Quotes and Sayings about Illusion
"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."
- Douglas Adams
(Related: Time, Illusion)
"Free will is an illusion. People always choose the perceived path of greatest pleasure."
- Scott Adams
(Related: People, Free will, Illusion, Pleasure)
"What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet."
- Woody Allen
(Related: Illusion, Nothing)
"Tradition is the illusion of permanance."
- Woody Allen
(Related: Illusion, Tradition)
"They're not even within 100 miles of Baghdad. They are not in any place. They hold no place in Iraq. This is an illusion... they are trying to sell to the others an illusion."
- Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf
(Related: Illusion, Iraq, Trying)
"There's also something of an illusion in that, you can perhaps record a TV thing one month and complete a book the next and then be in a play. Then, if they all come out at once, it looks as if you're actually juggling a million things."
- Jane Asher
(Related: Illusion, Play)
"The most fatal illusion is the narrow point of view. Since life is growth and motion, a fixed point of view kills anybody who has one."
- Brooks Atkinson
(Related: Life, Growth, Illusion)
"Do not be misled by what you see around you, or be influenced by what you see. You live in a world which is a playground of illusion, full of false paths, false values and false ideals. But you are not part of that world."
- Sai Baba
(Related: Values, Ideals, Illusion, World)
"A house must be built on solid foundations if it is to last. The same principle applies to man, otherwise he too will sink back into the soft ground and becomes swallowed up by the world of illusion."
- Sai Baba
(Related: Illusion, Man, Will, World)
"He who desires to worship God must harbor no childish illusions about the matter but bravely renounce his liberty and humanity."
- Mikhail Bakunin
(Related: God, Humanity, Liberty, Worship)
"The passage of time is simply an illusion created by our brains."
- Julian Barbour
(Related: Time, Illusion)
"What is life? A madness. What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a story. And the greatest good is little enough; for all life is a dream, and dreams themselves are only dreams."
- Pedro Calderon de la Barca
(Related: Dreams, Life, Illusion, Madness, Shadow)
"It is pure illusion to think that an opinion that passes down from century to century, from generation to generation, may not be entirely false."
- Pierre Bayle
(Related: Illusion, May, Opinion)
"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
- Saul Bellow
(Related: Intelligence, Deep, Ignorance, Illusion)
"We all need illusions. That's why we love movies."
- Monica Bellucci
(Related: Love, Movies)
"The novel is born of disillusionment; the poem, of despair."
- Jose Bergamin
(Related: Despair, Disillusionment)
"A poor man with nothing in his belly needs hope, illusion, more than bread."
- Georges Bernanos
(Related: Hope, Illusion, Man, Needs, Nothing, Poor)
"Right now, there's the illusion of order and civilization, but there's a tremendous amount of economic tension in this country and the educational system is constantly eroding."
- Kathryn Bigelow
(Related: Civilization, Country, Illusion, Now, Order, Right, Tension)
"Being a famous actress may give you a sense of being important, but believe me, it's just an illusion."
- Juliette Binoche
(Related: Being, Famous, Illusion, May, Sense)
"Animation is about creating the illusion of life. And you can't create it if you don't have one."
- Brad Bird
(Related: Life, Animation, Illusion)
"I can imagine that the Iraqis undertake the destruction out of fear. If they had denied it, if they had said no, that certainly would have played into the hands of those that would like to take armed action immediately. I have no illusions in that regard."
- Hans Blix
(Related: Fear, Action, Destruction)
"Reason cannot establish values, and its belief that it can is the stupidiest and most pernicious illusion."
- Allan Bloom
(Related: Belief, Values, Illusion, Reason)
"Words are illusions."
- Bodhidharma
(Related: Words)
"Rome is the city of echoes, the city of illusions, and the city of yearning."
- Giotto di Bondone
(Related: Rome, Yearning)
"We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusions. We are haunted, not by reality, but by those images we have put in their place."
- Daniel J. Boorstin
(Related: Reality, Vices)
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge."
- Daniel J. Boorstin
(Related: Knowledge, Discovery, Ignorance, Illusion)
"Losing an illusion makes you wiser than finding a truth."
- Ludwig Borne
(Related: Truth, Illusion, Losing)
"Illusions are art, for the feeling person, and it is by art that we live, if we do."
- Elizabeth Bowen
(Related: Art, Feeling)
"Perhaps I am doomed to retrace my steps under the illusion that I am exploring, doomed to try and learn what I should simply recognize, learning a mere fraction of what I have forgotten."
- Andre Breton
(Related: Illusion, Learning)
"Making films is sort of like you're pulling off a magic trick. It's sort of like an illusion. It's not real but you want it to appear real, and all kinds of things go into that, from the clothes you're wearing to the make-up, to the light."
