“The best reason for having dreams is that in dreams no reasons are necessary.”
Ashleigh Brilliant (1933) American author and cartoonist
“The best reason for having dreams is that in dreams no reasons are necessary.”
Ashleigh Brilliant (1933) American author and cartoonist
“The bomb was necessary to awaken England from her dreams.”
Bhagat Singh (1907–1931) Indian revolutionary
As Quoted in Part of Bhagat Singh's statement during his trial.
Context: The bomb was necessary to awaken England from her dreams. We dropped the bomb on the floor of the assembly chamber to register our protest on behalf of those who had no other means left to give expression to their heart-rending agony. Our sole purpose was to make the deaf hear and give the heedless a timely warning. Others have as keenly felt as we have done and from such seeming stillness of the sea of Indian humanity, a veritable storm is about to break out.
“Knowing not to have illusions is absolutely necessary in order to have dreams.”
Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet
Ibid., p. 276
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Saber não ter ilusões é absolutamente necessário para se poder ter sonhos.
“Reading changed dreams into life and life into dreams.”
Mario Vargas Llosa (1936) Peruvian writer, politician, journalist, and essayist
Nobel Lecture (2010)
“A dream! What is a dream? And is not our life a dream?”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky book The Dream of a Ridiculous Man
Source: The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877), V
Context: A dream! What is a dream? And is not our life a dream? I will say more. Suppose that this paradise will never come to pass (that I understand), yet I shall go on preaching it. And yet how simple it is: in one day, in one hour everything could be arranged at once! The chief thing is to love others like yourself, that's the chief thing, and that's everything; nothing else is wanted — you will find out at once how to arrange it all. And yet it's an old truth which has been told and retold a billion times — but it has not formed part of our lives! The consciousness of life is higher than life, the knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness — that is what one must contend against. And I shall. If only everyone wants it, it can be arranged at once.
“If the dream is a translation of waking life, waking life is also a translation of the dream.”
René Magritte (1898–1967) Belgian surrealist artist
Pedro Calderón de la Barca Life is a Dream
¿Qué es la vida? Un frenesí.
¿Qué es la vida? Una ilusión,
una sombra, una ficción,
y el mayor bien es pequeño;
que toda la vida es sueño,
y los sueños, sueños son.
Variant:
What is this life? A frenzy, an illusion,
A shadow, a delirium, a fiction.
The greatest good's but little, and this life
Is but a dream, and dreams are only dreams.
(trans. Roy Campbell)
Segismundo, Act II, l. 1195.
La vida es sueño (Life is a Dream)
“Q: Is life a dream or a meditation? A: Life is a meditation when you know it is a dream.”
Baba Hari Dass (1923–2018) master yogi, author, builder, commentator of Indian spiritual tradition
Yoga Journal, May 1977