rivals, horrified

These are the times we live in, in which men hide their truths, perhaps even from themselves, and live in lies, until the lies reveal those truths in ways impossible to foretell.

un país donde la verdad es lo que se le dice que sea, la realidad, de forma absolutamente literal, deja de existir, de forma que todo resulta posible salvo lo que se nos dice que es real;

description of the world contains facts, certainly, and facts, as we've seen, are fluttery, elusive creatures, but there are armies of fact lepidopterists chasing after them, and sometimes they do get nailed to the wall, like moths.

Porque lo que crees depende de lo que has visto, no solo lo que es visible sino aquello que estás dispuesto a suponer.

Not to know the difference between a metaphor and a lie is one definition of insanity.

The first lesson of my life: nobody can face the world with his eyes open all the time.

Trapped inside a metaphor, I've often felt the need to re-describe it, to change the terms. This isn't so much a balloon, I've wanted to say, as a bubble within which I'm simultaneously exposed and sealed off.... depriving me of reality, reducing me to an abstraction.... [NY, Dec. 1991; Columbia Graduate School Of Journalism Speech]

If faith is what you have to go on, if faith is the link between your beliefs and the world at large, your beliefs are very likely to be wrong. Beliefs can be right or wrong. If you believe you can fly, that belief is only true if indeed you can fly. Somebody who thinks he can fly, and is wrong about it, will eventually discover there's a problem with his view of the world.

Everyone who has eyes to see can see that if the God of Abraham exists, He is an utter psychopath--and the God of Nature too. If you can't see these things just by looking, you have simply closed your eyes to the realities of our world.

Unlike statements of fact, which require no further work on our part, lies must be continually protected from collisions with reality.

Faith does not offer a strong link between our beliefs and actual states of the world.

The reality of your life is always now. And to realize this, we will see, is liberating. In fact, I think there is nothing more important to understand if you want to be happy in this world.

We are not self-caused little gods.

Our sense of our own freedom results from our not paying attention to what it is actually like to be what we are. The moment we do pay attention, we begin to see that free will is nowhere to be found, and our subjectivity is perfectly compatible with this truth. Thoughts and actions simply arise in the mind. What else could they do? The truth about us is stranger than many suppose: The illusion of free will is itself an illusion.

there is almost nothing more common than the belief that one is above average in intelligence, wisdom, honesty, etc.

Eventually, it begins to seem as if you are repeatedly awakening from a dream to find yourself safely in bed. No matter how terrible the dream, the relief is instantaneous.

Nothing is more sacred than the facts.

One thing each of us knows for certain is that reality vastly exceeds our awareness of it.

To point out nonepistemic motives in another's view of the world, therefore, is always a criticism, as it serves to cast doubt upon a person's connection to the world as it is.

Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply an admission of the obvious.