- Jeff Bridges
(Related: Clothes, Illusion, Light, Magic, Want)
"People have the illusion that all over the world, all the time, all kinds of fantastic things are happening. When in fact, over most of the world, most of the time, nothing is happening."
- David Brinkley
(Related: Time, People, Fact, Illusion, Nothing, World)
"Everything is Song. Everything is Silence. Since it all turns out to be illusion, perfectly being what it is, having nothing to do with good or bad, you are free to die laughing."
- James Broughton
(Related: Being, Illusion, Nothing, Silence, Song)
"The world is real. Consciousness is the illusion."
- Craig Bruce
(Related: Consciousness, Illusion, World)
"Great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion."
- Robert Burton
(Related: Faith, Feelings, Error, Illusion, Will)
"It was either Voltaire or Charlie Sheen who said, 'We are born alone. We live alone. We die alone. And anything in between that can give us the illusion that we're not, we cling to.'"
- Gabriel Byrne
(Related: Illusion)
"I have had four happy days in my life, and three of them turned out to be illusions."
- Taylor Caldwell
(Related: Life)
"Is not this whole world an illusion? And yet it fools everybody."
- Angela Carter
(Related: Fools, Illusion, World)
"I must be more sensible and realize that at my age, illusions are hardly permitted and they will always destroy me."
- Paul Cezanne
(Related: Age, Will)
"I actually feel sorry for people who have a lot of illusions in their head about what gay is. I mean, I know some gay people who are really wonderful people."
- Richard Chamberlain
(Related: People, Gay)
"I went into the business for the money, and the art grew out of it. If people are disillusioned by that remark, I can't help it. It's the truth."
- Charlie Chaplin
(Related: Art, Business, Money, Truth, People, Help)
"Lovers of air travel find it exhilarating to hang poised between the illusion of immortality and the fact of death."
- Alexander Chase
(Related: Death, Travel, Fact, Immortality, Illusion, Lovers)
"Ugly. Is irrelevant. It is an immeasurable insult to a woman, and then supposedly the worst crime you can commit as a woman. But ugly, as beautiful, is an illusion."
- Margaret Cho
(Related: Crime, Illusion, Insult, Ugly, Woman)
"If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion."
- Noam Chomsky
(Related: Illusion, World)
"I even had the illusion, for a very short time, that I could become a medium pace bowler."
- Perry Christie
(Related: Time, Illusion)
"For you who no longer posses it, freedom is everything, for us who do, it is merely an illusion."
- Emile M. Cioran
(Related: Freedom, Illusion)
"We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion, just as effectively as by bombs."
- Kenneth Clark
(Related: Bombs, Cynicism, Disillusion)
"Man, like other organisms, is so perfectly coordinated that he may easily forget, whether awake or asleep, that he is a colony of cells in action, and that it is the cells which achieve, through him, what he has the illusion of accomplishing himself."
- Albert Claude
(Related: Action, Forget, Illusion, Man, May)
"Illusions of grandeur are not the same as visions of greatness."
- Edwin Louis Cole
(Related: Greatness, Visions)
"It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a scam. Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create an illusion of rapid global warming."
- John Coleman
(Related: Environmental, History, Global warming, Illusion, Motives, Scientists)
"There is no need to waste pity on young girls who are having their moments of disillusionment, for in another moment they will recover their illusion."
- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
(Related: Disillusionment, Girls, Moments, Pity, Waste, Will)
"We must select the illusion which appeals to our temperament, and embrace it with passion, if we want to be happy."
- Cyril Connolly
(Related: Illusion, Passion, Temperament, Want)
"It is respectable to have no illusions, and safe, and profitable and dull."
- Joseph Conrad
"Who knows what true loneliness is - not the conventional word but the naked terror? To the lonely themselves it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs some memory or some illusion."
- Joseph Conrad
(Related: Hugs, Illusion, Loneliness, Lonely, Memory, Terror, Word)
"Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions."
- Joseph Conrad
(Related: Thought, Friend, Action, Enemy)
"To me, Batman is definately Bruce Wayne's darker side. The challenge is playing it as two separate aspects of the same person. I have to create the illusion of a Dark Knight, who's mysterious and strong."
- Kevin Conroy
(Related: Challenge, Illusion, Knight)
"There's a higher place that I have no illusions about reaching. There's a sophistication and aesthetic about composers who only write only for the music's sake."
- Bill Conti
(Related: Music, Composers, Sophistication)
"The idea that seeing life means going from place to place and doing a great variety of obvious things is an illusion natural to dull minds."
- Charles Horton Cooley
(Related: Life, Idea, Illusion, Obvious, Variety)
"The Great War was a progressive revelation and disillusionment."
