Quotes About Illusion

None of the reality-models discussed in this chapter, however bizarre they may seem to some readers, are any more arbitrary than the official reality-model known as consensus-reality, which is a statistical average and not nearly consensual as it seems. Travel 100 miles in any direction, and the consensus begins to crumble. Travel 1000 miles and very little consensus is left . . .

He doesn't think it is any crazier than anybody else's reality-tunnel, and he claims it is a lot more fun than any other.

her hair. But fantasy

The thing I like about Irish whiskey is that the more you drink the smoother it goes down. Of course that's probably true of antifreeze as well, but illusion is nearly all we have.

seem an honest man, sir," she said. " Ã¢â'¬ËœLet be be the end of seem,' Ã¢â'¬Â I said. She smiled faintly. " Ã¢â'¬ËœThe only emperor,' Ã¢â'¬Â she said, " Ã¢â'¬Ëœis the emperor of ice-cream.' Ã¢â'¬Â "Very good

There was no way to tell, looking at me, that I only had $387 in the bank. Three-piece

We're all not quite as sane as we pretend to be." Sam

And here, all along, she'd thought of herself as being so calm, so cool, so composed.

Do shadows cast shadows of their own?

What if all's appearance? Is not outside seeming real as substance inside? Both are facts, so leave me dreaming.

The world and life's too big to pass for a dream

We're asleep yet not asleep. We are thinking a strange thought, Thinking we are to be slaughtered, That cranberry branches are burning, That cauldrons are steaming, That steel knives are being sharpened.

It's what we call a fanciful life construction. Also known as baloney.

Guilt?" he remarked in prison. "It's this mechanism we use to control people. It's an illusion. It's a kind of social control mechanism—and it's very unhealthy. It does terrible things to our bodies. And there are much better ways to control our behavior than that rather extraordinary use of guilt.

We assume, without too much thinking, that any regime change in these places will be for the better. But it easily could be for the worse. Both Putin and Xi Jinping are rational actors, holding back more extreme elements. They are bold, but not crazy. The idea that more liberal regimes might replace them is an illusion.

I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.

We fool ourselves. The best of us… the best and the brightest, we're easiest to fool.

People want to believe.

What you loved was the idea of rescuing me. You didn't really love me then, and you don't really love me now.

Liberation, I guess, is everybody getting what they think they want, without knowing the whole truth. Or in other words, liberation finally amounts to being free from things we don't like in order to be enslaved by things we approve of. Here's to the eternal tandem.

The grass is not always greener on the other side

Remember: The best deceivers do everything they can to cloak their roguish qualities. They cultivate an air of honesty in one area to disguise their dishonesty in others. Honesty is merely another decoy in their arsenal of weapons.

Never be distracted by people's glamorous portraits of themselves and their lives; search and dig for what really imprisons them.

A natural response when people feel overwhelmed is to retreat into various forms of passivity. If we don't try too much in life, if we limit our circle of action, we can give ourselves the illusion of control. The less we attempt, the less chances of failure. If we can make it look like we are not really responsible for our fate, for what happens to us in life, then our apparent powerlessness is more palatable.