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Quotations about Reality



You can accept reality without believing every yarn it spins. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com


There is an objective reality out there, but we view it through the spectacles of our beliefs, attitudes, and values. This is one reason our beliefs are so important; they shape our interpretation of everything else. ~David G. Myers, Social Psychology, 2005


I refuse to be intimidated by reality anymore. After all, what is reality anyway? Nothin' but a collective hunch. ~Jane Wagner


I am a thread too slender
To suspend all this reality...
~Phillip Pulfrey, "Madness," Love, Abstraction and other Speculations, www.originals.net


If I do not accept reality, it is because I have looked behind the curtain and seen how they do it. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com


...human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
~T. S. Eliot


It would not be sufficient to say that in his love-making with Ada he discovered the pang, the ogon', the agony of supreme "reality." Reality, better say, lost the quotes it wore like claws — in a world where independent and original minds must cling to things or pull things apart in order to ward off madness or death (which is the master madness). ~Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977), Ada, 1969


Question reality, especially if it contradicts the evidence of your hopes and dreams. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com


Reality is always the dowdy sister to Fancy. ~Dr. Idel Dreimer, lumpenbangenpiano.com


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 (1856–1939), Reflections on War and Death, translated by A. A. Brill and Alfred B. Kuttner, 1918


Theories are great, they sound great, but the minute you are asked to prove one in actual life, why the thing blows up. ~Will Rogers (1879–1935)


'Tis Cheap to build a Castle in the Air,
But Costly keeping up a Dwelling there.
~Arthur Guiterman, "Of Extravagance," A Poet's Proverbs, 1924


REALITY, n.  The dream of a mad philosopher. ~Ambrose Bierce


Let me put it this way — nothing ever brings me back to reality that doesn't remind me why I left. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com


Truth, as any dictionary will tell you, is a property of certain of our ideas. It means their "agreement," as falsity means their disagreement, with "reality." ~William James


Reality is irritatingly obstinate
and so very gosh darn'd sticky!
~Terri Guillemets


All the mind's activity is easy if it is not subjected to reality. ~Marcel Proust


There is a difference between denying reality and avoiding it whenever possible. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com


MAGGIE:  For a guy who's coming off a huge win, you don't sound like you have much confidence.
ELI:  Don't mistake a firm grip on reality for lack of confidence.
~Eli Stone, "Freedom," 2008, written by Marc Guggenheim and Greg Berlanti  [S1, E2 —tg]


Certainly! It might have been so; only it isn't. ~Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)


He was overpowered by a sense of nightmare unreality. ~Eleanor Ecob Sawyer, "Unencumbered Bachelor," 1922


Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality. ~Jules de Gaultier


What is reality but the dreamworld of a limited imagination. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com


What you undoubtedly want is about two paragraphs of facts. I've forgotten so many of the facts. I don't remember what is true and what might have been true... As for the picture — I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything. ~John Steinbeck


If I choose abstraction over reality, it is because I find it the lesser chaos. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com


Stop moping! Look at the harlequins!... Trees are harlequins, words are harlequins. So are situations and sums. Put two things together — jokes, images — and you get a triple harlequin. Come on! Play! Invent the world! Invent reality! ~Vladimir Nabokov, Look at the Harlequins!, 1974


I believe in a real, physical world. I figure if the world existed only in my mind, it would pay more attention to me. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com


REALITY, n.  The nucleus of a vacuum. ~Ambrose Bierce


Man can lend himself to all the sallies of imagination; he consents to follow its adventurous bark through the narrowest and most perilous straights; but when once it has broken the tie that bound it to reality, he either ceases to follow it at all, or follows it without sympathy, with impatience, or anxiety. ~Alexandre Vinet (1797–1847)


As I was sitting in my chair
I knew the bottom wasn't there,
Nor legs nor back, but I just sat,
Ignoring little things like that.
~Hughes Mearns, "The Perfect Reactionary," as quoted in What Cheer: An Anthology of American and British Humorous and Witty Verse, Gathered, Sifted, and Salted, with an Introduction by David McCord, 1945


By all means, accept reality, but be sure to subscribe to the monthly updates. ~Robert Brault, @RobertBrault18, tweet, 2022, rbrault.blogspot.com


Cloquet hated reality but realized it was still the only place to get a good steak. ~Woody Allen


Belief in God? An afterlife? I believe in rock: this apodictic rock beneath my feet. ~Edward Abbey


Seems like nothing ever brings you back to reality that makes you want to stay there. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com


Be careful not to drown in a mirage. ~Terri Guillemets


There's thinking about him, which is what I do... and if you make it real, it's not the same. It's not yours anymore... Maybe I'd rather have the fantasy than even him. ~My So-Called Life, "Dancing in the Dark," 1994, written by Winnie Holzman  [S1, E2]


O Reality!
O Great Queen!
Where were you when your sister, that bitch Illusion,
Bit off my arm?
~Thomas McGrath, Open Songs, 1977


Optimism is often an illusion, but there are times when reality is so stark that illusion is the only sanity and forging a sane reality from illusion the only hope. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com


I made some studies, and
reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in
touch with it. I can take it in small doses, but as a lifestyle
I found it too confining.
It was just too needful;
it expected me to be there for it all the time, and with all
I have to do—
I had to let something go.
~Jane Wagner


To accept reality is only to encourage it. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com





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published 1998 Mar 18
revised 2021 Jul 31
last saved 2024 Sep 7
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