- Ralph A. Cram
(Related: War, Disillusionment)
"Censors tend to do what only psychotics do: they confuse reality with illusion."
- David Cronenberg
(Related: Illusion, Reality)
"What is a movie star? It is an illusion. It was everything I ever wanted to be, but it became a kind of shell, non? It was what made me famous and got me women. But it wasn't real."
- Jean Claude Van Damme
(Related: Women, Famous, Illusion)
"Anything I've done up till May 27th 1999 was kind of an illusion, existing without living. My daughter, the birth of my daughter, gave me life."
- Johnny Depp
(Related: Life, Daughter, Illusion, Living, May)
"We're nondenominational. I come from Northern Ireland, and we've had religious wars for years. I didn't want to create an illusion that my God is better than your God. So our show is a spiritual show, not a religious show."
- Roma Downey
(Related: God, Illusion, Ireland, Religious, Spiritual, Want, Years)
"No other human being, no woman, no poem or music, book or painting can replace alcohol in its power to give man the illusion of real creation."
- Marguerite Duras
(Related: Power, Music, Alcohol, Being, Creation, Illusion, Man, Painting, Woman)
"I don't think the human mind can comprehend the past and the future. They are both just illusions that can manipulate you into thinking theres some kind of change."
- Bob Dylan
(Related: Change, Future, Mind, Past, Thinking)
"You are traveling and see these people shooting the entire experience of going through a city, and maybe in the back of their minds they sustain the illusion that they will edit it all, but I don't think that's it."
- Atom Egoyan
(Related: Experience, People, Illusion, Traveling, Will)
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
- Albert Einstein
(Related: Illusion, Reality)
"The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."
- Albert Einstein
(Related: Future, Illusion, Past, Present)
"When playing a role, I would feel more comfortable, as you're given a prescribed way of behaving. So, both Facebook and theatre provide contrived settings that provide the illusion of social interaction."
- Jesse Eisenberg
(Related: Illusion, Theatre)
"There are as many pillows of illusion as flakes in a snow-storm. We wake from one dream into another dream."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Related: Dream, Illusion, Snow)
"There is an optical illusion about every person we meet."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Related: Illusion)
"Now I believe I can hear the philosophers protesting that it can only be misery to live in folly, illusion, deception and ignorance, but it isn't -it's human."
- Desiderius Erasmus
(Related: Deception, Folly, Ignorance, Illusion, Misery, Now)
"Illusion is needed to disguise the emptiness within."
- Arthur Erickson
(Related: Disguise, Illusion)
"When she was younger, my mother was quite committed to Roman Catholicism. But she got disillusioned with it and moved closer to something like Buddhist beliefs near the end of her life."
- Ralph Fiennes
(Related: Life, Mother, Buddhist, Beliefs, Catholicism, End)
"The purpose of satire has been rightly stated as to strip off the veneer of comforting illusion and cosy half truth, and our job, as I see it, is to put it back again!"
- Michael Flanders
(Related: Truth, Purpose, Illusion, Job, Satire)
"Realizing this, I knew that the actual space of a room could be broken down and played with by planting illusions of real light (electric light) at crucial junctures in the room's composition."
- Dan Flavin
(Related: Light, Space)
"A woman should be an illusion."
- Ian Fleming
(Related: Illusion, Woman)
"Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires."
- Sigmund Freud
(Related: Religion, Strength, Fact, Illusion)
"Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces."
- Sigmund Freud
(Related: Complaint, Pain, Pleasure, Reality)
"How strange when an illusion dies. It's as though you've lost a child."
- Judy Garland
(Related: Illusion)
"We cast away priceless time in dreams, born of imagination, fed upon illusion, and put to death by reality."
- Judy Garland
(Related: Death, Time, Dreams, Imagination, Illusion, Reality)
"And, hey, I'm not under the illusion that everything's just going to be hunky-dory work wise forever. I've never been under that illusion. Things could go away tomorrow."
- Mel Gibson
(Related: Work, Illusion, Tomorrow)
"Law not served by power is an illusion; but power not ruled by law is a menace which our nuclear age cannot afford."
- Arthur J. Goldberg
(Related: Age, Power, Illusion, Law)
"Since fame is an illusion and death is in our future all we have is the next moment before we are swallowed into oblivion."
- Al Goldstein
(Related: Death, Fame, Future, Illusion)
"The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned."
- Antonio Gramsci
(Related: Challenge, Modernity)
"The illusion that times that were are better than those that are, has probably pervaded all ages."
- Horace Greeley
(Related: Illusion)
"Painting is an illusion, a piece of magic, so what you see is not what you see."
