Quotations about:
    reality


Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.


Old age is like an opium-dream. Nothing seems real except what is unreal.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) American poet, essayist, scholar
Over the Teacups, ch. 2 “To the Reader” (1891)
    (Source)
 
Added on 16-Feb-24 | Last updated 16-Feb-24
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Sr.

Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real. The events that cause them can never be forgotten, can they?

Cormac McCarthy (1933-2023) American novelist, playwright, screenwriter
All the Pretty Horses (1992)
    (Source)
 
Added on 14-Feb-24 | Last updated 14-Feb-24
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , ,
More quotes by McCarthy, Cormac

And now you’ll be telling stories
of my coming back
and they won’t be false, and they won’t be true,
but they’ll be real.

Mary Oliver (1935-2019) American poet
“The First Time Percy Came Back,” A Thousand Mornings (2012)
    (Source)
 
Added on 24-Jan-24 | Last updated 24-Jan-24
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Oliver, Mary

It is a piece of idle sentimentality that truth, merely as truth, has any inherent power denied to error, of prevailing against the dungeon and the stake. Men are not more zealous for truth than they often are for error, and a sufficient application of legal or even of social penalties will generally succeed in stopping the propagation of either. The real advantage which truth has, consists in this, that when an opinion is true, it may be extinguished once, twice, or many times, but in the course of ages there will generally be found persons to rediscover it, until some one of its reappearances falls on a time when from favourable circumstances it escapes persecution until it has made such head as to withstand all subsequent attempts to suppress it.

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist
On Liberty, ch. 2 (1859)
    (Source)
 
Added on 23-Jan-24 | Last updated 23-Jan-24
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Mill, John Stuart

The worst of superstitions is, to think
Your own to be the most endurable.
[…] Yours, the only one,
to which dim-sighted mankind may be trusted,
Till they can bear the brighter light of truth.

[Der Aberglauben schlimmster ist, den seinen
Für den erträglichern zu halten […] dem allein
Die blöde Menschheit zu vertrauen, bis
Sie hellern Wahrheitstag gewöhne.]

Gotthold Lessing (1729-1781) German playwright, philosopher, dramaturg, writer
Nathan the Wise [Nathan der Weise], Act 4, sc. 4 [Templar] (1779) [tr. Reich (1860)]
    (Source)

Some of the translations leave out the second part.

(Source (German)). Alternate translations:

The worst of superstitions is to think
One's own most bearable.
[tr. Taylor (1790)]

That superstition is the worst of all
Which thinks itself the easiest to be borne --
[...] And to trust
To it alone a blind humanity
Till it is used to truth's more brilliant light.
[tr. Boylan (1878)]

The very worst
Of superstitions is, to hold one's own
The most endurable [...]
That only to entrust
Purblind humanity, till it learn to bear
The light of truth's clear day.
[tr. Corbett (1883)]

The worst of superstitions is, to think
One's own the most supportable. [...]
To it alone trust simple human-kind
Until to truth's bright rays it grows accustomed.
[tr. Jacks (1894)]

The worst of superstitions is to deem
Our special chains the most endurable --
[...] And to these alone
To trust purblind humanity until
Its eye can bear the brilliant noon of truth.
[tr. Maxwell (1917)]

The worst superstition is to consider one's own superstition the more tolerable one [...] to which alone to entrust weak-minded mankind until it will grow used to the brighter light of truth.
[tr. Reinhardt (1950)]

That superstition
Is worst which takes itself to be of all
The most endurable [...] and to which alone one may
Entrust dull-witted humankind, till it's
Accustomed to the brighter light of truth.
[tr. Morgan (1955)]

The most bigoted of superstitions is to hold one's own faith to be the only right one [...] which poor, blind men must trust until they see the light.
[tr. Ade (1972)]

 
Added on 19-Dec-23 | Last updated 27-Dec-23
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Lessing, Gotthold

That the world can be improved and yet must be celebrated as it is are contradictions. The beginning of maturity may be the recognition that both are true.

Bill Stott
William M. Stott (b. 1940) American diplomat, academic in American Studies and English, author
Documentary Expression and Thirties America, ch. 15 (1973)
    (Source)

Closing words of the book.
 
