Quotes Tagged "illusions"

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.

Growing up is losing some illusions, in order to acquire others.

I have been finding treasures in places I did not want to search. I have been hearing wisdom from tongues I did not want to listen. I have been finding beauty where I did not want to look. And I have learned so much from journeys I did not want to take. Forgive me, O Gracious One; for I have been closing my ears and eyes for too long. I have learned that miracles are only called miracles because they are often witnessed by only those who can can see through all of life's illusions. I am ready to see what really exists on other side, what exists behind the blinds, and taste all the ugly fruit instead of all that looks right, plump and ripe.

if something is there, you can only see it with your eyes open, but if it isn't there, you can see it just as well with your eyes closed. That's why imaginary things are often easier to see than real ones.

The reflection on the surface of the water is often mistaken for the mysteries that lie beneath. Likewise, the reflection of the moon is mistaken for its own light. In the quest for wisdom, each person must emerge from the illusions of the world and begin the journey towards the sacred mountain.

Whatever some people might say, it seems to me that a world in which I can fly, bend space and time, and meet with people who have been dead for years, deserves more consideration than it gets. If I weigh the waking world on one side of the scale and the dream world on the other, which one is more substantial? Doesn’t a world of endless possibilities seem more likely to contain the whole of our lives than the fraction of the world that we call real?

Things are often not what they seem. And then, sometimes they are. The trick is to learn what is real.

Religious doctrines … are all illusions, they do not admit of proof, and no one can be compelled to consider them as true or to believe in them.

There are two paths of which one may choose in the walk of life; one we are born with, and the one we consciously blaze. One is naturally true, while the other is a perceptive illusion. Choose wisely at each fork in the road.

Quando gli ematomi si fossero riassorbiti e l'artigliata di Freya si fosse trasformata in cicatrice, Ofelia avrebbe rivisto il viso che conosceva. Lo sguardo però, non sarebbe più stato come prima. A forza di vedere illusioni aveva perso le proprie, e andava bene così. Quando le illusioni spariscono rimane solo la verità.

Subhuti, someone might fill innumerable worlds with the seven treasures and give all away in gifts of alms, but if any good man or any good woman awakens the thought of Enlightenment and takes even only four lines from this Discourse, reciting, using, receiving, retaining and spreading them abroad and explaining them for the benefit of others, it will be far more meritorious. Now in what manner may he explain them to others? By detachment from appearances-abiding in Real Truth. -So I tell you- Thus shall you think of all this fleeting world: A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream; A flash of lightening in a summer cloud, A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream. When Buddha finished this Discourse the venerable Subhuti, together with the bhikshus, bhikshunis, lay-brothers and sisters, and the whole realms of Gods, Men and Titans, were filled with joy by His teaching, and, taking it sincerely to heart they went their ways.

A dream is not what it seems. A dream cannot be bottled and sold. You cannot stake out the boundaries of a dream. You cannot record its title in your name. No photos can be taken of the dream world. And yet it is real.

War is being reminded that you are completely at the mercy of death at every moment, without the illusion that you are not. Without the distractions that make life worth living.

The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world... Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo. Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.

Nos-tal-gic,’ Akira said, as though it were a word he had been struggling to find. Then he said a word in Japanese, perhaps the Japanese for ‘nostalgic.’ ‘Nos-tal-gic. It is good to be nos-tal-gic. Very important.’ ‘Really, old fellow?’ ‘Important. Very important. Nostalgic. When we nostalgic, we remember. A world better than this world we discover when we grow. We remember and wish good world come back again. So very important. Just now, I had dream. I was boy. Mother, Father, close to me. in our house.’ He fell silent and continued to gaze across the rubble. ‘Akira,’ I said, sensing that the longer this talk went on, the greater was some danger I did not wish fully to articulate. ‘We should move on. We have much to do.

Strange are the pictures of the future that mankind can thus draw with this brush of faith and these many-coloured pigments of the imagination! Strange, too, that no one of them tallies with another!

I try to deny myself any illusions or delusions, and I think that this perhaps entitles me to try and deny the same to others, at least as long as they refuse to keep their fantasies to themselves.

Time and space are just illusions. As such, they can be overcome by a focused intention exercised by the power of the mind.

Everyone lives bound by their own knowledge and awareness. They define that as reality; but knowledge and awareness are vage, and perhaps better called illusions.

O, the things I tolerate to portray the ultimate illusion: love.