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Reality quotes

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“Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.” George Orwell, “1984” - 1949

“Can a cube that does not last for any time at all, have a real existence?” H. G. Wells, “The Time Machine” - 1895

“At the root of the Christian life lies belief in the invisible. The object of the Christian's faith is unseen reality.” A. W. Tozer, “The Pursuit of God” - 1948

“Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it, we go nowhere.” Carl Sagan, “Cosmos” - 1980

“Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother's love is not. Your mother brings you into the world, carries you first in her body. What do we know about what she feels? But whatever she feels, it, at least, must be real....” James Joyce, “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” - 1916

“You'll never be a writer if you hide from reality.” Charles Bukowski, “Ham on Rye” - 1982

“He was moving from an unreality that was frightening into a reality that was unreal because it was new.” Ray Bradbury, “Fahrenheit 451” - 1953

“The science of mathematics treats its object as though it were something abstracted mentally, whereas it is not abstract in reality.” Thomas Aquinas, “Summa Theologica” - 1274

“Fantasy love is much better than reality love. Never doing it is very exciting. The most exciting attractions are between two opposites that never meet.” Andy Warhol, “The Philosophy of Andy Warhol” - 1975

“The desire for imaginary benefits often involves the loss of present blessings.” Aesop, “Aesop's Fables”

“It cannot be maintained that empirical science provides a complete explanation of life, the interplay of all creatures and the whole of reality.” Pope Francis, “Laudato si'” - 24 May 2015

“Artists can have greater access to reality; they can see patterns and details and connections that other people, distracted by the blur of life, might miss. Just sharing that truth can be a very powerful thing.” Jay-Z, “Decoded” - 2010

“Men will not look at things as they really are, but as they wish them to be—and are ruined.” Niccolò Machiavelli, “The Prince” - 1532

“The picture is a model of reality.” Ludwig Wittgenstein, “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus” - 1921

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” J. K. Rowling, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” - 2007

“Was there anything so real as words?” Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” - 1890

“I love acting. It is so much more real than life.” Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” - 1890

“Faith is believing what you know ain't so.” Mark Twain, “Following the Equator” - 1897

“No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.” Oscar Wilde, “Intentions” - 1891

“if you don’t imagine, nothing ever happens at all.” John Green, “Paper Towns” - 2008

“Am I alive and a reality, or am I but a dream?” Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Return of Tarzan” - 1913

“I hate how I don't feel real enough unless people are watching.” Chuck Palahniuk, “Invisible Monsters” - 1999

“People imagine, and people believe: and it is that belief, that rock-solid belief, that makes things happen.” Neil Gaiman, “American Gods” - 2001

“courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality.” C. S. Lewis, “The Screwtape Letters” - 1942

“Theory and practice sometimes clash. And when that happens, theory loses. Every single time.” Linus Torvalds - 2009

“I am happy to report that in the war between reality and romance, reality is not the stronger.” John Steinbeck, “Travels with Charley” - 1962

“Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.” G. K. Chesterton, “Orthodoxy” - 1908

“Fiction, because it is not about somebody who actually lived in the real world, always has the possibility of being about ourself.” Orson Scott Card, “Ender's Game” - 1985

“Nothing ever happens like you imagine it will” John Green, “Paper Towns” - 2008

“People cry at weddings for the same reason they cry at happy endings: because they so desperately want to believe in something they know is not credible.” Margaret Atwood, “The Blind Assassin” - 2000

“Nothing is more real than nothing.” Samuel Beckett, “Malone Dies” - 1951

“sometimes a child’s innocent eyes can see things that grown men are blind to.” George R. R. Martin, “A Game of Thrones” - 1996

“I had considered how the things that never happen, are often as much realities to us, in their effects, as those that are accomplished.” Charles Dickens, “David Copperfield” - 1850

“We are here and it is now. The way I see it is, after that, everything tends towards guesswork.” Terry Pratchett, “Small Gods” - 1992

“If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.” William Shakespeare, “Twelfth Night” - 1623

“He takes false shadows for true substances.” William Shakespeare, “Titus Andronicus” - 1594

“I don't like work—no man does—but I like what is in the work—the chance to find yourself. Your own reality—for yourself, not for others—what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really...” Joseph Conrad, “Heart of Darkness” - 1899

“It's queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there has never been anything like it, and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first...” Joseph Conrad, “Heart of Darkness” - 1899

“I am sorry I can say nothing more consoling to you, for love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “The Brothers Karamazov” - 1880

“They suffer, of course ... but then they live, they live a real life, not a fantastic one, for suffering is life. Without suffering what would be the pleasure of it?” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “The Brothers Karamazov” - 1880

“And you'll sit beside me, and we'll look, not at visions, but at realities.” Edith Wharton, “The Age of Innocence” - 1920

“Every real thought on every real subject knocks the wind out of somebody or other.” Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., “The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table” - 1858

“Properly speaking, the unconscious is the real psychic ; its inner nature is just as unknown to us as the reality of the external world, and it is just as imperfectly reported to us through the data of consciousness as is the external world...” Sigmund Freud, “The Interpretation of Dreams” - 1899

“I don't know, I feel like this isn't the real world. The people, the scene: they just don't seem real to me.” Haruki Murakami, “Norwegian Wood” - 1987

“Cloquet hated reality but realized it was still the only place to get a good steak.” Woody Allen, “Side Effects” - 1980

“After you've been to fight club, watching football on television is watching pornography when you could be having great sex.” Chuck Palahniuk, “Fight Club” - 1996

“Mostly you are what they think you are.” Neil Gaiman, “American Gods” - 2001

“They are actors playing parts that are real only for us; they are the masks behind which we see our own faces.” Neil Gaiman, “American Gods” - 2001

“In the future I'm going to devote less time to sentimentality and more time to reality.” Anne Frank, “The Diary of a Young Girl” - 1947

“It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality.” Anne Frank, “The Diary of a Young Girl” - 1947

Related topics

imagination life dream faith love words desire belief mind truth fiction pleasure world pain writing shadow art consciousness science living

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Oscar Wilde (7)
Haruki Murakami (6)
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Joseph Conrad (3)
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William Shakespeare (2)
George Orwell (2)
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Edith Wharton (2)
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Related sources

The Picture of Dorian Gray (5)
American Gods (3)
The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (3)
Paper Towns (3)
1984 (2)
Heart of Darkness (2)
The Brothers Karamazov (2)
The Age of Innocence (2)
The Diary of a Young Girl (2)
Ender's Game (2)
Laudato si' (2)
Kafka on the Shore (2)
Sputnik Sweetheart (2)
The Screwtape Letters (2)
Orthodoxy (2)
Twelfth Night (1)
Lady Windermere's Fan (1)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1)
Titus Andronicus (1)
A Game of Thrones (1)