I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now? Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.
—John Lennon (1940–80) British Singer, Songwriter, Musician, Activist
I am not much an advocate for traveling, and I observe that men run away to other countries because they are not good in their own, and run back to their own because they pass for nothing in the new places. For the most part, only the light characters travel. Who are you that have no task to keep you at home?
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
It must be hard to be a model, because you’d want to be like the photograph of you, and you can’t ever look that way.
—Andy Warhol (1928–87) American Painter, Printmaker, Film Personality
One fine day in the middle of the night
Two dead boys got up to fight
Back to back they faced each other
Drew their swords and shot each other
One was blind and the other couldn’t see
So they chose a dummy for a referee.
A blind man went to see fair play
A dumb man went to shout hooray!
A paralysed donkey passing by
Kicked the blind man in the eye
Knocked him through a nine inch wall
Into a dry ditch and drowned them all
A deaf policeman heard the noise
And came to arrest the two dead boys
If you don’t believe this story
—Anonymous
I have lived long enough to be battered by the realities of life, and not too long to be downed by them.
—John Mason Brown (1900–69) American Columnist, Journalist, Author
I believe that sometimes you have to look reality in the eye and deny it.
—Garrison Keillor (b.1942) American Author, Humorist, Radio Personality
For to dream and then to return to reality only means that our qualms suffer a change of place and significance
—Colette (1873–1954) French Novelist, Performer
Reality is whatever refuses to go away when I stop believing in it.
—Philip K. Dick (1928–82) American Novelist, Essayist, Short Story Writer
Reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot, you know.
—Alan Watts (1915–73) British-American Philosopher, Author
Time and memory are true artists; they remould reality nearer to the heart’s desire.
—John Dewey (1859–1952) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Educator
Realism should only be the means of expression of religious genius… or, at the other extreme, the artistic expressions of monkeys which are quite satisfied with mere imitation. In fact, art is never realistic though sometimes it is tempted to be. To be really realistic a description would have to be endless.
—Albert Camus (1913–60) Algerian-born French Philosopher, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist, Author
Facts as facts do not always create a spirit of reality, because reality is a spirit.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
I hate myself on the screen. I want to die… my voice is either too high or too gravelly. I want to dive under the carpet… I’ll love to be tall and willowy… I’m short.
—Elizabeth Taylor (b.1932) English Actor, Activist
What is a face, really? Its own photo? Its make-up? Or is it a face as painted by such or such painter? That which is in front? Inside? Behind? And the rest? Doesn’t everyone look at himself in his own particular way? Deformations simply do not exist.
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish Painter, Sculptor, Artist
Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems—but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems incredible.
—Salman Rushdie (b.1947) Indian-born British Novelist
What our eyes behold may well be the text of life but one’s meditations on the text and the disclosures of these meditations are no less a part of the structure of reality.
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American Poet
I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything.
—John Steinbeck (1902–68) American Novelist, Short Story Writer, Journalist
Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become a reality.
—Earl Nightingale (1921–89) American Motivational Speaker, Author
The world is governed more by appearances than by realities, so that it is fully as necessary to seem to know something as to know it.
—Daniel Webster (1782–1852) American Statesman, Lawyer
This is a work of fiction. All the characters in it, human and otherwise, are imaginary, excepting only certain of the fairy folk, whom it might be unwise to offend by casting doubts on their existence. Or lack thereof.
—Neil Gaiman (b.1960) British Writer
Misfortunes come to all men.
—Chinese Proverb
Wanting to change, to improve, a person’s situation means offering him, for difficulties in which he is practiced and experienced, other difficulties that will find him perhaps even more bewildered.
—Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian Poet
Pale death with impartial tread beats at the poor man’s cottage door and at the palaces of kings.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
Reality is that part of the imagination we all agree on
—Indian Proverb
Everything you can imagine is real.
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish Painter, Sculptor, Artist
What happens to the wide-eyed observer when the window between reality and unreality breaks and the glass begins to fly?
—Unknown
Oh God, don’t envy me, I have my own pains.
—Barbra Streisand (b.1942) American Musician, Actor, Songwriter
Reality is a palette that humans paint on to let themselves sleep better at night.
—Unknown
Every time I close the door on reality, it comes in through the windows.
—Jennifer Yane
No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannize him and thus force him to hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probability.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
I don’t like my voice. I don’t like the way I look. I don’t like the way I move. I don’t like the way I act. I mean, period. So you know, I don’t like myself.
—Elizabeth Taylor (b.1932) English Actor, Activist
Reality only reveals itself when it is illuminated by a ray of poetry.
—Georges Braque (1882–1963) French Painter, Artist, Sculptor
There’s something beautifully soothing about a fact – even (or perhaps especially) if we’re not sure what it means.
—Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American Historian, Academic, Attorney, Writer
Are you really sure that a floor can’t also be a ceiling?
—M. C. Escher (1898–1972) Dutch Graphic Artist
True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing.
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French Poet, Playwright, Film Director
Success is not greedy, as people think, but insignificant. That’s why it satisfies nobody.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions. My one quarrel is with words. The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearance, as though they were realities and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are.
—Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) Florentine Political Philosopher
These patients have turned away from outer reality; it is for this reason that they are more aware than we of inner reality and can reveal to us things which without them would remain impenetrable.
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychoanalytic
Our intention creates our reality.
—Wayne Dyer (b.1940) American Motivational Writer, Author, Motivational Speaker
How do we know that the sky is not green and we are all colour-blind?
—Unknown
The reality of the other person is not in what he reveals to you, but in what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says but rather what he does not say.
—Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese-born American Philosopher, Poet, Painter, Theologian, Sculptor
If someone offers to furnish a sure test, ask what the test was which made the sure test sure.
—Unknown
If I choose abstraction over reality, it is because I find it the lesser chaos.
—Robert Brault
Reality is not protected or defended by laws, proclamations, ukases, cannons and armadas. Reality is that which is sprouting all the time out of death and disintegration.
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
None think the great unhappy but the great.
—Edward Young (1683–1765) English Poet
Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible.
—Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) Spanish Educator, Philosopher, Author
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
The problem with beauty is that it’s like being born rich and getting poorer.
—Joan Collins (b.1933) English Actress
I never admired another’s fortune so much that I became dissatisfied with my own.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer