Quotes about illusion (982 quotes, page 10)

“The very best illusions of the best magicians of a few years ago are now the common property of traveling showmen at country fairs.”

Alexander Herrmann (1844–1896) French magician

As quoted in Cosmopolitan (December 1892).
Context: A so-called magician, more than a poet, must be born with a peculiar aptitude for the calling. He must first of all possess a mind of contrarieties, quick to grasp the possibilities of seemingly producing the most opposite effects from the most natural causes. He must be original and quick-witted, never to be taken unawares. He must possess, in no small degree, a knowledge of the exact sciences, and he must spend a lifetime in practice, for in the profession its emoluments come very slowly. All this is discouraging enough, but this is not all. The magician must expect the exposure of his tricks sooner or later, and see what it has required long months of study and time to perfect dissolved in an hour. The very best illusions of the best magicians of a few years ago are now the common property of traveling showmen at country fairs. I might instance the mirror illusions of Houdin; the cabinet trick of the Davenport Brothers, and the second sight of Heller — all the baffling puzzles of the days in which the respective magicians mentioned lived. All this is not a pleasant prospective picture for the aspirant for the honors of the magician.

Travel , Country

“For poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of divine illusion.”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

Introduction to Ward's English Poets (1880)
Context: For poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of divine illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the idea is the fact. The strongest part of our religion today is its unconscious poetry.

World , Idea

“Beneath the effort directed toward the accumulation of worldly goods lies all too frequently the illusion that this is the most substantial and desirable end to be achieved; but there is, fortunately, a minority composed of those who recognize early in their lives that the most beautiful and satisfying experiences open to humankind are not derived from the outside, but are bound up with the development of the individual's own feeling, thinking and acting.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

1930s, Obituary for Emmy Noether (1935)
Context: The efforts of most human-beings are consumed in the struggle for their daily bread, but most of those who are, either through fortune or some special gift, relieved of this struggle are largely absorbed in further improving their worldly lot. Beneath the effort directed toward the accumulation of worldly goods lies all too frequently the illusion that this is the most substantial and desirable end to be achieved; but there is, fortunately, a minority composed of those who recognize early in their lives that the most beautiful and satisfying experiences open to humankind are not derived from the outside, but are bound up with the development of the individual's own feeling, thinking and acting. The genuine artists, investigators and thinkers have always been persons of this kind. However inconspicuously the life of these individuals runs its course, none the less the fruits of their endeavors are the most valuable contributions which one generation can make to its successors.

Beauty , Feeling , Thinking , Effort

“This wouldn't happen with my children. They've known, they've mingled with black people all their lives. This certainly is not going to occur. And so it goes on in this incremental way. … I think this is the only way it can be achieved. The trouble with proclaiming yourself to be cleansed of atavism is that it's not the case. It's an illusion. It's an illusion that can only be maintained by ideology and executive policing. It is forced consciousness. It's a lie to say, I have no racial feelings. Honesty and slow progress is a better policy, I think.”

Martin Amis (1949) Welsh novelist

"Political Correctness: Robert Bly and Philip Larkin" (1997)
Context: I think enlightenment is incremental, and I see it in my children. I was six-years-old when I met a black person. My father tutored me and said, "We're going to meet two men who have black skin." And on the bus in Swansea on the way there, I accepted this and thought this would be no trouble for me. As it was, I went into the room and burst into tears and pointed at the man and said, "You've got a black face."
This wouldn't happen with my children. They've known, they've mingled with black people all their lives. This certainly is not going to occur. And so it goes on in this incremental way. … I think this is the only way it can be achieved. The trouble with proclaiming yourself to be cleansed of atavism is that it's not the case. It's an illusion. It's an illusion that can only be maintained by ideology and executive policing. It is forced consciousness. It's a lie to say, I have no racial feelings. Honesty and slow progress is a better policy, I think.

Children , People , Lie , Way

“Acting is illusion, as much illusion as magic is — and not so much a matter of being real.”

Laurence Olivier (1907–1989) British actor, director and producer

As quoted in Famous Actors and Actresses on the American Stage (1975) by William C. Young, p. 885
Context: Acting is illusion, as much illusion as magic is — and not so much a matter of being real. I mean, I would probably shock Lee Strasberg.

“ÉIRE (translation)
If I were the alpha and omega all at once
I could not love you more than now
Immature motherland of stray illusions
I'm grateful to feel your soil
and quench my thirst on your rivers”

Marcin Malek (1975) Polish writer

Call me an idiot (2012), pages 13-14

Love , Feeling

“The greatest illusion in this world is the illusion of separation.”

Ralph Smart

facebook

World

“She sat quietly in one corner of the sofa, the end of her sari drawn modestly over her hair. Like the motionless illusion of a madly spinning top, she was staring vacantly into space.”

Ismat Chughtai (1911–1991) an Indian Urdu language writer

Ismat Chughtai (The Quilt & Other Stories)

“Prajna is knowledge but not all knowledge is prajna. Only spiritual knowledge is prajna. It destroys the illusion of a separtieve exstence. Klesas which were merely weakened by samadhi are completely burnt up by prajna. Prajna is liberating knowledge par excellence; it is also the knowledge which comes with liberatino. Prajna is Self-knowledge.”

Ram Swarup (1920–1998) Indian historian

Source: Meditations. Yogas, Gods, Religions (2000), p. 90

Knowledge , Self-confidence

“In the west, we believe we are the most progressive and socially just, but a lot of that is just a hopeful illusion.”

Barry Lopez (1945) American writer

On the West’s environmental thinking in “'We're living in emergency times': nature writer Barry Lopez's dire warning” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/may/07/barry-lopez-horizons-environment-climate-change in The Guardian (2019 May 7)

Hope

“Magic is the science of the ancient magi; and the Christian religion, which silenced the counterfeit oracles and put a stop to the illusions of false gods, does, this notwithstanding, revere those mystic kings who came from the East, led by a star, to adore the Saviour of the world in His cradle. They are elevated by tradition to the rank of kings, because magical initiation constitutes a true royalty; because also the great art of the magi is characterised by all adepts as the Royal Art, as the Holy Kingdom — Sanctum Regnum. The star which conducted the pilgrims is the same Burning Star which is met with in all initiations. For alchemists it is the sign of the quintessence, for magicians it is the Great Arcanum, for Kabalists the sacred pentagram.”

Eliphas Levi (1810–1875) French writer

Introduction
The History Of Magic (1860)

God , Religion , Silence , Star

“Friends, this body is so impermanent, fragile, unworthy of confidence, and feeble. It is so insubstantial, perishable, short-lived, painful, filled with diseases, and subject to changes. Thus, my friends, as this body is only a vessel of many sicknesses, wise men do not rely on it. This body is like a ball of foam, unable to bear any pressure. It is like a water bubble, not remaining very long. It is like a mirage, born from the appetites of the passions. It is like the trunk of the plantain tree, having no core. Alas! This body is like a machine, a nexus of bones and tendons. It is like a magical illusion, consisting of falsifications. It is like a dream, being an unreal vision. It is like a reflection, being the image of former actions. It is like an echo, being dependent on conditioning. It is like a cloud, being characterized by turbulence and dissolution. It is like a flash of lightning, being unstable, and decaying every moment. The body is ownerless, being the product of a variety of conditions.”