- Philip Guston
(Related: Illusion, Magic, Painting)
"The painting is not on a surface, but on a plane which is imagined. It moves in a mind. It is not there physically at all. It is an illusion, a piece of magic, so that what you see is not what you see."
- Philip Guston
(Related: Illusion, Magic, Mind, Painting)
"It is only a step from boredom to disillusionment, which leads naturally to self-pity, which in turn ends in chaos."
- Manly Hall
(Related: Boredom, Chaos, Disillusionment, Self)
"I was well traveled, and I created this illusion of literacy through reading and writing. I wrote a book of short stories."
- Tom T. Hall
(Related: Illusion, Reading, Writing)
"I related to his disillusionment. Thinking that he was going for this big dream. Then he kind of saw through it all at one point and went back home. Then he started a bender, which I can relate to of course."
- Woody Harrelson
(Related: Home, Dream, Disillusionment, Thinking)
"I never was disillusioned with acting because I love acting."
- Woody Harrelson
(Related: Love, Acting)
"Belief in the absence of illusions is itself an illusion."
- Barbara Grizzuti Harrison
(Related: Belief, Absence, Illusion)
"We were talking about the space between us all and the people who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion. Never glimpse the truth - then it's far too late when they pass away."
- George Harrison
(Related: Truth, People, Illusion, Space, Talking)
"As in The Lime Twig dream and illusion are right at the center of Charivari."
- John C. Hawkes
(Related: Dream, Illusion, Right)
"The time of illusion, then, is the beautiful moment of passion; it represents the artistic zone in which the poet or romance writer ought to be free to do the very best that he can."
- Lafcadio Hearn
(Related: Time, Romance, Illusion, Passion, Writer, Zone)
"Do you think I am standing here, making this up as I go? I am sorry to disillusion you. I am not Robin Williams. I am the king of the pen."
- Mitch Hedberg
(Related: Disillusion, Pen)
"That time is important. It gives a comforting illusion of permanence not found in running by the mile."
- Joe Henderson
(Related: Time, Illusion, Running)
"If time is not real, then the dividing line between this world and eternity, between suffering and bliss, between good and evil, is also an illusion."
- Herman Hesse
(Related: Time, Eternity, Evil, Illusion, Suffering, World)
"He didn't maintain my illusion of myself, he gave me an illusion of myself. Before I met him, I never thought of myself as an actress. Boy, he sidetracked me in a great way!"
- Judy Holliday
(Related: Thought, Illusion)
"My professional life has been a constant record of disillusion, and many things that seem wonderful to most men are the every-day commonplaces of my business."
- Harry Houdini
(Related: Business, Life, Men, Disillusion)
"The soul has illusions as the bird has wings: it is supported by them."
- Victor Hugo
(Related: Soul)
"In this life struggle, here I am among you fully cognizant that a true believer has no fear of what God has ordained for him. Those who are visited by fear live only for their present, under the illusion that the world began with them and will end with their departure."
- King Hussein I
(Related: Life, God, Fear, Departure, End, Illusion, Present, Struggle, Will, World)
"Sons have always a rebellious wish to be disillusioned by that which charmed their fathers."
- Aldous Huxley
(Related: Fathers, Sons)
"Infinite love is the only truth. Everything else is illusion."
- David Icke
(Related: Love, Truth, Illusion, Infinite)
"Conduct, which involves a decision of the ultimate fate of the agent cannot be based on illusions."
- Muhammed Iqbal
(Related: Decision, Fate)
"I do feel part of that generation of people who were rather idealistic in the '70s and became disillusioned in the '80s. Not just about social services issues, but the world."
- Kazuo Ishiguro
(Related: People, World)
"What is called a sincere work is one that is endowed with enough strength to give reality to an illusion."
- Max Jacob
(Related: Work, Strength, Illusion, Reality)
"The preserve of ambition and folly in pursuit of illusion, or delusion."
- Derek Jarman
(Related: Ambition, Delusion, Folly, Illusion, Pursuit)
"Only here, because of the illusion of intellectualism, our society separates the validity of human expression."
- Joseph Jarman
(Related: Society, Expression, Illusion, Validity)
"Love can sometimes be magic. But magic can sometimes... just be an illusion."
- Javan
(Related: Love, Illusion, Magic)
"We're living under the illusion that we have the power to determine what to do with it."
- Mordecai Wyatt Johnson
(Related: Power, Illusion, Living)
"Models are there to look like mannequins, not like real people. Art and illusion are supposed to be fantasy."
- Grace Jones
(Related: Art, People, Fantasy, Illusion)
"Let there be no illusions about the difficulty of forming this kind of a national community. It's tough, difficult, not easy. But a spirit of harmony will survive in America only if each of us remembers that we share a common destiny."
