Quotes About Illusion

Sanity - a trick of agreement

No more to say, and nothing to weep for but the Beings in the Dream, trapped in its disappearance

Money! Money! Money! shrieking mad celestial money of illusion! Money made of nothing, starvation, suicide! Money of failure! Money of death! Money against Eternity! and eternity's strong mills grind out vast paper of Illusion!

People believe what they want to believe. They see no evil because they don't want to. But evil is out there, and this is the result. The holy man gestured to the dead girls. You might not see the evil, Officer Kincaid, but you can see its handiwork right here.

El hombre del Mediodía no miente, se equivoca. No dice siempre la verdad, pero cree que la dice… Para él, su mentira no es mentira. Es una especie de espejismo…

Reality, n. The dream of a mad philosopher.

OPIATE, n. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard.

Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge.

Mesmerism, n. Hypnotism before it wore good clothes, kept a carriage and asked Incredulity to dinner.

NOUMENON, n. That which exists, as distinguished from that which merely seems to exist, the latter being a phenomenon. The noumenon is a bit difficult to locate; it can be apprehended only be a process of reasoning—which is a phenomenon. Nevertheless, the discovery and exposition of noumena offer a rich field for what Lewes calls the endless variety and excitement of philosophic thought. Hurrah (therefore) for the noumenon!

IMAGINATION, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.

In this world, what is here is not necessarily here, and what is now may not really be now: place and time are malleable, and everything is seen through a haze of probabilities, rather than with certainty.

in her inward reality she was a vehicle of transformation, travelling through the mists of illusion towards the elusive, ever-receding landfall that was Truth.

He's living in a dream! Pandered to, and coddled, and utterly spoiled his whole life! That boy and the real world are entire strangers to one another!

So this is all about appeareances?` murmured Vick. 'Being king IS all about appeareances,' said Orso. 'An endless perfomance with no chance for an encore and for damn sure no applause.

Gold and silver is everything to everyone. Some of us have enough of it to pretend otherwise.

Huh." Above us, not ten strides distant, are some of the most fashionable addresses in the city. The shimmering palaces and a river of shit, so much closer together than most would ever like to believe. Everything beautiful has a dark side, and some of us must dwell there, so that others can laugh in the light.

The truth is overrated." Vick let the purse drop into his hand. "An actor should know that.

Hundreds of men, struggling and dying by the hellish glare of burning torches, of burning missiles, of burning houses. Friendly could hardly believe it was real. It all looked, false, fake, a model staged for a lurid painting. "The breach at Visserine." he whispered to himself, framing the scene with his hands and imagining it hanging on some rich man's wall.

No one had the answers. Worse. There weren't any. The best you could do was play a long con and act as if you had them. Never show fear. Never show doubt.

El oro y la plata lo son todo para todos. Algunos tenemos suficiente para poder fingir que no.

He's every bit like his fireplace, the big dolt. Looks impressive, but there's not much going on underneath.

Que sea el monstruo el que pronuncie la sentencia de muerte para que así los demás podamos seguir pensando que somos gente inocente

As with so many things in life, heroic last stands are a great deal more appealing in concept than in reality.