Vimalakirti

Chapter 2 http://www.fodian.net/world/0475_02.html
Vimalakirti Sutra, Robert Thurman's translation, 1991

Tree , Confidence , Pain , Dependency

“As writers, of course we’re interested in human beings, human stories, human trauma, and all that is very compelling for readers. But when we write these powerful stories about individual people, we have the illusion that we’ve made a difference. And of course we have—people read the books, they’re touched emotionally by these kinds of stories, and that’s great. But to the extent that the stories that we’re telling are about people who are weaker, in some way—they come from a small country, or a forcibly removed population, they’re underrepresented collectively—individual stories don’t change the conditions that produce those refugees in the first place…”

Viet Thanh Nguyen (1971) American author of fiction

On writers overestimating the difference that their writings make in “An interview with Viet Thanh Nguyen” https://www.asymptotejournal.com/interview/an-interview-with-viet-thanh-nguyen/ in Asymptote Magazine

Reading , Country , People , Books

“It is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope and pride. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.”

Patrick Henry (1736–1799) attorney, planter, politician and Founding Father of the United States

Disputed, Give me liberty, or give me death! (1775)

Pain , Hope , Nature , Truth

“Men do not move mountains; it is only necessary to create the illusion that mountains move.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

As quoted in The Great Illusion, 1900-1914, Oron J. Hale, Harper & Row (1971) p. 109
Undated

Mountain , Men

“When I was a young student, I thought modern psychology could tell me the answers, but I soon found out that the best psychologists didn’t know a damn thing about the real core of the matter. Oh, I am not disparaging the work that has been done; it was badly needed and had been very useful in its way. None of ’em know what life is, what thought is, whether free will is a reality or an illusion, or whether that last question means anything. The best of ’em admit their ignorance; the worst of them make dogmatic assertions that are obvious absurdities.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Lost Legacy

Lost Legacy (p. 284)
Short fiction, Off the Main Sequence (2005)

Question , Reality , Way , Life

“When man becomes aware of the movement of his own thoughts, he will see the division between the thinker and thought, the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the experience. He will discover that this division is an illusion. Then only is there pure observation which is insight without any shadow of the past or of time. This timeless insight brings about a deep, radical mutation in the mind.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

"The core of the teachings (1980) http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/about-krishnamurti/dissolution-speech.php
1980s

Past , Time

“The first duty of the revolutionaries is to tell the truth. Fooling the people, promoting illusions, always brings the worst consequences, and I believe that the people should be warned against excessive optimism. How did the Red Army win the war? By telling the truth. How did the dictatorship lose the war? By deceiving the soldiers.”

Fidel Castro (1926–2016) former First Secretary of the Communist Party and President of Cuba

Camp Columbia, Havana (Jan. 8th, 1959), Fidel Castro Reader, pp. 133

Optimism , War , People , Fools

“Spinoza is a highly systematic thinker, but still I do not think I can offer a single key for all things Spinozistic. Personally, one thing which got me excited about Spinoza is his philosophical boldness, i. e., his willingness to pursue philosophical exploration as far as he can, making very little concessions to commonly accepted beliefs and norms. In terms of content, I take his attempt to conceive of God, nature, and ethics in a manner that is free from anthropomorphism and anthropocentric illusions as one of the deepest elements of his philosophical thinking. A closely related issue is his advocacy of actual infinity (an issue that has been mostly neglected in recent literature). Finally, the very attempt to do philosophy systematically (rather than rely on fragmented and disassociated intuitions) and transparently (laying bare the logical structure of his arguments) commands my respect, indeed admiration.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Yitzhak Y. Melamed, Spinoza's Metaphysics and His Relationship to Hegel and the German Idealists, an interview by Richard Marshall (3:AM Magazine, 30 December 2017) https://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/spinozas-metaphysics-relationship-hegel-german-idealists/
M - R

God , Personality , Nature , Thinking

“An honest fellow stripped of all his illusions is the ideal man. Though he may have little wit, his society is always pleasant. As nothing matters to him, he cannot be pedantic; yet is he tolerant, remembering that he too has had the illusions which still beguile his neighbor. He is trustworthy in his dealings, because of his indifference; he avoids all quarreling and scandal in his own person, and either forgets or passes over such gossip or bickering as may be directed against himself. He is more entertaining than other people because he is in a constant state of epigram against his neighbor. He dwells in truth, and smiles at the stumbling of others who grope in falsehood. He watches from a lighted place the ludicrous antics of those who walk in a dim room at random. Laughing, he breaks the false weight and measure of men and things.”

Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer

L'honnête homme, détrompé de toutes les illusions, est l'homme par excellence. Pour peu qu'il ait d'esprit, sa société est très aimable. Il ne saurait être pédant, ne mettant d'importance à rien. Il est indulgent, parce qu'il se souvient qu'il a eu des illusions, comme ceux qui en sont encore occupés. C'est un effet de son insouciance d'être sûr dans le commerce, de ne se permettre ni redites, ni tracasseries. Si on se les permet à son égard, il les oublie ou les dédaigne. Il doit être plus gai qu'un autre, parce qu'il est constamment en état d'épigramme contre son prochain. Il est dans le vrai et rit des faux pas de ceux qui marchent à tâtons dans le faux. C'est un homme qui, d'un endroit éclairé, voit dans une chambre obscure les gestes ridicules de ceux qui s'y promènent au hasard. Il brise, en riant, les faux poids et les fausses mesures qu'on applique aux hommes et aux choses.
Maximes et Pensées, #339
Maxims and Considerations, #339

Light , Personality , Forgetting , Smile

“My whole life is woven of threads which are in blatant contrast to my principles. … I love self-chosen poverty, and live among rich people; I avoid all honours, and yet some have come to me. … I believe that illusions are necessary to man, yet live without illusion; I believe that the passions are more profitable than reason, and yet no longer know what passion is.”

Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer

Ma vie entière est un tissu de contrastes apparents avec mes principes. Je n'aime point les Princes, et je suis attaché à une Princesse et à un Prince. On me connaît des maximes républicaines, et plusieurs de mes amis sont revêtus de décorations monarchiques. J'aime la pauvreté volontaire, et je vis avec des gens riches. Je fuis les honneurs, et quelques-uns sont venus à moi. Les lettres sont presque ma seule consolation, et je ne vois point de beaux esprits, et ne vais point à l'Académie. Ajoutez que je crois les illusions nécessaires à l'homme, et je vis sans illusion; que je crois les passions plus utiles que la raison, et je ne sais plus ce que c'est que les passions, etc.
Maximes et Pensées, #335
Maxims and Considerations, #335

People , Self-confidence , Passion , Love

“His faith in humanity began from an acknowledgement of limitation, not an illusion about perfectibility. He knew that joy flowed from honesty, rather than around it—sound familiar? In a similar way, Christians, whose identity is found apart from our ever-changing and often hopeless abilities and attributes, are free to laugh at ourselves. This is part and parcel of Christian joy.”

Jim Henson (1936–1990) American puppeteer

About, "The Gospel According to Jim Henson" by David Zahl

Faith , Perfection , Joy , Way

“The interesting thing is what happens in the specific picture: its precision in terms of the sensations it produces — the illusion it creates and the effect of this illusion on the psychology opposed to it. General philosophical and technical information however interesting in itself is secondary to this reality.”

Patrick Swift (1927–1983) British artist

X magazine (1959-62)

Reality

“The years that are gone seem like dreams -if one might go on sleeping and dreaming- but to wake up and find -oh! well! perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all ones life.”

Kate Chopin book The Awakening

The Awakening (1899)

Sleep , Life , Dreams , Suffering

“Do we refer to the purposes of the Charter? They are expressions of universally shared ideals which cannot fail us, though we, alas, often fail them. Or do we think of the institutions of the United Nations? They are our tools. We fashioned them. We use them. It is our responsibility to remedy any flaws there may be in them…. This is a difficult lesson for both idealists and realists, though for different reasons. I suppose that, just as the first temptation of the realist is the illusion of cynicism, so the first temptation of the idealist is the illusion of Utopia.”

Dag Hammarskjöld (1905–1961) Swedish diplomat, economist, and author

"An International Administrative Service", From an Address to the International Law Association at McGill University, Montreal, 30 May, 1956. Wilder Foote (Ed.), The Servant of Peace, A Selection of the Speeches and Statements of Dag Hammarskjöld, The Bodley Head, London 1962, p. 116.