- Barbara Jordan
(Related: America, Community, Destiny, Difficulty, Harmony, Spirit, Will)
"There is the illusion of the world and the reality of the Torah."
- Meir Kahane
(Related: Illusion, Reality, World)
"It's really easy to get colors right. It's really hard to get black - and neutrals - right. Black is certainly a color but it's also an illusion."
- Donna Karan
(Related: Colors, Illusion, Right)
"I'm an idealist without illusions."
- John F. Kennedy
"The occupation and robbery of a nation occurs under the illusion of freeing its citizens from brutal oppression."
- Ramman Kenoun
(Related: Illusion, Nation, Occupation, Oppression)
"The Russian people are suffering from economic fatigue and from disillusionment with the Allies! The world thinks the Russian Revolution is at an end. Do not be mistaken. The Russian Revolution is just beginning."
- Alexander Kerensky
(Related: People, Beginning, Disillusionment, End, Fatigue, Revolution, Suffering, World)
"So what are we given? We're also given, my generation, the disillusionment of our parents."
- Jewel Kilcher
(Related: Disillusionment, Parents)
"I always liked the magic of poetry but now I'm just starting to see behind the curtain of even the best poets, how they've used, tried and tested craft to create the illusion. Wonderful feeling of exhilaration to finally be there."
- David Knopfler
(Related: Poetry, Feeling, Illusion, Magic, Now, Poets)
"Nothing is more sad than the death of an illusion."
- Arthur Koestler
(Related: Death, Illusion, Nothing)
"If you can talk brilliantly about a problem, it can create the consoling illusion that it has been mastered."
- Stanley Kubrick
(Related: Illusion, Talk)
"Allowing children to spew forth whatever is on their minds in the name of openness only creates an illusion of family closeness."
- Neil Kurshan
(Related: Family, Children, Illusion, Name)
"The problem with our role is Americans live in a world of illusion."
- Talib Kweli
(Related: Americans, Illusion, World)
"We're in an illusion about what our role is in world politics and foreign affairs, and our policies are killing and destroying and doing a lot of things that we are not aware of."
- Talib Kweli
(Related: Politics, Illusion, Killing, World)
"Language, philosophy, and science are interwoven into the design of words, which are manipulated to create surprising illusions."
- John Langdon
(Related: Design, Science, Language, Philosophy, Words)
"Unlike any other business in the United States, sports must preserve an illusion of perfect innocence."
- Lewis H. Lapham
(Related: Business, Sports, Illusion, Innocence, states, United)
"These critics with the illusions they've created about artists - it's like idol worship. They only like people when they're on their way up... I cannot be on the way up again."
- John Lennon
(Related: People, Artists, Worship)
"I came down to the living room one day and my wife was standing in the living room. It wasn't an illusion. I saw her out of the corner of my eye. The moment I saw her, she vanished."
- Hugh Leonard
(Related: Wife, Day, Eye, Illusion, Living)
"The time has come to stop beating our heads against stone walls under the illusion that we have been appointed policeman to the human race."
- Walter Lippmann
(Related: Time, Illusion, Race)
"Prosperity or egalitarianism - you have to choose. I favor freedom - you never achieve real equality anyway: you simply sacrifice prosperity for an illusion."
- Mario Vargas Llosa
(Related: Equality, Sacrifice, Freedom, Illusion, Prosperity)
"Since it is impossible to know what's really happening, we Peruvians lie, invent, dream and take refuge in illusion. Because of these strange circumstances, Peruvian life, a life in which so few actually do read, has become literary."
- Mario Vargas Llosa
(Related: Life, Lie, Dream, Circumstances, Illusion, Literary)
"Therefore trust to thy heart, and to what the world calls illusions."
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(Related: Trust, Heart, World)
"I am disillusioned enough to know that no man's opinion on any subject is worth a damn unless backed up with enough genuine information to make him really know what he's talking about."
- H. P. Lovecraft
(Related: Information, Man, Opinion, Talking, Worth)
"The secret to film is that it's an illusion."
- George Lucas
(Related: Film, Illusion)
"Show me a man who claims he is objective and I'll show you a man with illusions."
- Henry R. Luce
(Related: Man)
"The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions."
- Robert Wilson Lynd
(Related: War, Belief, Possibility)
"I have no illusions at all about being a sex symbol. None of my former girlfriends ever thought of me that way, and I don't have any packs of women chasing me down the street like a Brad Pitt or someone like that."
- Tobey Maguire
(Related: Women, Sex, Thought, Being, Girlfriends, Symbol)
"One travels to escape from it all, but that is the great illusion: It cannot be done, since one travels with one's mind."
- Ella Maillart
(Related: Mind)
"So our problem is not Labour, it is us, is making us attractive enough to gain disillusioned Labour support and to compete effectively with the Lib Dems for those loose votes."
