Imaginary Quotes - Page 28

• The fact is that the average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Average, Justice

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Second Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.113, Vintage

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• Some things can be both real and imaginary at the same time, . . . some lies can be true, . . . broken faith may be restored.

  Joanne Harris

  Real, Lying, Broken

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• Fancy what a game of chess would be if all the chessmen had passions and intellects, more or less small and cunning; if you were not only uncertain about your adversary's men, but a little uncertain also about your own. You would be especially likely to be beaten, if you depended arrogantly on your mathematical imagination, and regarded your passionate pieces with contempt. Yet this imaginary chess is easy compared with a game a man has to play against his fellow-men with other fellow-men for instruments.

  George Eliot

  Passion, Men, Games

  "Felix Holt, the Radical". Book by George Eliot. Chapter 29, 1866.

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• Imaginary evils soon become real ones by indulging our reflections on them; as he who in a melancholy fancy sees something like a face on the wall or the wainscot can, by two or three touches with a lead pencil, make it look visible, and agreeing with what he fancied.

  Jonathan Swift

  Wall, Real, Reflection

  Jonathan Swift, Thomas Sheridan, John Nichols (1808). “The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D. ...: With Notes, Historical and Critical”, p.304

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• We may learn from children how large a part of our grievances is imaginary. But the pain is just as real.

  Christian Nestell Bovee

  Children, Pain, Real

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• Pride differs in many things from vanity, and by gradations that never blend, although they may be somewhat indistinguishable. Pride may perhaps be termed a too high opinion of ourselves founded on the overrating of certain qualities that we do actually possess; whereas vanity is more easily satisfied, and can extract a feeling of self-complacency from qualifications that are imaginary.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Pride, Vanity, Self

  Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”

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• I was 21 years and 218 days old when I received the Academy Award for Best Actress. I had just stepped into an imaginary world that I'd seen at a distance for years.

  Marlee Matlin

  Distance, Awards, Years

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• I tend to be a loner – I think a lot of social theorists are like that. On one level, the majority of the most important people to me are people who I have imaginary conversations with in the deep of the night: I'm often in conversation with Max Weber or Karl Marx or someone like that. Those are the people I'm closest to and that have had the most influence on me!

  George Ritzer

  Night, Thinking, People

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• The character of instrumental music... lets the emotions radiate and shine in their own character without presuming to display them as real or imaginary representations.

  Franz Liszt

  Real, Character, Shining

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• Acting is behaving truthfully under imaginary circumstances.

  Sanford Meisner

  Acting, Circumstances, Theatre Actors

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• That raises a terrible question. How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with Pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious? I am afraid it means they are worshiping an imaginary God.

  C. S. Lewis

  Religious, Believe, Mean

  C. S. Lewis (1952). “Mere Christianity: a revised and enlarged edition, with a new introduction, of the three books, The case for Christianity, Christian behaviour, and Beyond personality”, Scribner Paper Fiction

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• Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.

  Simone Weil

  Happiness, Real, Evil

  Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.70, Psychology Press

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• We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel... is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Inspirational, Real, Book

  Ursula K. Le Guin, Susan Wood (1980). “The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction”, p.31, Ultramarine Publishing

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• I sometimes suspect that half our difficulties are imaginary and that if we kept quiet about them they would disappear.

  Robert Staughton Lynd

  Half, Quiet, Sometimes

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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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• President Obama admitted this week that a former girlfriend that he wrote about in his autobiography was made up and not a real person . . . So Obama had an imaginary girlfriend. Big deal! He had an imaginary economic plan. It’s all the same.

  Jay Leno

  Girlfriend, Real, President

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• Many of us have road maps we envision for the course we think our lives should take. It's important to get headed in the right direction, but don't get so caught up in the concerns over your destination that you forget to delight in the scenery of each new day. Remember that some of the secret joys of living are not found by rushing from point A to point B, but by inventing some imaginary letters along the way.

  Douglas Pagels

  Thinking, Rushing, New Day

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