Added on 3-Nov-23 | Last updated 3-Nov-23
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Stott, William

I think [the effects of religion] have been bad because it was held important that people should believe something for which there did not exist good evidence and that falsified everybody’s thinking, falsified systems of education, and set up also, what I think a complete moral heresy: namely, that it is right to believe certain things, and wrong to believe certain others, apart from the question of whether the things in question are true or false.

Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Interview by Woodrow Wyatt, BBC TV (1959)
    (Source)

Collected in Bertrand Russell's BBC Interviews (1959) [UK] and Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind (1960) [US]. Reprinted (abridged) in The Humanist (1982-11/12), and in Russell Society News, #37 (1983-02).
 
Added on 27-Sep-23 | Last updated 27-Sep-23
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Russell, Bertrand

Were a historian like Tacitus to write a history of the best of our kings, giving an exact account of all the tyrannical acts and abuses of authority, the majority of which lie buried in the profoundest obscurity, there would be few reigns which would not inspire us with the same horror as that of Tiberius.

[Si un historien, tel que Tacite, eût écrit l’histoire de nos meilleurs rois, en faisant un relevé exact de tous les actes tyranniques, de tous les abus d’autorité, dont la plupart sont ensevelis dans l’obscurité la plus profonde, il y a peu de règnes qui ne nous inspirassent la même horreur que celui de Tibère.]

Nicolas Chamfort
Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794) French writer, epigrammist (b. Nicolas-Sébastien Roch)
Products of Perfected Civilization [Produits de la Civilisation Perfectionée], Part 1 “Maxims and Thoughts [Maximes et Pensées],” ch. 8, ¶ 482 (1795) [tr. Hutchinson (1902)]
    (Source)

(Source (French)). Alternate translations:

If such an historian as Tacitus had written the chronicle of our nobler kings, making an exact statement of all those tyrannical actions and abuses of authority which are now for the most part buried in deep darkness, few of their reigns would inspire less horror than that of Tiberius.
[tr. Mathers (1926)]

If a historian such as Tacitus had written the histories of our best kings, with precise accounts of their tyrannical actions, and all their abuses of authority, most of which have been buried in the deepest obscurity, there are few reigns that would not arouse in us the same horror as that of Tiberius.
[tr. Merwin (1969)]

If a chronicler such as Tacitus had written the history of our best kings, preparing an exact amount of all tyrannical acts, of all the abuses of authority, of which the majority are concealed by fathomless obscurity, there would be few reigns which would [not?] inspire us with the same horror as that of Tiberius.
[tr. Pearson (1973)]

 
Added on 31-Jul-23 | Last updated 31-Jul-23
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Chamfort, Nicolas

History. We want to find moral lessons in it, but its only lessons are of politics, military art, etc.

Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées [Thoughts], 1806 [tr. Auster (1983)]
    (Source)

I have been unable to find an analog in other translations, or in the original French.
 
Added on 18-Jul-23 | Last updated 18-Jul-23
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Joubert, Joseph

Love is more pleasant than marriage for the same reason that novels are more amusing than history.

[L’amour plaît plus que le mariage, par la raison que les romans sont plus amusants que l’histoire.]

Nicolas Chamfort
Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794) French writer, epigrammist (b. Nicolas-Sébastien Roch)
Products of Perfected Civilization [Produits de la Civilisation Perfectionée], Part 1 “Maxims and Thoughts [Maximes et Pensées],” ch. 6, ¶ 391 (1795) [tr. Merwin (1969)]
    (Source)

(Source (French)). Alternate translations:

Love gives greater pleasure than marriage for the same reason that romances are more amusing than history.
[tr. Hutchinson (1902), "The Cynic's Breviary"]

Love is a pleasanter thing than marriage, for the same reason that the Romans are more amusing than History.
[tr. Mathers (1926)]

Love is more pleasant than marriage for the same reason that novels are more pleasant than history.
[Source]

 
Added on 3-Jul-23 | Last updated 3-Jul-23
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , ,
More quotes by Chamfort, Nicolas

One knows not whether nature doth not impose some secrecy upon him who has been privy to certain things. At least, it is to be doubted whether it be good to blazon such. If some books are deemed most baneful and their sale forbid, how, then, with deadlier facts, not dreams of doting men? Those whom books will hurt will not be proof against events. Events, not books, should be forbid.

