“When one has had all his conceit taken out of him, when he has lost all his illusions, his feathers will soon soak through, and he will fly no more.”

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

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Oliver Wendell Holmes135

Poet, essayist, physician 1809–1894

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“When we say he has created this illusion, we lower him and his infinity. He is beyond all this.
Only when we find him in ourselves, and even in our day to day life, do all doubts vanish.”

Meher Baba (1894–1969) Indian mystic

Message (23 March 1953) <!-- Dehra Dun
General sources
Context: Who says God has created this world? We have created it by our own imagination.
God is supreme, independent. When we say he has created this illusion, we lower him and his infinity. He is beyond all this.
Only when we find him in ourselves, and even in our day to day life, do all doubts vanish.

“This is a nature-boy movie, a kid's daydream of being an Indian. When Dunbar has become a Sioux named Dances with Wolves, he writes in his journal that he knows for the first time who he really is. Costner has feathers in his hair and feathers in his head.”

Pauline Kael book Movie Love

"New Age Daydreams," review of Dances with Wolves (1990-12-17), p. 295.
Movie Love (1991)

“So strong is the belief in life, in what is most fragile in life — real life, I mean — that in the end this belief is lost. Man, that inveterate dreamer, daily more discontent with his destiny, has trouble assessing the objects he has been led to use, objects that his nonchalance has brought his way, or that he has earned through his own efforts, almost always through his own efforts, for he has agreed to work, at least he has not refused to try his luck (or what he calls his luck!). At this point he feels extremely modest: he knows what women he has had, what silly affairs he has been involved in; he is unimpressed by his wealth or his poverty, in this respect he is still a new-born babe and, as for the approval of his conscience, I confess that he does very nicely without it. If he still retains a certain lucidity, all he can do is turn back toward his childhood which, however his guides and mentors may have botched it, still strikes him as somehow charming. There, the absence of any known restrictions allows him the perspective of several lives lived at once; this illusion becomes firmly rooted within him; now he is only interested in the fleeting, the extreme facility of everything.”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

the first lines in 'Manifesto du Surréalisme', Andre Breton, 1924
Le Manifeste du Surréalisme, Andre Breton (Manifesto of Surrealism; 1924)

“The time comes when each of us has to give up as illusions the expectations which, in his youth, he pinned upon his fellow-men, and when he may learn how much difficulty and pain has been added to his life by their ill-will.”

Sigmund Freud book Civilization and Its Discontents

Source: Civilization and Its Discontents

“Illusion is Reality's coy lover who cheers him when he is grim. Illusion is cunning to his wisdom of ages, weet oblivion to his knowledge. A bounty to his lack. [Sabine]”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Kiss of a Demon King

“I get along quite well with someone only when he is at his lowest point and has neither the desire nor the strength to restore his habitual illusions.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
Source: The Trouble with Being Born

“To this old song:
Partridge lost his quill,
there's no harm won't befall him.

Partridge, whose winged fancy
aspired to a high estate,
lost a feather in his flight
and won the pen of despondency.
He finds in the breeze no buoyancy
for his pennants to haul him:
there's no harm won't befall him.

He wished to soar to a high tower
but found his plumage clipped,
and, observing himself plucked,
pines away in despair.
If he cries out for succor,
stoke the fire to forestall him:
there's no harm won't befall him.”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

Perdigão perdeu a pena Não há mal que lhe não venha.Perdigão que o pensamento Subiu a um alto lugar, Perde a pena do voar, Ganha a pena do tormento. Não tem no ar nem no vento Asas com que se sustenha: Não há mal que lhe não venha.Quis voar a üa alta torre, Mas achou-se desasado; E, vendo-se depenado, De puro penado morre. Se a queixumes se socorre, Lança no fogo mais lenha: Não há mal que lhe não venha. "Perdigão que o pensamento", tr. Landeg White in The Collected Lyric Poems of Luis de Camoes (2016), p. 251 Listen to the poem in Portuguese https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P4_2W-ZwV8&feature=youtu.be&t=10m31s Lyric poetry, Songs (redondilhas)

“I just think it’s funny that he has a twin brother and he’s never used me in one of his illusions.”

Drew Scott (1978) Canadian actor, realtor, and entrepreneur

(about Jonathan's career as an illusionist) Real Style staff, "Interview: Property Brothers Drew & Jonathan Scott On Women, Dating & The New Season" http://www.realstylenetwork.com/celebrities/2012/09/interview-property-brothers-drew-jonathan-scott-on-women-dating-the-new-season/. Real Style. Retrieved January 30, 2017.

“That work pride, that ridiculous work pride has put an end to his illusions, with those few illusions that he still had since at school they promised him a magnificent future just for entering university.”

José Baroja book No fue un catorce de febrero y otros cuentos

“He quite clearly had his feet on the ground and his head and his imagination was flying way, way out there, beyond, beyond.”

Jeff Buckley (1966–1997) American singer, guitarist and songwriter

Jimmy Page – Guitarist from Led Zeppelin/The Yardbirds/solo from the BBC Documentary "Everybody Here Wants You"

“When one has had all his conceit taken out of him, when he has lost all his illusions, his feathers will soon soak through, and he will fly no more.”

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Oliver Wendell Holmes135

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