- Francis Maude
(Related: Gain, Support)
"It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it."
- W. Somerset Maugham
(Related: Illusion, Youth)
"Lost Illusion is the undisclosed title of every novel."
- Andre Maurois
(Related: Illusion)
"Nothing like being visible, publishing one's work, and speaking openly about one's life, to disabuse the world of the illusion of one's perfection and purity."
- Joyce Maynard
(Related: Life, Work, Being, Illusion, Nothing, Perfection, Publishing, Purity, World)
"Architects of grandeur are often the master builders of disillusionment."
- Bryant H. McGill
(Related: Disillusionment)
"No illusion is more crucial than the illusion that great success and huge money buy you immunity from the common ills of mankind, such as cars that won't start."
- Larry McMurtry
(Related: Money, Success, Illusion, Mankind)
"I had great faith in Irish actors, that they'd be hip to the whole theatre thing, and they are. I had no illusions of coming over here as some kind of big shot. It's been a learning experience for me too."
- Christopher Meloni
(Related: Experience, Faith, Actors, Irish, Learning, Theatre)
"What staggers me is not the persistence of illusion, but the persistence of the world in the face of illusion."
- A. G. Mojtabai
(Related: Illusion, Persistence, World)
"Romantic love is an illusion. Most of us discover this truth at the end of a love affair or else when the sweet emotions of love lead us into marriage and then turn down their flames."
- Thomas Moore
(Related: Love, Marriage, Truth, Emotions, End, Illusion, Romantic)
"If on the one side we do not harbor the illusion that the entire proletariat must be enlightened before it can be called into battle, so on the other we do not doubt that as much enlightenment as possible must be produced with oral and printed agitation."
- Johann Most
(Related: Agitation, Battle, Doubt, Illusion)
"We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality."
- Iris Murdoch
(Related: Life, Fantasy, Illusion, Reality, World)
"Baseball is a game where a curve is an optical illusion, a screwball can be a pitch or a person, stealing is legal and you can spit anywhere you like except in the umpire's eye or on the ball."
- James Patrick Murray
(Related: Legal, Baseball, Eye, Illusion, Umpire)
"The misconception that a victory can be worth its price, has in the nuclear age become a total illusion."
- Alva Myrdal
(Related: Age, Victory, Illusion, Worth)
"A man's wife is his compromise with the illusion of his first sweetheart."
- George Jean Nathan
(Related: Wife, Compromise, First, Illusion, Man)
"History is one of those marvelous and necessary illusions we have to deal with. It's one of the ways of dealing with our world with impossible generalities which we couldn't live without."
- Howard Nemerov
(Related: History, World)
"Photography, as we all know, is not real at all. It is an illusion of reality with which we create our own private world."
- Arnold Newman
(Related: Illusion, Photography, Reality, World)
"Because you know, down deep in my heart, when all is said and done, I still live under the illusion that basically people think of me as an up-and-coming young actor."
- Jack Nicholson
(Related: People, Heart, Actor, Deep, Illusion)
"Love matches, so called, have illusion for their father and need for their mother."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
(Related: Love, Mother, Father, Illusion)
"Much violence is based on the illusion that life is a property to be defended and not to be shared."
- Henri Nouwen
(Related: Life, Illusion, Property, Violence)
"Progress is not an illusion, it happens, but it is slow and invariably disappointing."
- George Orwell
(Related: Progress, Illusion)
"God is not disillusioned with us. He never had any illusions to begin with."
- Luis Palau
(Related: God)
"Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil to be full of them and to be unwilling to recognize them, since that is to add the further fault of a voluntary illusion."
- Blaise Pascal
(Related: Evil, Fault, Faults, Illusion)
"You are priests, not social or political leaders. Let us not be under the illusion that we are serving the Gospel through an exaggerated interest in the wide field of temporal problems."
- Pope John Paul II
(Related: Illusion, Interest, Leaders, Political leaders, Problems)
"It takes a lot to wound a man without illusions."
- Ellis Peters
(Related: Man)
"Seeing how those companies operate, it didn't amount to a massive vote of confidence in their artists. There was talk of me going to Columbia after that, but nothing happened. I got disillusioned, and I pulled back."
- Madeleine Peyroux
(Related: Artists, Confidence, Nothing, Talk, Vote)
"Official truths are often powerful illusions."
- John Pilger
"Whatever is a reality today, whatever you touch and believe in and that seems real for you today, is going to be - like the reality of yesterday - an illusion tomorrow."
- Luigi Pirandello
(Related: Illusion, Reality, Today, Tomorrow, Yesterday)
"You too must not count too much on your reality as you feel it today, since like yesterday, it may prove an illusion for you tomorrow."
