Illusion Quotes - Page 29

• In many ways, constancy is an illusion.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Memorable, Way, Constancy

  Mary Catherine Bateson (2001). “Composing a Life”, p.14, Grove Press

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• There are no steps to self-realization. There is nothing gradual about it. It happens suddenly and is irreversible. You rotate into a new dimension, seen from which the previous ones are mere abstractions. Just like on sunrise you see things as they are, so on self-realization you see everything as it is. The world of illusions is left behind.

  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

  Self, Sunrise, Dimensions

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• Birth leads to death, death precedes birth. So if you want to see life as it really is, it is rounded on both the sides by death. Death is the beginning and death is again the end, and life is just the illusion in between. You feel alive between two deaths; the passage joining one death to another you call life. Buddha says this is not life. This life is dukkha - misery. This life is death.

  Rajneesh

  Death, Two, Sides

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• In many ways, constancy is an illusion. After all, our ancestors were immigrants, many of them moving on every few years; today we are migrants in time. Unless teachers can hold up a model of lifelong learning and adaptation, graduates are likely to find themselves trapped into obsolescence as the world changes around them. Of any stopping place in life, it is good to ask whether it will be a good place from which to go on as well as a good place to remain.

  Mary Catherine Bateson

  Life, Teacher, Moving

  Mary Catherine Bateson (2001). “Composing a Life”, p.14, Grove Press

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• One can regard the moral law as an illusion, and so cut himself off from the common ground of humanity.

  C. S. Lewis

  Cutting, Law, Humanity

  C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.48, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• 'Tis folly in one Nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its Independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favours and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate upon real favours from Nation to Nation. 'Tis an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.

  George Washington

  Real, Character, Pride

  Nancy Spannaus, Christopher White, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas More, Henry VIII (2015). “The Political Economy of the American Revolution”, p.290, Executive Intelligence Review

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• Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.

  George Washington

  Real, War, Enmity

  George Washington (2008). “George Washington's Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior: ...And Other Important Writings”, p.175, Sourcebooks, Inc.

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• Too late for changes, too late perhaps for explanations and ideological webs, but the love goes on, the love goes on, blind to laws and warnings and even to wisdom and to fears. And whatever that love is, perhaps an illusion of a new love, I want it, I cant resist it, my whole being melts in one kiss, my knowledge melts, my fears melt, my blood dances, my legs open.

  Anais Nin

  Love, Kissing, Blood

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• The motion picture is like a picture of a lady in a half-piece bathing suit. If she wore a few more clothes, you might be intrigued. If she wore no clothes at all, you might be shocked. But the way it is, you are occupied with noticing that her knees are too bony and that her toenails are too large. The modern film tries too hard to be real. Its techniques of illusion are so perfect that it requires no contribution from the audience but a mouthful of popcorn.

  Raymond Chandler

  Real, Clothes, Perfect

  Raymond Chandler, Dorothy Gardiner, Kathrine Sorley Walker (1977). “Raymond Chandler Speaking”, p.134, Univ of California Press

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• We have dreamt of every woman there is, and dreamt too of the miracle that would bring us the pleasure of being a woman, for women have all the qualities - courage, passion, the capacity to love, cunning - whereas all our imagination can do is naively pile up the illusion of courage.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Love, Passion, Imagination

  Jean Baudrillard (1990). “Cool Memories”, p.24, Verso

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• War is pillage versus resistance and if illusions of magnitude could be transmuted into ideals of magnanimity, peace might be realized.

  Marianne Moore

  Peace, War, Might

  Marianne Moore, Patricia C. Willis (1986). “The complete prose of Marianne Moore”, Viking Pr

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• The envied are like bureaucrats; the more impersonal they are, the greater the illusion (for themselves and for others) of their power.

  John Berger

  Power, Envy, Bureaucrats

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• Possession, it is true, crowns exertion with rest; but it is only in the illusions of fancy that it has power to charm us.