Universe , Fashion , Thinking

“If I stopped at this point, I would be merely stating a fact, and not telling the truth. You see, a fact is merely the absence of contradiction, but truth is the presence of coherence. Truth is the relatedness of facts. Now it is a fact that we’ve come a long, long way, but it isn’t the whole truth. In order to tell the truth, it would be necessary to add the other part, and I’m afraid that if I stopped at this point, I would leave you the victims of a dangerous optimism. If I stopped here, I would leave you the victims of an illusion wrapped in superficialities. So in order to tell the truth, it is necessary to move on and not only say that we’ve come a long, long way, but that we’ve a long, long way to go before the American dream is a reality, before this problem is solved.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Address to Cornell College (1962)

Optimism , Dreams , Truth , Problem

“I do not feel brave. I am not the center of this symphony. No one even cares if I am here.
Where is the immortal majesty the poets promised me? Where is the stern will my ancestors preached to their children?
It was just an illusion conjured by fools who never left their libraries, or by agents of necessity.
This is the Noble Lie.”

Pierce Brown book Dark Age

Source: Dark Age (2019), Ch. 10: The Ash Rain; Lysander

Lie , Children , Feeling , Fools

“We humans like to imagine that we have an objective knowledge of the world. We take it for granted that what we perceive on a daily basis is reality—this reality being more or less the same for everybody. But this is an illusion. No two people see or experience the world in the same way. What we perceive is our personal version of reality, one that is of our own creation. To realize this is a critical step in our understanding of human nature.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 8 : Change Your Circumstances by Changing Your Attitude
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Imagination , Understanding , Personality , People

“Recourse to God, so infinitely good, is all the more necessary because, far from abating, the struggle grows fiercer and expands unceasingly. It is no longer only the Christian faith that they would uproot at all costs from the hearts of the people; it is any belief which lifting man above the horizon of this world would supernaturally bring back his wearied eyes to heaven. Illusion on the subject is no longer possible. War has been declared against everything supernatural, because behind the supernatural stands God, and because it is God that they want to tear out of the mind and heart of man.”

Pope Pius X (1835–1914) Catholic Pope and saint

Papal encyclical letter "Une foise encore" http://www.vatican.va/content/pius-x/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-x_enc_06011907_une-fois-encore.html to the French people and clergy on the separation of Church and State, Rome, 6 January 1907.

God , Faith , War , People

“The way out of our negative emotions is into our negative emotions. The way out of our illusions is into our illusions. The way out of our suffering is into our suffering.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Way , Suffering

“Many is the mirage I chased. Always I was overreaching myself. The oftener I touched reality, the harder I bounced back to the world of illusion, which is the name for everyday life. 'Experience! More experience!”

Henry Miller book Plexus

I clamored. In a frantic effort to arrive at some kind of order, some tentative working program, I would sit down quietly now and then and spend long, long hours mapping out a plan of procedure. Plans, such as architects and engineers sweat over, were never my forte. But I could always visualize my dreams in a cosmogonic pattern. Though I could never formulate a plot I could balance and weigh opposing forces, characters, situations, events, distribute them in a sort of heavenly lay-out, always with plenty of space between, always with the certitude that there is no end, only worlds within worlds ad infinitum, and that wherever one left off one had created a world, a world finite, total, complete.
The Rosy Crucifixion II : Plexus (1953)

World , Life , Reality

“Strange as it may seem to hear it said, there were no Germanic peoples in late antiquity. The illusion that there were can be outgrown.”