- Luigi Pirandello
(Related: Illusion, May, Reality, Today, Tomorrow, Yesterday)
"I very much enjoyed my career in science. I didn't leave science because I was disillusioned, but felt I'd done my bit for it after about twenty-five years."
- John Polkinghorne
(Related: Science, Career, Years)
"By that I mean, I think that it is true that politics and political heroes have to satisfy our need to be greater than mortal in some way, and that's led them into creating illusions, sound bites, focus groups that tell you what to do."
- Sydney Pollack
(Related: Politics, Focus, Heroes, Sound)
"I mean, I had probably an illusion of being the wife that, you know, I wanted to create a home. I wanted to have children. I wanted him to be a husband. It was never going to be that way. It couldn't be that way."
- Priscilla Presley
(Related: Home, Wife, HusbBeing, Children, Illusion)
"Living in an age of advertisement, we are perpetually disillusioned. The perfect life is spread before us every day, but it changes and withers at a touch."
- J. B. Priestley
(Related: Age, Life, Day, Living)
"I believe there should be no arbitrary date set for withdrawal and yet no permanent, unending deployment. No cut and run, yet measured progress in helping a people who want to be free without an illusion of overnight success."
- Rick Renzi
(Related: Success, People, Progress, Illusion, Want)
"I'm not under too much of an illusion of how smart or un-smart I am because filmmaking ultimately is about teamwork."
- Guy Ritchie
(Related: Teamwork, Illusion)
"I don't care if you're gay, black, Chinese, straight. That means nothing to me. It's all an illusion."
- Joe Rogan
(Related: Care, Gay, Illusion, Nothing)
"The belief may be too often mistaken, but the illusion of coming into direct contact with the past is intoxicating and persuasive, and can result in an interpretation that carries conviction. Sometimes confidence is all that's needed."
- Charles Rosen
(Related: Belief, Confidence, Conviction, Illusion, May, Past, Result)
"I don't have any illusions that what we are doing is sticking the the bottle. I don't think that's what we are doing. We are trying to make sure that the genie has friends, has food to eat, a way to grow."
- Hilary Rosen
(Related: Food, Friends, Trying)
"Experience comprises illusions lost, rather than wisdom gained."
- Joseph Roux
(Related: Experience, Wisdom)
"Our experience is composed rather of illusions that of wisdom acquired."
- Joseph Roux
(Related: Experience, Wisdom)
"Of course the illusion of art is to make one believe that great literature is very close to life, but exactly the opposite is true. Life is amorphous, literature is formal."
- Francoise Sagan
(Related: Art, Life, Illusion, Literature)
"I don't have any illusion that The Creeper is as popular or will ever be as popular as any of the classic movie monsters, but I think in the heart of every young horror fan is his desire to create his own creature."
- Victor Salva
(Related: Heart, Desire, Horror, Illusion, Popular, Will)
"Wisdom comes by disillusionment."
- George Santayana
(Related: Wisdom, Disillusionment)
"It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection."
- Edward Sapir
(Related: Communication, Illusion, Language, Problems, Reality, Reflection)
"A logical analysis of reflexive usages in French shows, however, that this simplicity is an illusion and that, so far from helping the foreigner, it is more calculated to bother him."
- Edward Sapir
(Related: Illusion, Simplicity)
"People live with the illusion that we have a democratic system, but it's only the outward form of one. In reality we live in a plutocracy, a government of the rich."
- Jose Saramago
(Related: Government, People, Illusion, Reality)
"Life has no meaning the moment you loose the illusion of being eternal."
- Jean-Paul Sartre
(Related: Life, Being, Illusion, Meaning)
"Ultimately, it's an illusion that you can understand yourself."
- Paul Schrader
(Related: Illusion)
"Decorate your home. It gives the illusion that your life is more interesting than it really is."
- Charles M. Schulz
(Related: Life, Home, Illusion)
"I no longer worry whether a painting is about something or not. I am only concerned with the expectation, from a flat surface, of an illusion."
- William Scott
(Related: Expectation, Illusion, Painting, Worry)
"Just as the 99% of Soviet citizens who supported the Soviet regime in 1985 was no indication of what the people inside the USSR really thought, the army of true believers that we think we see in the Arab world is an illusion."
- Natan Sharansky
(Related: Thought, People, Army, Illusion, World)
"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
- George Bernard Shaw
(Related: Communication, Illusion)
"The experiences of promoting my first album were really something; there is so much illusion in my environment (touring and pop music) that I wanted to clear away."
- Duncan Sheik
(Related: Environment, First, Illusion)
"I have, alas, only one illusion left, and that is the Archbishop of Canterbury."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Illusion)
"The thing about performance, even if it's only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Performance, Fact, Illusion, Infinite, Possibilities)
"A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true."
