Quotes About Illusion

Warfare is theatre, I have said, and the essence of theatre is aritifce. What we show, we will not do. What we don't show, we will do.

You're supposed to learn that things that you think are nothing, as weightless as air, are actually powerful substantial forces, as real and as solid as earth.   I understood. The eagle was telling me that dreams, visions, meditations such as this very one–things that I had till now disdained as fantasy and illusion–were as real and as solid as anything in my waking life.

Often, "reality" means nothing more than conventional reality. And conventional reality is almost always wrong. Ask Dick Rowe of Decca Records, who turned down the Beatles.

Science is the only news. When you scan through a newspaper or magazine, all the human interest stuff is the same old he-said-she-said, the politics and economics the same sorry cyclic dramas, the fashions a pathetic illusion of newness, and even the technology is predictable if you know the science. Human nature doesn't change much; science does, and the change accrues, altering the world irreversibly. - Whole Earth Discipline (2009), page 216.

Few are naive enough to really believe what they say, but the palace of lies is a comfortable mansion with many rooms.

For Republicans, that "home" invariably meant a gauzy view of an idealized America somewhere in the 1950s that never existed.

You can't believe everything you hear. Sometimes, you can't even believe your eyes.

Things can fool you sometimes.

A lot of people were mistaken about a lot of things.

pretending to do something when you're doing nothing is an art form in itself.

I'm well aware that immortality is simply an illusion we carry with us to keep ourselves functional from day to day, but the idea of a murder contract was inconceivable to me.

What's wrong with living in a dream world? You have to wake up.

Every time I shot back, What's wrong with living in a dream world? And she'd say, You have to wake up.

no longer looked for the exit. They just kept circling the tight perimeters of the glass, going in their familiar patterns. Their reality had shrunk to that jar. It had become their entire world. It had become safe. Life beyond it had ceased to exist. I'm in the jar, I thought.

these lovely, lying children, I saw very clearly that there was no redemption here.

There was nothing any of us could write about except what we were allowed to see, which was a concert like any other, a few staged welcome performances, and the usual tourist sites. It was a lesson in control and manipulation. The real audience was not those in the concert hall but the journalists whose role was to deliver a sanitized version of North Korea to the outside world, and what shocked me was how easily seduced they were.

We believe what we want to believe.

mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy

When we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away...

Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.

El arte de la guerra se basa en el engaño. Por lo tanto, cuando es capaz de atacar, ha de aparentar incapacidad; cuando las trampas se mueven, aparentar inactividad.

When strong, appear weak. Brave, appear fearful. Orderly, appear chaotic. Full, appear empty. Wise, appear foolish. Many, appear to be few. Advancing, appear to retreat. Moving quickly, appear to be slow. Taking, appear to leave. In one place, appear to be in another.

All warfare is based on deception. Therefore, when capable, pretend to be incapable; when active, inactive; when near, make the enemy believe that you are far away; when far away; that you are near.

One who is skillful at keeping the enemy on the move maintains deceitful appearances, according to which the enemy will act. He sacrifices something, that the enemy may snatch at it.