Walter Goffart (1934) American historian

Source: Quotaes, Barbarian Tides (2010), p. x

People

“It ain't money that makes the world go round
That's only temporary confusion
It ain't governments that make the people strong
It's the opposite illusion
Look right now and you will see
they're only here by the skin of our teeth as it is
so take heart and take care of your link with Life... Life is beautiful
if you got the sense to take care of your source of perfection
Mother Nature, She's the daughter of God and the source of all protectionLook right now
and you will see she's only here by the skin of her teeth as it is
so take heart and take care of your link with Life”

Buffy Sainte-Marie (1941) Canadian musician

"Carry It On", from Power in the Blood (2015)

Money , God , Strong , Beauty

“Human beings have a kind of optical illusion, Einstein once said. We think ourselves separate rather than part of the whole. This imprisons our affection to those few nearest us.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Twelve, Human Connections: Relationships Changing

Thinking , Parting

“Granting that an illusion may have its uses, it can only be of service so long as we do not know it to be an illusion.”

Chapman Cohen (1868–1954) British atheist and secularist writer and lecturer

p. 96 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89009314162&view=1up&seq=100
Determinism or Free-will? (1912)

“Democracy requires social peace, the illusion that, in a society based on exploitation and domination, everyone can get along and nobody's fundamental well-being is under threat.”

Peter Gelderloos (1982) American anarchist

Source: "The Failure of Nonviolence" (2013) https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-the-failure-of-nonviolence, Chapter 2. Recuperation is How We Lose

Democracy , Peace

““Violence” was a euphemism for a threat to the ruling order and its illusion of social peace, with which the class struggle, the brutality of patriarchy, and the murderousness of colonialism are hidden. The newspapers did not talk about violence when cops killed strikers, when landlords evicted families, or when poor people died of hunger. They talked about violence when workers went on strike, when tenants stopped paying rent, when street vendors refused to surrender their wares to the cops.”

Peter Gelderloos (1982) American anarchist

Source: "The Failure of Nonviolence" (2013) https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-the-failure-of-nonviolence, Chapter 1. Violence Doesn't Exist

Hunger , Peace , People , Family

“When we create an economic system based on co-operation and sharing rather than on competition and market forces, we will create a more moral economic structure. When the stock exchanges collapse, humanity will be brought face to face with its illusions about the nature of reality.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

Maitreya's Mission Vol. III (1997)

Reality , Nature

“And let us not harbor any illusions that these intersecting crises might bring an end to structural adjustment or the emergence of some kind of “global social democracy.””

Adam Hanieh (1972) British political scientist

As we have repeatedly seen over the last decade, capital frequently seizes moments of crisis as a moment of opportunity — a chance to implement radical change that was previously blocked or appeared impossible.
This is a Global Pandemic – Let’s Treat it as Such, 27 March 2020

Democracy

“The chitta is stabilized and rendered free from illusion as the lower nature is purified and no longer indulged.”

Patañjali (-200–-150 BC) ancient Indian scholar(s) of grammar and linguistics, of yoga, of medical treatises

The Light of the Soul: Its Science and Effect: a paraphrase of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, with commentary by Alice A. Bailey, (1927)

Nature

“The chitta is stabilized and rendered free from illusion as the lower nature is purified and no longer indulged.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

The Light of the Soul: Its Science and Effect: a paraphrase of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, with commentary (1927)

Nature

“Naturalism and Non-Cognitivism are both […] close to Nihilism. Normativity is either an illusion, or involves irreducibly normative facts.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

chap. 24, sect. 82
Reasons and Persons (1984)

Nature

“Brahman (the existential substratum) is the only truth, the world is illusion, and there is ultimately no difference between Brahman and individual self.”

Adi Shankara (788–820) Hindu philosopher monk of 8th century

Original: (hi) Brahma satyam jagat mithyam, jivo brahmaiva naparah

World , Truth , Self-confidence

“I find men victims of illusions in all parts oflife. Children, youths, adults and old men, all are led by one bauble or another. Yoganidra, the goddess of illusion, is stronger than the Titans, stronger than Apollo.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Source: In his essay Illusions, quoted in Gokhale, Balkrishna Govind India in the American mind Bombay: PopularPrakashan, 1992.

