Delusion Quotes - Page 31

• As long as our civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Civilization, Long, Belief

  1850 Representative Men,'Napoleon, the Man of the World'.

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• I've often thought that there isn't any "I" at all; that we are simply the means of expression of something else; that when we think we are ourselves, we are simply the victims of a delusion.

  Aleister Crowley

  Mean, Thinking, Expression

  Aleister Crowley (2010). “The Diary of a Drug Fiend”, p.5, Weiser Books

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• All delusions begin in the mind. All delusions are based on various ways we’re talking to ourselves and then believing what we are saying.

  Adyashanti

  Believe, Talking, Mind

  Adyashanti (2010). “The End of Your World: Uncensored Straight Talk on the Nature of Enlightenment”, p.68, Sounds True

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• All the holy words you read and all the holy words you speak are as nothing if you do not act upon them.  Even if you read little and say little but live the right way, forsaking craving, hatred and delusion, you will know the truth and find calmness and will show others the path.

  Gautama Buddha

  Hatred, Words You Speak, Littles

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• The God Delusion makes me embarrassed to be an atheist, and the McGraths show why.

  Michael Ruse

  Atheist, Embarrassed, Shows

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• I suffer from the delusion that every product of my imagination is not only possible, but always on the cusp of becoming real.

  Sean Parker

  Real, Imagination, Entrepreneur

  Facebook: Sean Parker, www.facebook.com.

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• I never met another man I'd rather be. And even if that's a delusion, it's a lucky one.

  Charles Bukowski

  Men, Lucky, Mets

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• I do not know whether this universe has an emperor; all I know is that this empire is in chaos; universal order is a big delusion.

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Order, Empires, Chaos

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• In every aspect and among almost every demographic, how American society digested and processed the long, dark chapter between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the civil rights movement has been delusion.

  Douglas A. Blackmon

  War, Dark, Rights

  Douglas A. Blackmon (2009). “Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II”, p.394, Anchor

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• Genealogies are admirable things, provided they do not encourage the curious delusion that some families are older than others.

  W. H. Auden

  Curious, Genealogy, Admirable

  "Forewords and Afterwords" by W. H. Auden, ("As It Seemed to Us"), (p. 498), 1973.

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• You don't have to wait for something 'meaningful' to come into your life so that you can finally enjoy what you do. There is more meaning in joy than you will ever need. The 'waiting to start living' syndrome is one of the most common delusions of the unconscious state.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Meaningful, Joy, Waiting

  Eckhart Tolle (2006). “A New Earth (Oprah #61): Awakening to Your Life's Purpose”, p.179, Penguin

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• Do not give up your authority and follow blindly the will of others. This way will lead to only delusion.

  Gautama Buddha

  Buddhist, Giving Up, Way

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• Who knows when the end is reached? Death may be the beginning of life. How do I know that love of life is not a delusion after all? How do I know that he who dreads to die is as a child who has lost the way and cannot find his way home? How do I know that the dead repent of having previously clung to life?

  Zhuangzi

  Death, Prayer, Children

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• If the Bible is not the Word of God and inspired, the whole of Christendom for 1800 years has been under an immense delusion; half the human race has been cheated and deceived, and churches are monuments of folly. If the Bible is the Word of God and inspired, all who refuse to believe it are in fearful danger; they are living on the brink of eternal misery. No man, in his sober senses, can fail to see that the whole subject demands most serious attention.

  J. C. Ryle

  Believe, Men, Race

  J.C. Ryle (2015). “Old Paths: Being Plain Statements on Some of the Weightier Matters of Christianity”, p.6, Ravenio Books

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• Hearing, seeing and understanding each other, humanity from one end of the earth to the other now lives simultaneously, omnipresent like a god thanks to its own creative ability. And, thanks to its victory over space and time, it would now be splendidly united for all time, if it were not confused again and again by that fatal delusion which causes humankind to keep on destroying this grandiose unity and to destroy itself with the same resources which gave it power over the elements.

  Stefan Zweig

  Confused, Space, Creative

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• Throughout our lives we long to love ourselves more deeply and to feel connected with others. Instead, we often contract, fear intimacy, and suffer a bewildering sense of separation. We crave love, and yet we are lonely. Our delusion of being separate from one another, of being apart from all that is around us, gives rise to all of this pain.

  Sharon Salzberg

  Lonely, Emo, Pain

  "Lovingkindness". Book by Sharon Salzberg, July 14, 2014.

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• Homeopathy may be defined as a specious mode of doing nothing. While it waits on the natural progress of disease and the restorative tendence of nature on the one hand, or the injurious advance of disease on the other, it supplies the craving for activity, on the part of the patient and his friends, by the formal and regular administration of nominal medicine. Although homeopathy will, at some future time, be classed with historical delusions.

  Jacob Bigelow

  Hands, Medicine, Waiting

  Jacob Bigelow (1867). “Modern Inquiries, Classical, Professional, and Miscellaneous”, p.231

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• To travel is very useful, it makes the imagination work, the rest is just delusion and pain. Our journey is entirely imaginary, which is its strength.

  Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  Pain, Journey, Imagination

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• The balance is the penalty of being human: the danger of allowing yourself to feel. For this we walk a narrow path high above rocky ground. On one side we have the descent into animalism, on the other a godhead delusion. Both pulling at us, both tempting. But without these forces tugging at your psyche, stirring it into conflict, you can never love. They awaken us, you see, these warring sides, they arouse our passion.

  Peter F. Hamilton

  Passion, Balance, Path

  "The Reality Dysfunction". Book by Peter F. Hamilton, October 8, 2008.

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• Expecting a novel to bear the weight of our whole disturbed society—to help solve our contemporary problems—seems to me a peculiarly American delusion. To write sentences of such authenticity that refuge can be taken in them: isn't this enough? Isn't it a lot?

  Jonathan Franzen

  Taken, Writing, Weight

  Jonathan Franzen (2007). “How to Be Alone: Essays”, p.84, Macmillan

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• Perhaps the most extraordinary popular delusion about violence of the past quarter-century is that it is caused by low self-esteem. That theory has been endorsed by dozens of prominent experts, has inspired school programs designed to get kids to feel better about themselves, and in the late 1980s led the California legislature to form a Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem. Yet Baumeister has shown that the theory could not be more spectacularly, hilariously, achingly wrong. Violence is a problem not of too little self-esteem but of too much, particularly when it is unearned.

  Steven Pinker

  Self Esteem, School, Kids

  Steven Pinker (2011). “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined”, p.560, Penguin

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• The Greeks... labored under the delusion that their democracy was a guarantee of peace and plenty, not realizing that unrestrained majority rule always destroys freedom, puts the minority at the mercy of the mob, and works at cross-purposes to the effective use of human energy and individual initiative.

  Henry Grady Weaver

  Majority Rule, Greek, Historical

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• It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the malady of self-delusion

  Calvin Coolidge

  Men, Self, Office

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• When the filter is weakened by a powerful drug, what we see is not delusion but the truth.

  William Peter Blatty

  Powerful, Drug, Filters

  William Peter Blatty (2015). “Elsewhere”, p.122, Macmillan

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• Faith is belief without evidence and reason; coincidentally that's also the definition of delusion.

  Richard Dawkins

  Faith, Definitions, Belief

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