Herman Melville (1819-1891) American writer
The Encantadas, Sketch 8 (1854)
    (Source)
 
Added on 21-Jun-23 | Last updated 21-Jun-23
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Melville, Herman

To understand the actual world as it is, not as we should wish it to be, is the beginning of wisdom.

Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Censorship by Progressives,” New York American (1934-10-11)
    (Source)
 
Added on 25-May-23 | Last updated 25-May-23
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , ,
More quotes by Russell, Bertrand

Pleasures may be based on illusion; happiness must be based on truth.

[Le plaisir peut s’appuyer sur l’illusion; mais le bonheur repose sur la vérité.]

Nicolas Chamfort
Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794) French writer, epigrammist (b. Nicolas-Sébastien Roch)
Products of Perfected Civilization [Produits de la Civilisation Perfectionée], Part 1 Maxims and Thoughts [Maximes et Pensées], ch. 2 (1795) [tr. Parmée (2003), # 123]
    (Source)

(Source (French)). Alternate translations:

Pleasure may rest upon illusion, but felicity must repose upon truth.
[tr. Mathers (1926), # 153]

Pleasure may be be based on illusion, but happiness rests on truth.
[tr. Merwin (1969)]

Variants:
  • "Pleasure can be supported by an illusion; but happiness rests upon truth."
  • "Pleasure may come from illusion, but happiness can come only of reality."
 
Added on 22-May-23 | Last updated 22-May-23
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Chamfort, Nicolas

Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.

Simone Weil (1909-1943) French philosopher
Gravity and Grace [La Pesanteur et la Grâce], “Evil” (1947) [ed. Thibon] [tr. Crawford/von der Ruhr (1952)]
    (Source)

Speaking of the portrayal of good and evil in literature.
 
Added on 22-May-23 | Last updated 5-Dec-23
Link to this post | 15 comments
Topics: , , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Weil, Simone

Reality has a well-known liberal bias.

Colbert - Reality has a well-known liberal bias - wist.info quote

Stephen Colbert (b. 1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian
Remarks, White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, Washington, DC (2006-04-29)
    (Source)

Colbert was speaking in his faux conservative persona, as on his Colbert Report show on Comedy Central.
 
Added on 2-May-23 | Last updated 2-May-23
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , ,
More quotes by Colbert, Stephen

There was a time when all these things would have passed me by, like the flitting figures of a theatre, sufficient for the amusement of an hour. But now, I have lost the power of looking merely on the surface. Everything seems to me to come from the Infinite, to be filled with the Infinite, to be tending toward the Infinite. Do I see crowds of men hastening to extinguish a fire? I see not merely uncouth garbs, and fantastic, flickering lights, of lurid hue, like a trampling troop of gnomes — but straightway my mind is filled with thoughts about mutual helpfulness, human sympathy, the common bond of brotherhood, and the mysteriously deep foundations on which society rests; or rather, on which it now reels and totters.

Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880) American abolitionist, activist, journalist, suffragist
Letters from New-York, # 1, 1841-08-19 (1843)
    (Source)
 
Added on 12-Apr-23 | Last updated 12-Apr-23
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Child, Lydia Maria

It was one of those perfect autumn days so common in stories and so rare in the real world.

Patrick Rothfuss
Patrick Rothfuss (b. 1973) American author
The Name of the Wind, ch. 2 “A Beautiful Day” (2007)
    (Source)
 
Added on 10-Apr-23 | Last updated 10-Apr-23
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Rothfuss, Patrick

Clean, quick, and easy as lying. We know how it ends practically before it starts. That’s why stories appeal to us. They give us the clarity and simplicity our real lives lack.

Patrick Rothfuss
Patrick Rothfuss (b. 1973) American author
The Name of the Wind, ch. 45 “Interlude — Some Tavern Tale” [Kvothe] (2007)
    (Source)
 
Added on 27-Mar-23 | Last updated 27-Mar-23
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , ,
More quotes by Rothfuss, Patrick

So, what’s it like in the real world? Well, the food is better, but beyond that, I don’t recommend it.

Bill Watterson (b. 1958) American cartoonist
Commencement Address, Kenyon College (20 May 1990)
    (Source)
 
Added on 22-Mar-23 | Last updated 22-Mar-23
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , ,
More quotes by Watterson, Bill

When you’re surrounded by people who share the same set of assumptions as you, you start to think that’s reality.