- Socrates
(Related: Morality, Values, Illusion, Nothing, Sound)
"Disillusionment in living is finding that no one can really ever be agreeing with you completely in anything."
- Gertrude Stein
(Related: Disillusionment, Living)
"It is natural to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes to that siren until she allures us to our death."
- Gertrude Stein
(Related: Death, Hope, Eyes)
"The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true."
- John Steinbeck
(Related: Illusion, World, Writer)
"Friendship has its illusions no less than love."
- Stendhal
(Related: Friendship, Love)
"Saying you have a political solution is like saying you can write a pop song that's going to stay at the top of the list forever. I don't have many illusions about this, but I'm not cynical about it."
- Bruce Sterling
(Related: Saying, Solution, Song)
"Man is created to be God's deputy on earth and it is important to realize the obligation to rid ourselves of all illusions and to make our lives a preparation for the next life."
- Cat Stevens
(Related: Life, God, Earth, Man, Obligation, Preparation)
"The House of Lords, an illusion to which I have never been able to subscribe - responsibility without power, the prerogative of the eunuch throughout the ages."
- Tom Stoppard
(Related: Power, Illusion, Responsibility)
"It is necessary to expose the false propaganda of the imperialists and thoroughly dispel the illusion that the imperialists will give up their positions in the colonies and dependent countries with good will."
- Kim Il Sung
(Related: Countries, Illusion, Propaganda, Will)
"Art has a double face, of expression and illusion, just like science has a double face: the reality of error and the phantom of truth."
- Publilius Syrus
(Related: Art, Science, Truth, Error, Expression, Illusion, Reality)
"What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness."
- Leo Tolstoy
(Related: Beauty, Goodness, Illusion)
"Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live."
- Mark Twain
(Related: May)
"Love is the child of illusion and the parent of disillusion."
- Miguel de Unamuno
(Related: Love, Disillusion)
"I have no illusions about my art. I am what the public made me and, consequently, I am not likely to forget my debt to them."
- Conrad Veidt
(Related: Art, Debt, Forget, Public)
"The idea that the world can unite without being regulated is clearly an illusion."
- Guy Verhofstadt
(Related: Idea, Being, Illusion, World)
"Everything's fine today, that is our illusion."
- Voltaire
(Related: Illusion, Today)
"Illusion is the first of all pleasures."
- Voltaire
(Related: First, Illusion)
"I'm of course disillusioned with what has happened to World cinema. Now cinemas in both Eastern and Western Europe are filled with the same blockbusters from Hollywood."
- Alexander Walker
(Related: Cinema, Europe, Hollywood, Now, World)
"May I say, finally, that I have no illusions of grandeur; quite to the contrary, I am very humble in my knowledge that through forty years of my life my life has been an open book of service to my fellow architects and for the public good."
- Ralph Thomas Walker
(Related: Life, Knowledge, May, Open, Public, Service, Years)
"There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate, upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard."
- George Washington
(Related: Experience, Cure, Error, Favors, Illusion, Nation, Pride)
"I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is."
- Alan Watts
(Related: Future, Past, Present)
"People say I play real loud. I don't, actually. I'm recorded loud and a lot of that is because we have good engineers. Mick knows what a good drum sound is as well, so that's part of the illusion really. I can't play loud."
- Charlie Watts
(Related: People, Illusion, Play, Sound)
"Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached."
- Simone Weil
(Related: Reality)
"I think people are just really disappointed, disappointed with Blair as well, who's just like Bush's lapdog. I think everyone's just disillusioned with politics in our country, and it must be the same in your country."
- Paul Weller
(Related: Politics, People, Country)
"We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone."
- Orson Welles
(Related: Friendship, Love, Illusion)
"There is no such thing as conversation. It is an illusion. There are intersecting monologues, that is all."
- Rebecca West
(Related: Conversation, Illusion)
"Illusion is the first of all pleasures."
- Oscar Wilde
(Related: First, Illusion)
"In our natural state, we are glorious beings. In the world of illusion, we are lost and imprisoned, slaves to our appetites and our will to false power."
- Marianne Williamson
(Related: Power, Illusion, State, Will, World)
"Illusion is an anodyne, bred by the gap between wish and reality."
- Herman Wouk
(Related: Illusion, Reality)
"We have an illusion of security, we don't have security."
- Isaac Yeffet
(Related: Illusion, Security)
"If you understand hallucination and illusion, you don't blindly follow any leader. You must know if the person is sane or insane, over the abyss."
- Marguerite Young
(Related: Leader, Illusion)
"Luck is merely an illusion, trusted by the ignorant and chased by the foolish."
- Timothy Zahn
(Related: Illusion, Luck)