Reality is that which, when you stop
believing in it, doesn't go away.
~Philip K. Dick
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit
a very persistent one. ~Albert Einstein
Are you really sure that a floor can't
also be a ceiling? ~M.C. Escher
No man will be found in whose mind
airy notions do not sometimes tyrannize,
and force him to hope or fear beyond
the limits of sober probability. ~Samuel
Johnson
How many legs does a dog have if you
call the tail a leg? Four. Calling
a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.
~Abraham Lincoln
Most passport pictures are good likenesses,
and it is time we faced it. ~Katharine
Brush
There is an objective reality out
there, but we view it through the
spectacles of our beliefs, attitudes,
and values. ~David G. Myers, Social
Psychology
Objectivity has about as much substance
as the emperor's new clothes. ~Connie
Miller
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
How do we know that the sky is not
green and we are all colour-blind?
~Author Unknown
There are no facts, only interpretations.
~Friedrich Nietzsche
Reality is nothing but a collective
hunch. ~Lily Tomlin
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
What was once called the objective
world is a sort of Rorschach ink blot,
into which each culture, each system
of science and religion, each type
of personality, reads a meaning only
remotely derived from the shape and
color of the blot itself. ~Lewis Mumford,
"Orientation to Life," The
Conduct of Life, 1951
Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.
~John Lennon
Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
~T.S. Eliot
Gertrude Jekyll, like Monet, was a
painter with poor eyesight, and their
gardens - his at Giverny in the Seine
valley, hers in Surrey - had resemblances
that may have sprung from this condition.
Both loved plants that foamed and
frothed over walls and pergolas, spread
in tides beneath trees; both saw flowers
in islands of colored light - an image
the normal eye captures only by squinting.
~Eleanor Perenyi
What we call reality is an agreement
that people have arrived at to make
life more livable. ~Louise Nevelson
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
Few people have the imagination for
reality. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Reality is a crutch for people who
can't cope with drugs. ~Lily Tomlin
Reality is not always probable, or
likely. ~Jorge Luis Borges
I have a very firm grasp on reality!
I can reach out and strangle it any
time! ~Author Unknown
What happens to the wide-eyed observer
when the window between reality and
unreality breaks and the glass begins
to fly? ~Author Unknown
Okay, who put a "stop payment"
on my reality check? ~Author Unknown
Listening to both sides of a story
will convince you that there is more
to a story than both sides. ~Frank
Tyger
I hate cameras. They are so much more
sure than I am about everything. ~John
Steinbeck
Did you ever wonder if the person
in the puddle is real, and you're
just a reflection of him? ~Calvin
and Hobbes
All the mind's activity is easy if
it is not subjected to reality. ~Marcel
Proust, Remembrance of Things Past:
Cities of the Plain
Reality bites... and doesn't let go.
~Author Unknown
The human understanding is like a
false mirror, which, receiving rays
irregularly, distorts and discolors
the nature of things by mingling its
own nature with it. ~Francis Bacon
There is a fine line between dreams
and reality, it's up to you to draw
it. ~B. Quilliam
Only those who attempt the absurd
will achieve the impossible. I think
it's in my basement... let me go upstairs
and check. ~M.C. Escher
There's something beautifully soothing
about a fact - even (or perhaps especially)
if we're not sure what it means. ~Daniel
J. Boorstin
Reality is a palette that humans paint
on to let themselves sleep better
at night. ~Author Unknown
Anyone who can handle a needle convincingly
can make us see a thread which is
not there. ~E.H. Gombrich, Art and
Illusion, 1960
Imagination is the one weapon in the
war against reality. ~Jules de Gaultier
Everything you can imagine is real.
~Pablo Picasso
Faith is a fine invention
When gentlemen can see,
But microscopes are prudent
In an emergency.
~Emily Dickinson, "Faith Is a
Fine Invention," Poems, Second
Series
Cloquet hated reality but realized
it was still the only place to get
a good steak. ~Woody Allen
After you've heard two eyewitness
accounts of an auto accident, you
begin to worry about history. ~Author
Unknown
One bright day in the middle of night
two dead boys rose to fight. Back
to back they faced each other, drew
their swords and shot one another.
A deaf policeman heard the noise,
and saved the lives of the two dead
boys. If you don't believe this lie
is true, ask the blind man, he saw
it too. ~Author Unknown
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, Books of Magic III
Fiction reveals truths that reality
obscures. ~Jessamyn West
Every time I close the door on reality
it comes in through the windows. ~Jennifer
Yane
Reality is the leading cause of stress
amongst those in touch with it. ~Jane
Wagner
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
An error does not become truth by
reason of multiplied propagation,
nor does truth become error because
nobody sees it. ~Mahatma Gandhi