Quotes About Illusion

The belief in an independently existent self is a mistaken perception with serious consequences, for all afflictions are rooted in a fundamental misconception about the nature of the self. Grasping at the mistaken perceptions of oneself and other phenomena leads to constant frustrations, anxieties, and unhappiness. Understanding the illusory nature of the self allows one to experience things 'as they are,' without interference from conceptual constructs.

The illusory self, which exists conventionally and dependently, on the basis of its component parts, simply ceases to exist when those parts are rent asunder.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.' Shakespeare.

The whole edifice of civilization turned out to be constructed from an unstable mix of quicksand and imagination.

She had been here before. She had never been here before. There was always something just out of sight, just around a corner, something she could never chase down—something that was chasing her down.

People always said they wanted the truth, but really they were perfectly content with a facsimile.

it had probably been a long enough life. Yet suddenly it all seemed like an illusion, a dream that had happened to someone else. What an odd thing existence was.

the doors of perception are hanging crazily off their hinges these days.

Novels gave you a completely false idea about life, they told lies and they implied there were endings when in reality there were no endings, everything just went on and on and on.

Or was it, as everyone told her, and as she must believe, all in her head? And so what if it was – wasn't everything in her head real too? What if there was no demonstrable reality? What if there was nothing beyond the mind?

In Teddy's experience people who claimed to be one thing were generally the opposite

Or was it, as everyone told her, and as she must believe, all in her head? And so what if it was - wasn't everything in her head real too? What if there was no demonstrable reality? What if there was nothing beyond the mind?

The mistake,' Sylvie said, 'is thinking that love equates with happiness.')

And with a massive roar the fifth wall comes down and the house of fiction falls, taking Viola and Sunny and Bertie with it. They melt into thin air and disappear. Pouf!

The man who is rich in fancy thinks that his wagon is already built; poor fool, he does not know that there are a hundred timbers to a wagon.

Of calling shapes, and beck'ning shadows dire, And airy tongues that syllable men's names.

How false is the conception, how frantic the pursuit, of that treacherous phantom which men call Liberty.

In critical moments, men sometimes see exactly what they wish to see.

When a great man has become petrified, and everyone begins to proclaim his greatness, he has already turned into a puppet.

Hope deceives more men than cunning does.

Clinton impressed Assad: a young man who appeared to want to be neutral in the Arab-Israeli dispute - an illusion of course, but that's what Assad thought.

Men who cannot deceive others are very often successful at deceiving themselves.

A man in the jungle at night, as someone said, may suppose a hyena's growl to be a lion's; but when he hears the lion's growl, he knows damn well it's a lion.

Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates. The truth is, nobody really possesses it.