Quotes About Illusion

It could be that this record set before you now is a fiction.

The people of England regards itself as free; but it is grossly mistaken; it is free only during the election of members of parliament. As soon as they are elected, slavery overtakes it, and it is nothing.

There is no subjection so perfect as that which keeps the appearance of freedom.

As long as we desire, we can do without happiness: we expect to achieve it. If happiness fails to come, hope persists, and the charm of illusion lasts as long as the passion that causes it. So this condition is sufficient in itself, and the anxiety it inflicts is a sort of enjoyment that compensates for reality… Woe to him who has nothing left to desire… We enjoy less what we obtain than what we hope for, and we are happy only before being happy.

One always wants what is good for oneself, but one does not always see it. The people is never corrupted, but it is often fooled, and only then does it appear to want what is bad.

No one cares for reality, everyone stakes his essence on illusion. Slaves and dupes of their self-love, men live not in order to live but to make other believe they have lived!

It was requisite for men to be thought what they really were not. To be and to appear became two very different things, and from this distinction sprang pomp and knavery, and all the vices which form their train.

Niemand kümmert sich mehr um die Wirklichkeit; alle setzen ihr Wesen in den Schein. Als Sklaven und Narren ihrer Eigenliebe leben sie dahin, nicht um zu leben, sondern um andere glauben zu machen, sie hätten gelebt.

People think they come together in the spectacle, and it is here that they are isolated.

We laughed about all the kids who believed in the Santa Claus myth and got nothing for Christmas but a bunch of cheap plastic toys. Years from now, when all the junk they got is broken and long forgotten, Dad said, you'll still have your stars.

We laughed about all the kids who believed in the Santa myth and got nothing for Christmas but a bunch of cheap plastic toys. Years from now, when all the junk they got is broken and long forgotten, Dad said, you'll still have your stars.

Phoenix was square and straight, boxy and boxed in, and above all, fake.

So they told us all about how other kids were deceived by their parents, how the toys the grown-ups claimed were made by little elves wearing bell caps in their workshop at the North Pole actually had labels on them saying MADE IN JAPAN.

Once you hear the details of victory, it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat.

In the state I was in, if someone had come and told me I could go home quietly, that they would leave me my life whole, it would have left me cold: several hours or several years of waiting is all the same when you have lost the illusion of being eternal.

My memories are like coins in the devil's purse: when you open it you find only dead leaves.

Lucien thought with bitter pleasure that his parents found him looking fine. "I don't exist." He closed his eyes and let himself drift: existence is an illusion because I know I don t exist, all I have to do is plug my ears and not think about anything and I'll become nothingness.

Now I knew: things are entirely what they appear to be—and behind them . . . there is nothing. This

The idea is still there, unnameable. It waits, peacefully. Now it seems to say: "Yes? Is that what you wanted? Well, that's exactly what you've never had (remember you fooled yourself with words, you called the glitter of travel, the love of women, quarrels, and trinkets adventure) and this is what you'll never have—and no one other than yourself." But Why? WHY?

This sun and blue sky were only a snare. This is the hundredth time I've let myself be caught. My memories are like coins in the devil's purse: when you open it you find only dead leaves.

Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal.

the diversity of things, their individuality, were only an appearance, a veneer. This veneer had melted, leaving soft, monstrous masses, all in disorder—naked, in a frightful, obscene nakedness.

Many people are walking along the shore, turning poetic springtime faces towards the sea; they're having a holiday because of the sun. [...] The true sea is cold and black, full of animals; it crawls under this thin green film made to deceive human beings.

Yani sen...bütün o... anl?k trajediler, içinde maskelerin, ÅŸallar?n, mobilyalar?n ve benim birer küçük rol, senin de büyük bir rol oynad???n trajediler bitti mi art?k?