“Open thy eyes and see what the world really is and what God; have done with vain and pleasant imaginations.”

Source: All-American Girl

Source: The Void Captain's Tale (1983), Chapter 14 (p. 189)

Variant: Open your eyes, the Frenchman on the radio used to say, and see what you can with them before they close forever.
Source: All the Light We Cannot See

1999 interview with Rolling Stone quoted in ** Chris Cornell: Inside Soundgarden, Audioslave Singer&#x27;s Final Days, Rolling Stone, 29 May 2017 http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/chris-cornell-david-fricke-on-soundgarden-singer-final-days-w484560, <br class="br">On depression and suicide

Source: Everybody’s Autobiography (1937), Ch. 3
Context: Would I if I could by pushing a button would I kill five thousand Chinamen if I could save my brother from anything. Well I was very fond of my brother and I could completely imagine his suffering and I replied that five thousand Chinamen were something I could not imagine and so it was not interesting.
One has to remember that about imagination, that is when the world gets dull when everybody does not know what they can or what they cannot really imagine.

Source: The Great Divorce (1944–1945), Ch. 9, p. 72; part of this has also been rendered in a variant form, and quoted as:
Context: 'But what of the poor Ghosts who never get into the omnibus at all?'
'Everyone who wishes it does. Never fear. There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.'

Songs of Kabîr (1915)
Context: Open your eyes of love, and see Him who pervades this world! consider it well, and know that this is your own country.

p 8
Achieving The Impossible (2010)