  Wilhelm von Humboldt

  Power, Crowns, Fancy

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• I cannot agree with any astronomer who insists that all of these things are mirages, planets, clouds, or illusions. The majority of the people are articulate enough to tell their stories and sincere enough to make depositions before notaries public. Even scientists concede that these folk saw something.

  Morris K. Jessup

  Clouds, People, Majority

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• In quitting this strange world he has once again preceded me by a little. That doesn't mean anything. For those of us who believe in physics, this separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however tenacious.

  Albert Einstein

  Believe, Mean, Past

  "The Structure of Physics". Book by Carl F. von Weizsäcker, p. 288, 2007.

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• Politics is a pendulum whose swings between anarchy and tyranny are fueled by perennially rejuvenated illusions.

  Albert Einstein

  Swings, Politics, Anarchy

  Albert Einstein (2013). “Albert Einstein, The Human Side: Glimpses from His Archives”, p.38, Princeton University Press

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• Posterity has never made the grave's embrace less cruel. It simply assuages our fear of death, because there is no better cure for out inevitable morality then the illusion of a beautiful eternity. But there is one illusion I still hold dear: that is the thought of an enlightened nation. That is the only future I still dream of.

  Yasmina Khadra

  Beautiful, Dream, Morality

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• We get swallowed up by the illusion that unless we can find a place to belong, we are going to be all alone in the world.

  Naoki Higashida

  World, All Alone

  Naoki Higashida (2013). “The Reason I Jump: one boy's voice from the silence of autism: one boy's voice from the silence of autism”, Hachette UK

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• People with autism never, ever feel at ease, wherever we are. Because of this, we wander off - or run away - in search of some location where we do feel at ease. While we're on this search, it doesn't occur to us to consider how or where we're going to end up. We get swallowed up by the illusion that unless we can find a place to belong, we are going to be all alone in the world.

  Naoki Higashida

  Running, People, Autism

  Naoki Higashida (2013). “The Reason I Jump: one boy's voice from the silence of autism: one boy's voice from the silence of autism”, Hachette UK

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• As your relationship with the music gets stronger, so does your motivation for playing it and finding different sounds. If you have the idea that you can find a colour that is better for one composer or another, even if it’s an illusion, this generates enormous pleasure.

  Maurizio Pollini

  Motivation, Ideas, Stronger

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• Ask most people who live in a home and have a mortgage on it whether they own their own home and the answer is almost guaranteed to be a resounding 'yes'. Yet it's the wrong answer. Technically speaking, until they have paid the mortgage off, they don't own it. Herein lies the difference between reality and illusion, between ownership and control. This confusion lies not only at the individual level, but also at the heart of government thinking.

  Dambisa Moyo

  Lying, Home, Heart

  Dambisa Moyo (2011). “How The West Was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly - And the Stark Choices Ahead”, p.68, Penguin UK

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• You think intelligence and grit can succeed by themselves, but I'm telling you that's a pretty illusion.

  Nancy Kress

  Thinking, Grit, Succeed

  Nancy Kress (2009). “Steal Across the Sky”, p.12, Macmillan

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• I am almost certain that space and time are illusions. These are primitive notions that will be replaced by something more sophisticated.

  Nathan Seiberg

  Space, Sophisticated, Certain

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• That is the essence and mission of 'rebel buddha': to free us from the illusions we create by ourselves, about ourselves, and from those that masquerade as reality in our cultural and religious institutions.

  Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

  Religious, Reality, Essence

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• There is no inherent awakening power in cultural forms that have become dissociated from the wisdom and practicality that gave birth to them. They turn into illusions themselves and become part of the drama of religious culture. Although they can make us happy temporarily, they can't free us from suffering, so at some point, they become a source of disappointment and discouragement. Eventually, these forms may inspire nothing more than resistance to their authority.

  Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

  Religious, Disappointment, Drama

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