Quotes About Illusion

So now do you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life. The comfortable people only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless. We are living in a time when flowers are trying to live on flowers, instead of growing on good rain and black loam. Even fireworks, for all their prettiness, come from the chemistry of the earth. Yet somehow we think we can grow, feeding on flowers and fireworks, without completing the cycle back to reality.

Vivimos en una época en que las flores tratan de vivir de flores, en lugar de crecer gracias a la lluvia y al negro estiércol. Incluso los fuegos artificiales, pese a su belleza, proceden de la química de la tierra. Y, sin embargo, pensamos que podemos crecer, alimentándonos con flores y fuegos artificiales, sin completar el ciclo, de regreso a la realidad.

Si on ne peut avoir la réalité, autant se réfugier dans le rêve.

They were hopelessly caught in a mire of pretty words, which they seemed to believe themselves.

Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality.

Who knows what true happiness is, not the conventional word.. but the naked terror. To the lonely themselves, that wears a mask, the most miserable outcast hugs some memory.. or some illusion.

For a time I would feel I belonged still to a world of straightforward facts; but the feeling would not last long. Something would turn up to scare it away.

Vanity plays lurid tricks with our memory, and the truth of every passion wants some pretence to make it live.

It's queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there had never been anything like it, and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset. Some confounded fact we men have been living contentedly with ever since the day of creation would start up and knock the whole thing over.

No man engaged in a work he does not like can preserve many saving illusions about himself. The distaste, the absence of glamour, extend from the occupation to the personality. It is only when our appointed activities seem by a lucky accident to obey the particular earnestness of our temperament that we can taste the comfort of complete self-deception.

I am quite willing to be the blind instrument of higher ends. To give one's life for the cause is nothing. But to have one's illusions destroyed - that is really almost more than one can bear.

Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions. Only in the conduct of our action can we find the sense of mastery over the Fates.

I let him run on, this papier-mache Mephistopheles, and it seemed to me that if I tried I could poke my forefinger through him, and would find nothing inside but a little loose dirt, maybe.

all this life, must be life, since it is so much like a dream.

They believed their words. Everybody shows a respectful deference to certain sounds that he and his fellows can make. But about feelings people really know nothing. We talk with indignation or enthusiasm; we talk about oppression, cruelty, crime, devotion, self-sacrifice, virtue, and we know nothing real beyond the words. Nobody knows what suffering or sacrifice mean- except, perhaps the victims of the mysterious purpose of these illusions.

Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions.

Who knows what true loneliness is—not the conventional word but the naked terror? To the lonely themselves it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs some memory or some illusion.

Perhaps life is just that...a dream and a fear.

It was unreal as everything else--as the philanthropic pretense of the whole concern, as their government, as their show of work.

It was unreal as everything else--as the philanthropic pretense of the whole concern, as their talk, as their government, as their show of work. The only real feeling was a desire to get appointed to a trading post where ivory was to be had, so that they could earn percentages.

We talk with indignation or enthusiasm; we talk about oppression, cruelty, crime, devotion, self-sacrifice, virtue, and we know nothing real beyond the words. Nobody knows what suffering or sacrifice mean—except, perhaps the victims of the mysterious purpose of these illusions.

Kummallista, miten naisilta puuttuu kosketus totuuteen. He elävät omassa maailmassaan, jonka kaltaista ei ole koskaan ollut eikä voi koskaan tulla. Se on kerta kaikkiaan liian kaunis, ja jos he sellaisen saisivat pannuksi pystyyn, se menisi pirstaleiksi ennen ensimmäistä päivänlaskua. Jokin kirottu tosiasia, jonka kanssa me miehet olemme luomisen päivästä asti eläneet kaikessa sovussa, ponkaisisi pystyyn ja kaataisi koko kapistuksen.

agent was lying flushed and insensible; the other, bent over his books, was making correct entries of perfectly correct transactions;

There is such magnificent vagueness in the expectations that had driven each of us to sea, such a glorious indefiniteness, such a beautiful greed of adventures that are their own and only reward! What we get—well, we won't talk of that; but can one of us restrain a smile? In no other kind of life is the illusion more wide of reality—in no other is the beginning all illusion—the disenchantment more swift—the subjugation more complete.