“… reality, the name we give to the common experience.”

—  Tom Stoppard

Source: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "… reality, the name we give to the common experience." by Tom Stoppard?
Tom Stoppard photo
Tom Stoppard 116
British playwright 1937

Related quotes

“Reality is the name we give to our disappointments.”

Mason Cooley (1927–2002) American academic

City Aphorisms, Ninth Selection (1992)

Oscar Wilde photo

“Experience, the name men give to their mistakes.”

Mr. Dumby, Act III.
Vera; or, The Nihilists (1880)
Variant: Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes.
Variant: Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Context: Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes. [First used by Wilde in Vera; or, The Nihilists http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera;_or,_The_Nihilists. ]

Fernando Pessoa photo

“Civilization consists in giving something an unfitting name, then dream about the result. And indeed the false name and the real dream create a new reality. The object really becomes another, because we turned it into another one. We manufacture realities.”

Ibid., p. 89
The Book of Disquiet
Original: A civilização consiste em dar a qualquer coisa um nome que lhe não compete, e depois sonhar sobre o resultado. E realmente o nome falso e o sonho verdadeiro criam uma nova realidade. O objecto torna-se realmente outro, porque o tornámos outro. Manufacturamos realidades.

Michel Henry photo
Elbert Hubbard photo

“Experience is the name everyone gives to his mistakes.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

The Roycraft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams (1923)

“Those who are successful give credit to their mistakes and give them a polished new name, experience.”

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 32

Michael Ende photo
Michael Oakeshott photo

“Experience to be experience must be reality; truth to be true must be true of reality. Experience, truth and reality are inseparable.”

Michael Oakeshott (1901–1990) British philosopher

Chap. 2 : Experience and Its Modes
Experience and Its Modes (1933)

Calvin Coolidge photo

“We are, in some sense, an immigrant nation, molded in the fires of a common experience. That common experience is our history. And it is that common experience we must hand down to our children, even as the fundamental principles of Americanism, based on righteousness, were handed down to us, in perpetuity, by the founders of our government.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Whose Country Is This? (1921)
Context: From its very beginning our country has been enriched by a complete blend of varied strains in the same ethnic family. We are, in some sense, an immigrant nation, molded in the fires of a common experience. That common experience is our history. And it is that common experience we must hand down to our children, even as the fundamental principles of Americanism, based on righteousness, were handed down to us, in perpetuity, by the founders of our government.

Related topics