Emil Levine
Emily Levine (1944-2019) American humorist, writer, actress, speaker
“A Theory of Everything,” TED Talk, Monterey, California (Feb 2002)
    (Source)
 
Added on 28-Dec-22 | Last updated 28-Dec-22
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Levine, Emily

I hope that the notion of a final statement of the laws of physics will prove as illusory as the notion of a formal decision process for all mathematics. If it should turn out that the whole of physical reality can be described by a finite set of equations, I would be disappointed, I would feel that the Creator had been uncharacteristically lacking in imagination.

Freeman Dyson
Freeman Dyson (1923-2020) English-American theoretical physicist, mathematician, futurist
Infinite in All Directions, Part 1, ch. 3 “Manchester and Athens” (1988)
    (Source)

Based on his Gifford Lectures, Aberdeen, Scotland (Apr-Nov 1985).
 
Added on 7-Nov-22 | Last updated 7-Nov-22
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , ,
More quotes by Dyson, Freeman

The things which we understand least are the quasars, but I don’t want to get into a technical discussion. But these are the most violent and most energetic objects in the universe, and they’re totally, still totally, mysterious, really. I mean, we know that they’re there, that’s all, and they’re not only there, they’re rather frequent; and nobody ever dreamed that they existed, until they were found. And even after they were found it took a long time before people took them seriously. Nature’s imagination is always richer than ours.

Freeman Dyson
Freeman Dyson (1923-2020) English-American theoretical physicist, mathematician, futurist
“Freeman Dyson: In Praise of Diversity,” Interview on A Glorious Accident, VPRO (Netherlands) (30 Aug 2016)
    (Source)
 
Added on 22-Aug-22 | Last updated 22-Aug-22
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Dyson, Freeman

This is a purely a personal bias but the desire to compel fantasy worlds to conform to the allegedly superior rules of grim reality can feel to me like a form of memetic colonialism I’ve generally found distasteful ….

Grant Morrison
Grant Morrison (b. 1960) Scottish comic book writer and playwright
“SUPERMAN and THE AUTHORITY annotations Pt 2,” blog entry (16 Feb 2022)
    (Source)
 
Added on 12-Aug-22 | Last updated 12-Aug-22
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Morrison, Grant

The relation between the artist and reality is an oblique one, and indeed there is no good art which is not consciously oblique. If you respect the reality of the world, you know that you can approach that reality only by indirect means.

Richard Wilbur
Richard Wilbur (1921-2017) American poet, literary translator
“The Bottles Become New, Too” (1953), Responses: Prose Pieces, 1953-1976 (1976)
    (Source)

Originally published in Quarterly Review of Literature, Vol. 7, No. 3 (1953).
 
Added on 4-Aug-22 | Last updated 4-Aug-22
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Wilbur, Richard

Apparently, on the screen, I look tall, dark, and close to omniscient, issuing jeopardy-laden warnings through gritted teeth. And then they look at me [in person] and say, “Why, God, this kid is five-foot-five, he’s got a broken nose, and looks about as foreboding as a bank teller on a lunch break.”

Rod Serling (1924-1975) American screenwriter, playwright, television producer, narrator
Quoted in Anne Serling, As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling (2013)
    (Source)
 
Added on 19-Jul-22 | Last updated 19-Jul-22
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , ,
More quotes by Serling, Rod

The people who say you are not facing reality actually mean that you are not facing their idea of reality. Reality is above all else a variable, and nobody is qualified to say that he or she knows exactly what it is. As a matter of fact, with a firm enough commitment, you can sometimes create a reality which did not exist before. Protestantism itself is proof of that.

Margaret Halsey
Margaret Halsey (1910-1997) American writer
No Laughing Matter (1977)
    (Source)
 
Added on 12-May-22 | Last updated 1-Jun-22
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , ,
More quotes by Halsey, Margaret

Satirists, be careful. In the 1931 film by René Clair, Vive la Liberte, a song says, “Work is freedom.” In 1940 the sign on the gates to Auschwitz said: “Arbeit macht frei.”

Stanislaw Lec (1909-1966) Polish aphorist, poet, satirist
Unkempt Thoughts [Myśli nieuczesane] (1957) [tr. Gałązka (1962)]
    (Source)
 
Added on 29-Mar-22 | Last updated 29-Mar-22
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: ,
More quotes by Lec, Stanislaw

A Martian can say things that a Republican or a Democrat can’t.

