“There is the strange power we have of changing facts by the force of the imagination.”

—  Virginia Woolf , The Common Reader

Source: The Common Reader

Last update Dec. 3, 2024. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "There is the strange power we have of changing facts by the force of the imagination." by Virginia Woolf?
Virginia Woolf photo
Virginia Woolf 382
English writer 1882–1941

Related quotes

Toni Morrison photo

“The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power.”

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer

"Black Matters" in Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (1992)

Al Alvarez photo

“The real resistance now is to an art which forces its audience to recognize and accept imaginatively, in their nerve ends, not the facts of life but the facts of death and violence: absurd, random, gratuitous, unjustified, and inescapably part of the society we have created.”

Al Alvarez (1929–2019) English poet, novelist, essayist and critic

Page 262.
The Savage God (1971)

Werner Herzog photo

“Cinema Verité confounds fact and truth, and thus plows only stones. And yet, facts sometimes have a strange and bizarre power that makes their inherent truth seem unbelievable.”

Werner Herzog (1942) German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and opera director

Minnesota declaration (1999)

“Now the power of the imagination is a unifying power, hence the force of metaphor; and the poet is the supreme manipulator of metaphor… the world needs the unifying power of the imagination. The two things that give it best are poetry and religion.”

R.S. Thomas (1913–2000) Welsh poet

Selected Prose (1995), p. 131

Stafford Cripps photo

“The problem of dealing with the armed forces of the Crown is the most difficult one we will have to face when we do get into power. The Labour Party will have to face the fact that it is a class Party…It has to be prepared to take steps more forceful than even the steps taken at the time of the Ulster Rebellion.”

Stafford Cripps (1889–1952) British politician

The Manchester Guardian (28 May 1934), quoted in Hugh Dalton, The Fateful Years. Memoirs 1931-1945 (London: Frederick Muller Ltd, 1957), p. 150.

Margrethe II of Denmark photo

“We were so busy that we didn't have time to think about how terrible it was or - in fact it felt strangely natural.”

Margrethe II of Denmark (1940) Queen of Denmark

On assuming the throne, interview with Bo Lidegaard, 'Politiken' Partially available online http://politiken.dk/indland/ECE1495013/dronningen-opgaven-som-regent-har-man-for-livet/ (01 January 2012).
Becoming Queen

Dejan Stojanovic photo

“When magic through nerves and reason passes, imagination, force, and passion will thunder. The portrait of the world is changed.”

Dejan Stojanovic book Circling: 1978-1987

”Alexander the Great,” p. 55
Circling: 1978-1987 (1993), Sequence: “A Warden with No Keys”

Emile Coué photo

“Contrary to the generally accepted theory the will is not the invincible force it is claimed to be; in fact, whenever imagination and will come into conflict it is always imagination that triumphs. Try to do something while you are repeating: "I cannot do it," and you will see this truth confirmed. The mere idea of inability to accomplish a thing paralyzes the will power.”

Emile Coué (1857–1926) French psychologist and pharmacist

Source: Autosuggestion : My method (2014), Chapter II. The role of imagination : About the "Dominance of the imagination over the will".

Barack Obama photo

“But I believe that engagement is a more powerful force than isolation, and the changes we are making can help improve the lives of the Cuban people.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Town Hall meeting with Young Leaders of the Americas (April 2015)

Joanne K. Rowling photo

“We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already. We have the power to imagine better.”

Joanne K. Rowling (1965) British novelist, author of the Harry Potter series

Paraphrased variant: We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.
Harvard address (2008)

Related topics