Delusion Quotes - Page 28

• In the long run our boasted control of nature is a delusion.

  Joseph Wood Krutch

  Running, Long, Long Runs

  Joseph Wood Krutch (1971). “The Voice of the Desert, a Naturalist's Interpretation.”, William Morrow & Co

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• Politics, as hopeful men practise it in the world, consists mainly of the delusion that a change in form is a change in substance.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Hopeful, Substance

  H.L. MENCKEN (1958). “PREJUDICES A SELECTION”

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• Since September it's just gotten colder and colder. There's less daylight now, I've noticed too. This can only mean one thing - the sun is going out. In a few more months the Earth will be a dark and lifeless ball of ice. Dad says the sun isn't going out. He says its colder because the earth's orbit is taking us farther from the sun. He says winter will be here soon. Isn't it sad how some people's grip on their lives is so precarious that they'll embrace any preposterous delusion rather than face an occasional bleak truth?

  Bill Watterson

  Dad, Mean, Dark

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• It is our destiny to live with the wrong as well as the right kind of citizens, and to learn from them, the wrong-minded ones, as much or more as from others. If we have not yet succeeded -after how many centuries?- in eliminating from life the elements which plague us perhaps we need to question life more closely. Perhaps our refusal to face reality is the only ill we suffer from, and all the rest but illusion and delusion. (p.26)

  Henry Miller

  Reality, Destiny, Suffering

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• Vonnegut's war was necessary. And yet it was massacre and screaming and confusion and blood and death. It was the mammoth projection outward of the confused inner life of men. In war, the sad tidy constructs we make to help us believe life is orderly and controllable are roughly thrown aside like the delusions they are. In war, love is outed as an insane, insupportable emotion, a kind of luxury emotion, because everywhere you look, someone beloved to someone is being slaughtered, by someone whose own beloved has been slaughtered, or will be, or could be.

  George Saunders

  Confused, War, Believe

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• If your going to have delusions, you might as well go for the really satisfying ones.

  J. Michael Straczynski

  Might, Wells, Satisfying

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• Nick’s right, you are psychotic. (Talon) The correct term is sociopathic and yes, I am. But at least I have no delusions about myself. (Zarek) Meaning? (Talon) Take your meaning wherever you can find it. (Zarek)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Psychotic, Talons, Term

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• For what is delusion but the prelude to hurt. And what is hurt but the prelude to rage.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Hurt, Rage, Prelude

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• Belief in the traditional sense, or certitude, or dogma, amounts to the grandiose delusion, "My current model" -- or grid, or map, or reality-tunnel -- "contains the whole universe and will never need to be revised." In terms of the history of science and knowledge in general, this appears absurd and arrogant to me, and I am perpetually astonished that so many people still manage to live with such a medieval attitude.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Attitude, Reality, Tunnels

  Robert Anton Wilson (1977). “Cosmic trigger: final secret of the illuminati”, New Falcon Pubns

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• I maintain that to tell a person they are born again, while they are living in carelessness or sin, is a dangerous delusion.

  J. C. Ryle

  Sin, Born Again, Dangerous

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• This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.

  John Adams

  Religious, Atheist, If There Is A God

  John Adams, Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson (1988). “The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams”

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• Faith is indeed the energy of our whole universe directed to the highest form of being. Faith gives stability to our view of the universe. By faith we are convinced that our impressions of things without are not dreams or delusions, but, for us, true representations of our environment. By faith we are convinced that the signs of permanence, order, progress, which we observe in nature are true. By faith we are convinced that fellowship is possible with our fellow man and with God.

  Brooke Westcott

  Faith, Dream, Men

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• With a truly tragic delusion,” Carl Jung noted, “these theologians fail to see that it is not a matter of proving the existence of the light, but of blind people who do not know that their eyes could see. It is high time we realized that it is pointless to praise the light and preach it if nobody can see it. It is much more needful to teach people the art of seeing.

  Carl Jung

  Art, Eye, Light

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• Well,' said Ransom, 'if it is a delusion, it's a pretty stubborn one.

  C. S. Lewis

  Stubborn, Ransom, Well Said

  C.S. Lewis (1996). “Perelandra”, p.152, Simon and Schuster

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• The religions of mankind must be classed among the mass-delusions of this kind. No one, needless to say, who shares a delusion ever recognizes it as such.

  Sigmund Freud

  Religion, Kind, Share

  Sigmund Freud, James Strachey, Anna Freud, Carrie Lee Rothgeb (1961). “The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud”

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• Many have made a trade of delusions and false miracles, deceiving the stupid multitudes.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Stupid, Miracle, Deceiving

  Leonardo da Vinci (2008). “Notebooks”, p.267, OUP Oxford

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• Whatever, crazy chick who maybe lives here and maybe also breaks into Michael's house when they're all gone. I'm out. Have a nice delusion. -Shayne

  Rachel Caine

  Crazy, Nice, House

  Rachel Caine (2010). “Ghost Town: The Morganville Vampires”, p.218, Penguin

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• The God of the Old testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction.

  Richard Dawkins

  God, Religious, Atheist

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.51, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Daydreams are the delusions of the devil.

  Charlotte Bronte

  Devil, Daydreaming

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• And what is happy? It is a going always on. There is something better to be done than I have done, and spurred by the fair delusion of progress, I will seek to progress, to whip myself on, to more and more- to learning. Always.

  Sylvia Plath

  Progress, Done, Something Better

  Sylvia Plath (2007). “The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath”, p.141, Anchor

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• Faith and feelings are the warm marrow of evil. Unlike reason, faith and feelings provide no boundary to limit any delusion, any whim. They are virulent poison, giving the numbing illusion of moral sanction to every depravity ever hatched. Faith and feelings are the darkness to reason’s light. Reason is the very substance of truth itself. The glory that is life is wholly embraced through reason. In rejecting it, in rejecting reason, one embraces death.

  Terry Goodkind

  Light, Evil, Giving

  Terry Goodkind (2015). “Faith Of The Fallen”, p.366, Head of Zeus

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• It is practically an axiom in psychiatry that precocious intellect combined with physical weakness can give rise to many unpleasant character traits - avarice, delusions of grandeur , and obsessive masturbation, to name just a few.

  Sam Savage

  Character, Names, Giving

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• Freedom without the strength to support it and, if need be, defend it, would be a cruel delusion. And the strength to defend freedom can itself only come from widespread industrialisation and the infusion of modern science and technology into the country's economic life.

  Jamsetji Tata

  Country, Technology, Support

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• You can’t run away. The past will be only too happy to chase you —- in absolute, complete, and total earnest. Do you know why? Because they’re lonely. The past and memories are very lonely things. I don’t believe in God. Because he doesn’t have a fixed form. The past certainly does exist, even in a world where the future doesn’t have a fixed form. Even if it’s being colored by misunderstandings and delusions, a person’s past can’t be anything but the truth as long as he believes in it. If that’s what you base your actions or your way of life on, isn’t that like being god?

  Ryohgo Narita

  Running, Lonely, Memories

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• People compose the schedules they do out of the priorities they have; and someone who says otherwise is deceiving himself about what he really values. The same thing applies to money that applies to time. I make a practice of watching what people do, never what they say. Whatever is important, to anyone sane, he will make a place for it; people live out their values. Values are different in this respect from "ideals," which are typically vain and effete and thus exist mostly for the sake of promoting self-delusions.

  Kenny Smith

  Time, Philosophy, Self

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