Rod Serling (1924-1975) American screenwriter, playwright, television producer, narrator
Quoted in Anne Serling, As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling (2013)
    (Source)

On being able to slip more controversial television script ideas past networks and sponsors if done in a science fiction or fantasy setting.
 
Added on 8-Mar-22 | Last updated 8-Mar-22
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Serling, Rod

Few people can say of themselves that they are free of the belief that this world which they see around them is in reality the work of their own imagination. Are we pleased with it, proud of it, then?

Isak Dinesen (1885-1962) Danish writer [pseud. of Karen Christence, Countess Blixen]
“The Deluge at Norderney,” Seven Gothic Tales [Kasparson] (1934)
    (Source)
 
Added on 2-Mar-22 | Last updated 27-Oct-22
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Dinesen, Isak

A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities.

J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
(Misattributed)

Frequently misattributed to J. R. R. Tolkien, most likely because it was used as copy on the Tom Jung's classic movie poster for Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings film (1978). The origin of the phrase seems to be from Nathaniel Hawthorne, Fanshawe (1828): "If his inmost heart could have been laid open, there would have been discovered that dream of undying fame, which, dream as it is, is more powerful than a thousand realities."

More discussion on this quotation here: Not a Tolkien quote: "A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities." TThnsdwohatdw, Part 3. - thetolkienist.com.
 
Added on 17-Feb-22 | Last updated 17-Feb-22
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , ,
More quotes by Tolkien, J.R.R.

If his inmost heart could have been laid open, there would have been discovered that dream of undying fame, which, dream as it is, is more powerful than a thousand realities.

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) American writer
Fanshawe, ch. 2 (1828)
    (Source)
 
Added on 10-Feb-22 | Last updated 10-Feb-22
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , ,
More quotes by Hawthorne, Nathaniel

“Yes,” he said. “But I wonder … I’ve a peculiar feeling that I may never see you again. It is as if I were one of those minor characters in a melodrama who gets shuffled offstage without ever learning how things turn out.”

“I can appreciate the feeling,” I said. “My own role sometimes makes me want to strangle the author. But look at it this way: inside stories seldom live up to one’s expectations. Usually they are grubby little things, reducing down to the basest of motives when all is known. Conjectures and illusions are often the better possessions.”

Roger Zelazny (1937-1995) American writer
Sign of the Unicorn (1972)
    (Source)

Bill Roth speaking with Corwin.
 
Added on 9-Feb-22 | Last updated 9-Feb-22
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Zelazny, Roger

Many of our disappointments and much of our unhappiness arise from our forming false notions of things and persons. We strangely impose upon ourselves; we create a fairyland of happiness. Fancy is fruitful and promises fair, but, like the dog in the fable, we catch at a shadow, and when we find the disappointment, we are vexed, not with ourselves, who are really the imposters, but with the poor, innocent thing or person of whom we have formed such strange ideas.

Abigail Adams (1744-1818) American correspondent, First Lady (1797-1801)
Letter to Hannah Lincoln (5 Oct 1761)
    (Source)
 
Added on 1-Feb-22 | Last updated 1-Feb-22
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Adams, Abigail

The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.

Orwell - Sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality usually on a battlefield - wist.info quote

George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
“In Front of Your Nose,” Tribune (22 Mar 1946)
    (Source)
 
Added on 5-Jan-22 | Last updated 5-Jan-22
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Orwell, George

His mistaken belief in his own superiority cut him off from reality as completely as if he were living in a colored glass jar.

Margery Allingham
Margery Allingham (1904-1966) English writer
Traitor’s Purse (1941)
    (Source)
 
Added on 4-Jan-22 | Last updated 4-Jan-22
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , ,
More quotes by Allingham, Margery

There are two cinemas: the films we have actually seen and the memories we have of them. The gap between the two widens over the years.

