Quote: What seems to be, is, to those to whom it seems to be, and is productive of the most dreadful consequences to those to whom it seems to be, even of torments, despair, eternal death. Author: William Blake 1757-1827, British Poet, Painter
Quote: A pleasant illusion is better than a harsh reality. Author: Christian Nevell Bovee 1820-1904, American Author, Lawyer
Quote: Pray look better, Sir... those things yonder are no giants, but windmills. Author: Miguel De Cervantes 1547-1616, Spanish Novelist, Dramatist, Poet
Quote: Pleasure can be supported by an illusion; but happiness rests upon truth. Author: Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort 1741-1794, French Writer, Journalist, Playwright
Quote: We must select the Illusion which appeals to our temperament and embrace it with passion, if we want to be happy. Author: Cyril Connolly 1903-1974, British Critic
Quote: It is respectable to have no illusions, and safe, and profitable and dull. Author: Joseph Conrad 1857-1924, Polish-born British Novelist
Quote: For what we call illusions are often, in truth, a wider vision of past and present realities --a willing movement of a man's soul with the larger sweep of the world's forces --a movement towards a more assured end than the chances of a single life. Author: George Eliot 1819-1880, British Novelist
Quote: What difference is there, do you think, between those in Plato's cave who can only marvel at the shadows and images of various objects, provided they are content and don't know what they miss, and the philosopher who has emerged from the cave and sees the real things? Author: Desiderius Erasmus c.1466-1536, Dutch Humanist
Quote: The impression forces itself upon one that men measure by false standards, that everyone seeks power, success, riches for himself, and admires others who attain them, while undervaluing the truly precious thing in life. Author: Sigmund Freud 1856-1939, Austrian Physician - Founder of Psychoanalysis
Quote: Oh, how powerfully the magnet of illusion attracts. Author: Gutzkow
Quote: People who have realized that this is a dream imagine that it is easy to wake up, and are angry with those who continue sleeping, not considering that the whole world that environs them does not permit them to wake. Life proceeds as a series of optical illusions, artificial needs and imaginary sensations. Author: Alexander Herzen 1812-1870, Russian Journalist, Political Thinker
Quote: For me, it is as though at every moment the actual world had completely lost its actuality. As though there was nothing there; as though there were no foundations for anything or as though it escaped us. Only one thing, however, is vividly present: the constant tearing of the veil of appearances; the constant destruction of everything in construction. Nothing holds together, everything falls apart. Author: Eugene Ionesco 1912-, Romanian-born French Playwright
Quote: It appears to me that almost any man may like the spider spin from his own inwards his own airy citadel. Author: John Keats 1795-1821, British Poet
Quote: Nothing is more sad than the death of an illusion. Author: Arthur Koestler 1905-1983, Hungarian Born British Writer
Quote: Therefore trust to thy heart, and to what the world calls illusions. Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1819-1892, American Poet
Quote: Better a dish of illusion and a hearty appetite for life, than a feast of reality and indigestion therewith. Author: Harry A. Overstreet American Psychologist
Quote: We always think every other man's job is easier than our own. The better he does it, the easier it looks. Author: Eden Phillpotts 1862-1960, Indian-born British Novelist
Quote: The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there. Author: Yasutani Roshi
Quote: A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it. Author: Bertrand Russell 1872-1970, British Philosopher, Mathematician, Essayist
Quote: Disillusion is a natural stage that follows the holding of an illusion. Author: Susan Shaughnessy
Quote: It isn't safe to sit in judgment upon another person's illusion when you are not on the inside. While you are thinking it is a dream, he may be knowing it is a planet. Author: Mark Twain 1835-1910, American Humorist, Writer
Quote: Artists use frauds to make human beings seem more wonderful than they really are. Dancers show us human beings who move much more gracefully than human beings really move. Films and books and plays show us people talking much more entertainingly than people. Author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 1922-, American Novelist
Quote: The one person who has more illusions than the dreamer is the man of action. Author: Oscar Wilde 1856-1900, British Author, Wit