Children , Youth , Parting , Men

“Self-control is an illusion. It’s an illusion that occurs when both brains are aligned and pursuing the same course of action.”

Mark Manson book Everything Is Fucked

Self-confidence

“The various positivities produced ... by the logic of political hope depend on the mathematical illusion that negated negations might somehow escape, and not redouble, such negativity.”

Lee Edelman (1953) American academic

Source: No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive (2004), p. 5

Hope , Mathematics , Dependency

“When someone tells you, “I love you,” and then you feel, “Oh, I must be worthy after all,” that’s an illusion. That’s not true. Or someone says, “I hate you,” and you think, “Oh, God, I knew it; I’m not very worthy,” that’s not true either. Neither one of these thoughts hold any intrinsic reality. They are an overlay. When someone says, “I love you,” he is telling you about himself, not you. When someone says, “I hate you,” she is telling you about herself, not you. World views are self views—literally.”

Adyashanti (1962) Spiritual teacher

“We hallucinate sounds more often than sights. There are auditory mirages, which vanish without trace; auditory illusions that turn out to be something other than they seemed; and, of course, voices that speak to saints, seers, and psychotics, telling them how to act and what to believe.”

Diane Ackerman book A Natural History of the Senses

Source: A Natural History of the Senses (1990), Chapter 4 “Hearing” (p. 180)

“The question of phenomenology, which alone confers a proper object to philosophy, is what makes it into an autonomous discipline -- the fundamental discipline of knowledge -- and not just a mere reflexion after the fact on what the other sciences have found. This question is no longer concerned with the phenomena but the mode of their givenness, their phenomenality, not with what appears but with appearing. The invaluable contribution of historical phenomenology is to become aware of this appearing and to analyze it in and of itself. This is its theme. Again, this must not simply be the repetition of the traditional philosophical problem of consciousness or the greek aletheia. For the illusion of common sense, science and past philosophies is to understand the being of the phenomenon always as a first putting at a distance, the arrival of an Outside in which everything becomes visible, a "phenomenon", in the light of this Outside.”

Michel Henry (1922–2002) French writer

Source: Michel Henry, Material Phenomenology, Fordham University Press, 2008, p. 2
Source: Books on Phenomenology and Life, Material Phenomenology (1990)

Understanding , Question , Light , Past

“The time has not yet come for dealing with the world illusion on a large scale, for the race is not adequately mental nor has the illusion (which is, as I have stated, pre-eminently the result of the misinterpretation of ideas) reached its height. But the hour has struck for the first steps to be taken in the dissipation of glamour, and the hold of glamour upon the race should be appreciably lessened in the future. Hence the practical training now being given in this group in their own lives; hence also the intended teaching later to be given to the group—if they measure up to the opportunity—which will enable them to aid in the concerted and planned attack upon the world glamour. Wrestle therefore with your personal problems along these lines, my brothers, for in this way you will gain facility in discernment, in clear precise action, and in strengthened understanding.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: Glamour: A World Problem (1950), The Nature of Glamor

Time , Understanding , Personality , Future

“Glamour is astral in character, and is far more potent at this time than illusion, owing to the enormous majority of people who function astrally always.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Glamour: A World Problem (1950), The Nature of Glamor

Time , People

“Illusion is primarily of a mental quality and was characteristic of the attitude of mind of those people who are more intellectual than emotional. They have outgrown glamour as usually understood. It is the misunderstanding of ideas and thoughtforms of which they are guilty, and of misinterpretations.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: Glamour: A World Problem (1950), The Nature of Glamor

Idea , People

“Let me shatter some illusions today. We are entertainers. We are not heroes. The heroes are our freedom fighters. We do not sacrifice anything for the cause of the nation. The freedom fighters did. Don't misunderstand me, cricket is not everything. What we try to do is to bring happiness to our nation.”

Mashrafe Mortaza (1983) Bangladeshi international cricketer and politician

https://www.clickittefaq.com/freedom-fighters-are-heroes-not-cricketers-mashrafe/

Happiness , Freedom

“For it may be very plausibly urged on their behalf, that it is impossible to extinguish evil until the origin thereof has been discovered and destroyed. This great river of human Time (rivers were expressly created to feed metaphors, allegories, and navigable canals) which comes flowing down thick with filth and blood from the immemorial past surely cannot be thoroughly cleansed by any purifying process applied to it here in the present for the pollution, if not in its very source (supposing it has a source), or deriving from unimaginable remotenesses of eternity indefinitely beyond its source, at any rate interfused with it countless ages back, and is perennial as the river itself. This immense poison-tree of Life, with its leaves of illusion, blossoms of delirium, apples of destruction, surely cannot be made wholesome and sweet by anything we may do to the branchlets and twigs on which, poor insects, we find ourselves crawling, or to the leaves and fruit on which we must fain feed; for the venom is drawn up in the sap by the taproots plunged in abysmal depths of the past. This toppling and sinking house wherein we dwell cannot be firmly re-established, save by re-establishing from its lowest foundation upwards.”

James Thomson (B.V.) (1834–1882) Scottish writer (1834-1882)

"The Speedy Extinction of Evil and Misery", part VIII, pp. 93–94
Essays and Phantasies (1881)

Tree , Time , Housing , Past

“[Nature] only keeps us alive by a complicated system of the most shameful illusions, falsifying beyond rectification life, death, and after-death. Having made us take part in this poor puzzling game of life, she has taken care that all the rules shall be unfavourable to us: the cards are marked, the dice are loaded, we are always swindled. Thus years of hard work; and self-denial are frequently lost by a slip or chance, but seldom or never saved by a chance. Our health may be ruined by a pin-prick, but never doubled by an accident. We fall seriously ill in a moment, and take weeks or months to recover; lose a limb by some sudden mishap, but never by a good hap regain it. We cannot reach even a low degree of wisdom or knowledge without long hard study, while to be ignorant and foolish is the easiest and most natural thing in the world for us. Our sorrows are real and enduring; our joys deceptive and transient; our prizes of victory are not to be compared with our forfeits of defeat.”

James Thomson (B.V.) (1834–1882) Scottish writer (1834-1882)

"The Speedy Extinction of Evil and Misery", part II, p. 62
Essays and Phantasies (1881)

Chance , Study , Game , Victory

“By resorting to illusions, the supreme expression of love is attained. Nothing can compare to it.”

Zhiyanzhai

As quoted in Enchantment and Disenchantment: Love and Illusion in Chinese Literature by Wai-yee Li (Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 159

Love , Making love

“[M]ost poverty in the world today is caused by aggression, not ignorance. The illusion that aggression-through-government benefits the poor at the expensive of the rich is just that, an illusion.”

Mary Ruwart (1949) American scientist and libertarian activist

Source: Healing Our World: In An Age of Aggression, (2003), p. 92

World

“Seeing our creation’s name in print made us feel like minor gods; we had summoned into existence a human being, or at least the illusion of one.”

Tim Wirkus American science fiction writer

Source: The Infinite Future (2018), Part 1: Translator’s Note to the Reader by Daniel Laszlo, Chapter 16 (p. 188)

God , Feeling

“Raised and doped with illusion - Download god. I know I'm in trouble when I'm seeing double. Come on, make me scream!”

Ike Moriz (1972) German-South African singer, composer and actor

Mirrors and shade
Song lyrics, Mirrors And Shade (2002-2004)

God

“The illusion of presence of light deceives us that we see but we don't. When darkness emerges, our eyes are useless -Edy kasawuli”

Edykasawuli7

Light

“Happiness is the illusion of being happy, unhappiness is the fear of being it. A little bit of fear helps you to live in the light, too much strangles you in the dark.”

Menotti Lerro (1980) Italian poet

Donna Giovanna, Act I, scene iii.
Theater Quotes

Light , Happiness , Help , Fear