Molly Haskell
Molly Haskell (b. 1939) American feminist film critic and author.
From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies (3rd ed, 2016; orig 1973)
    (Source)
 
Added on 9-Nov-21 | Last updated 9-Nov-21
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Haskell, Molly

I know that the Bible is a special kind of book, but I find it as seductive as any other. If I am not careful, I can begin to mistake the words on the page for the realities they describe. I can begin to love the dried ink marks on the page more than I love the encounters that gave rise to them. If I am not careful, I can decide that I am really much happier reading my Bible than I am entering into what God is doing in my own time and place, since shutting the book to go outside will involve the very great risk of taking part in stories that are still taking shape. Neither I nor anyone else knows how these stories will turn out, since at this point they involve more blood than ink. The whole purpose of the Bible, it seems to me, is to convince people to set the written word down in order to become living words in the world for God’s sake. For me, this willing conversion of ink back to blood is the full substance of faith.

Barbara Brown Taylor (b. 1951) American minister, academic, author
Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith, Part 1 (2006)
    (Source)
 
Added on 22-Oct-21 | Last updated 22-Oct-21
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Taylor, Barbara Brown

We are all captives of the picture in our head — our belief that the world we have experienced is the world that really exists.

Walter Lippmann (1889-1974) American journalist and author
(Attributed)
 
Added on 20-Sep-21 | Last updated 20-Sep-21
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Lippmann, Walter

He is free to make the wrong choice, but not free to succeed with it. He is free to evade reality, he is free to unfocus his mind and stumble blindly down any road he pleases, but not free to avoid the abyss he refuses to see. Knowledge, for any conscious organism, is the means of survival; to a living consciousness, every “is” implies an “ought.” Man is free to choose not to be conscious, but not free to escape the penalty of unconsciousness: destruction. Man is the only living species that has the power to act as his own destroyer — and that is the way he has acted through most of his history.

Ayn Rand (1905-1982) Russian-American writer, philosopher
“The Objectivist Ethics,” University of Wisconsin Symposium on “Ethics in Our Time” (9 Feb 1961)
    (Source)

Possibly the source of the attributed-but-unlocated Rand quotation "You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality." See also Stamp. More discussion about this quotation and related ones here.
 
Added on 5-Aug-21 | Last updated 5-Aug-21
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Rand, Ayn

Freedom does not always win. This is one of the bitterest lessons of history.

A. J. P. Taylor (1906-1990) British historian, journalist, broadcaster [Alan John Percivale Taylor]
(Attributed)
 
Added on 3-Aug-21 | Last updated 3-Aug-21
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Taylor, A. J. P.

Divine reality is not way up in the sky somewhere; it is readily available in the encounters of everyday life, which make hash of my illusions that I can control the ways God comes to me.

Barbara Brown Taylor (b. 1951) American minister, academic, author
“Material Faith,” interview by Meghan Larissa Good, The Other Journal (19 Dec 2013)
    (Source)
 
Added on 23-Jul-21 | Last updated 23-Jul-21
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Taylor, Barbara Brown

The true foundation of theology is to ascertain the character of God. It is by the aid of Statistics that law in the social sphere can be ascertained and codified, and certain aspects of the character of God thereby revealed. The study of statistics is thus a religious service.

Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) English social reformer, statistician, founder of modern nursing
(Attributed)

Attributed in F.N. David in Games, Gods, and Gambling: A History of Probability and Statistical Ideas (1962).

There is a related variant of this quote: "To understand God's thoughts we must study statistics, for these are the measure of his purpose." This appears to be a paraphrase by Francis Galton of her beliefs (in full in Karl Pearson, Life of Francis Galton, Vol. 2, ch. 13, sec. 1 (1924)). While Galton is describing her beliefs, the quotation is often rewritten from third to first person, as though it were something she said.
 
Added on 1-Jul-21 | Last updated 1-Jul-21
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Nightingale, Florence

While it is easy to lie with statistics, it is even easier to lie without them.

Frederick Mosteller (1916-2006) American statistician, academic
(Attributed)
 
Added on 23-Jun-21 | Last updated 23-Jun-21
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , ,
More quotes by Mosteller, Frederick

What egotism, what stupid vanity, to suppose that a thing could not happen because you could not conceive it!

Philip Wylie (1902-1971) American author
When Worlds Collide (1933) [with Edwin Balmer]
    (Source)
 
Added on 21-Jun-21 | Last updated 21-Jun-21
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , ,
More quotes by Wylie, Philip Gordon

History is not another name for the past, as many people imply. It is the name for stories about the past.

A. J. P. Taylor (1906-1990) British historian, journalist, broadcaster [Alan John Percivale Taylor]
(Attributed)
 
Added on 14-Jun-21 | Last updated 14-Jun-21
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , ,
More quotes by Taylor, A. J. P.

The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.

Theodore Isaac Rubin (1923-2019) American psychiatrist and author
One to One (1983)
 
Added on 7-Jun-21 | Last updated 7-Jun-21
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , ,
More quotes by Rubin, Theodore Isaac

I think that it is a relatively good approximation to truth — which is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations.

John von Neumann (1903-1957) Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, inventor, polymath [János "Johann" Lajos Neumann]
“The Mathematician” (1947)
    (Source)
 
Added on 18-May-21 | Last updated 18-May-21
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , ,
More quotes by Von Neumann, John

A censor is a man who has read about Joshua and forgotten about Canute. The censor believes that he can hold back the mighty traffic of life with a tin whistle and a raised right hand. For, after all, it is life with which he quarrels.

Heywood Broun (1888-1939) American journalist, author
“Nonsenseorship” (1922)
    (Source)
 
Added on 29-Apr-21 | Last updated 29-Apr-21
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , ,
More quotes by Broun, Heywood

You submit to tyranny when you renounce the difference between what you want to hear and what is actually the case. This renunciation of reality can feel natural and pleasant, but the result is your demise as an individual — and thus the collapse of any political system that depends upon individualism.

Timothy Snyder (b. 1969) American historian, author
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (2017)
    (Source)
 
Added on 28-Apr-21 | Last updated 28-Apr-21
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Snyder, Timothy

Clichés, stock phrases, adherence to conventional, standardized codes of expression and conduct have the socially recognized function of protecting us against reality, that is, against the claim on our thinking attention that all events and facts make by virtue of their existence.

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
“Thinking and Moral Considerations: A Lecture,” Social Research (Fall 1971)
    (Source)

Referring to Adolf Eichmann's use of "cliché-ridden language" as a sign of his "thoughtlessness." Reprinted in The Life of the Mind, Part 1 "Thinking," Introduction (1974).
 
Added on 18-Mar-21 | Last updated 18-Mar-21
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Arendt, Hannah

The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. […] In nationalist thought there are facts which are both true and untrue, known and unknown. A known fact may be so unbearable that it is habitually pushed aside and not allowed to enter into logical processes, or on the other hand it may enter into every calculation and yet never be admitted as a fact, even in one’s own mind.

George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
“Notes on Nationalism” (May 1945)
    (Source)
 
Added on 16-Mar-21 | Last updated 8-Feb-22
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Orwell, George

Few are those who wish to be endowed with virtue rather than to seem so.

[Virtute enim ipsa non tam multi praediti esse quam videri volunt.]

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
Laelius De Amicitia [Laelius on Friendship], ch. 26 / sec. 98 (44 BC)

Common translation. Alternates:

  • "For not so many desire to be endowed with virtue itself, as to seem to be so." [tr. Edmonds (1871)]
  • "For there are not so many possessed of virtue as there are that desire to seem virtuous." [tr. Peabody (1887)]
  • "For many wish not so much to be, as to seem to be, endowed with real virtue." [tr. Falconer (1923)]
 
Added on 8-Mar-21 | Last updated 11-Aug-22
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Cicero, Marcus Tullius

One of the most troublesome things in life is that what you do or do not want has very little to do with what does or does not happen.

Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
The Carnivorous Carnival (2002)
 
Added on 3-Mar-21 | Last updated 3-Mar-21
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Snicket, Lemony

The problem with evidence is it doesn’t always support your opinion.

Stephen Colbert (b. 1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian
Interview with Ron Suskind (13 Jul 2006)
    (Source)
 
Added on 10-Feb-21 | Last updated 10-Feb-21
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Colbert, Stephen

Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain’t so.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Mark Twain’s Notebook (1935) [ed. Albert Bigelow Paine]
    (Source)

With an entry for 4 Jul 1893. The core phrase, from the Latin "Magna est veritas et prævalebit," was first formulated in English by Thomas Brooks. An earlier variant can be found in Cicero, Pro Caelio Rufo (56 BC): "How great is the power of truth" [O magna vis veritas].
 
Added on 5-Feb-21 | Last updated 5-Feb-21
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Twain, Mark