Unreality Quotes - Page 2

• We don't need virtual reality, we need virtual unreality.

  Peter Greenaway

  Reality, Needs, Virtual Reality

  8 Copy quote

• The body is imaginary, and we bow to the tyranny of a phantom. Love is a privilege perception, the most total and lucid not only of the unreality of the world but of our own unreality: not only do we traverse a realm of shadows; but ourselves are shadows.

  Adolfo Bioy Casares

  Love Is, Perception, Shadow

  Adolfo Bioy Casares, Ruth L. C. Simms (2003). “The invention of Morel”, New York Review of Books

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Any talented decadent can make unreality believable. To make reality convincing is another matter, a matter for only the greatest masters.

  Kenneth Rexroth

  Reality, Matter, Masters

  "Classics Revisited". Chapter: "Tolstoy: War and Peace", p. 192, 1968.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Contemplation in the age of Auschwitz and Dachau, Solovky and Karaganda is something darker and more fearsome than contemplation in the age of the Church Fathers. For that very reason, the urge to seek a path of spiritual light can be a subtle temptation to sin. It certainly is sin if it means a frank rejection of the burden of our age, an escape into unreality and spiritual illusion, so as not to share the misery of other men.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Father, Mean

  11 Copy quote

• It was the essence of life to disbelieve in death for one's self, to act as if life would continue forever. And life had to act also as if little issues were big ones. To take a realistic attitude toward life and death meant that one lapsed into unreality. Into insanity. It was ironic that the only way to keep one's sanity was to ignore that one was in an insane world or to act as if the world were sane.

  Philip Jose Farmer

  Attitude, Insane World, Self

  14 Copy quote

• There are times when American politics seems like little more than two groups in a fever to prevent each other from trespassing upon their respective soothing versions of unreality

  Matt Taibbi

  Two, Groups, Fever

  Matt Taibbi (2007). “Smells Like Dead Elephants: Dispatches from a Rotting Empire”, p.46, Black Cat

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the United States of America, unfortunately we still live in a bubble of unreality. And the Category 5 denial is an enormous obstacle to any discussion of solutions. Nobody is interested in solutions if they don’t think there’s a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.

  Al Gore

  Believe, Thinking, America

  "An interview with accidental movie star Al Gore". Interview with David Roberts, grist.org. May 10, 2006.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm more convinced each day of the complete unreality of the material world and the supreme vitality of the invisible world of spirit.

  Paul Russo

  Vitality, Each Day, World

  14 Copy quote

• Fake realism is the escapist literature of our time. And probably the ultimate escapist reading is that masterpiece of total unreality, the daily stock market report.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Reading, Fake, Literature

  Ursula K. Le Guin, Susan Wood (1980). “The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction”, p.42, Ultramarine Publishing

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Pure suffering has a consciousness, a tongue, a heart all its own and even the memory of it is but a pale unreality when compared with the actual experience.

  Mike Mason

  Memories, Heart, Suffering

  4 Copy quote

• always there is a sort of dream of air between you and the hills of California, a veil of unreality in the intervening air. It gives the hills the bloom that peaches have, or grapes in the dew.

  Stella Benson

  Dream, Air, California

  Stella Benson (1922). “The Poor Man”

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Krzhizhanovsky wanted to perform imaginary experiments with the nature of time and space. Outside, in the streets, the Communist state was busy performing such experiments for real. In response, Krzhizhanovsky's prose has a recklessly unstable tone in which delighted examination of impossible worlds can slip into ferocious political sarcasm.... It is a method for investigating how much unreality reality can bear.

  Adam Thirlwell

  Real, Sarcasm, Space

  4 Copy quote

• In obedience to the feeling of reality, we shall insist that, in the analysis of propositions, nothing "unreal" is to be admitted. But, after all, if there is nothing unreal, how, it may be asked, could we admit anything unreal? The reply is that, in dealing with propositions, we are dealing in the first instance with symbols, and if we attribute significance to groups of symbols which have no significance, we shall fall into the error of admitting unrealities, in the only sense in which this is possible, namely, as objects described.

  Bertrand Russell

  Fall, Reality, Errors

  Bertrand Russell (2007). “Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy”, p.170, Spokesman Books

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• My work would have the impact of my unreality - my doubts.

  Joel-Peter Witkin

  Impact, Doubt

  4 Copy quote

• Without evading the grimness of life in much of modern Africa, one can recognize that this continent is not yet sick as our continent is sick. Most Africans remain plugged into reality. In contrast we have become disconnected from it, reduced to compulsively consuming units, taught to worship 'economic growth' - the ultimate unreality in a finite world.

  Dervla Murphy

  Reality, Sick, Growth

  11 Copy quote

• What I look for is neither reality nor unreality but the subconscious, the instinctive mystery of the human race.

  Amedeo Modigliani

  Reality, Race, Serendipity

  135 Copy quote

• ... Grief is selfish. It is indulged in for self-gratification, not for love. Cosmic man knows the beauty and unreality of death. Sympathy for the afflicted makes a reality of the affliction by its recognition as an infliction, while sorrow for the loss of anything, or for the »unfortunate« condition of anybody, is forgetful of the beauty and abundance of all-giving God and Nature. The Mind of God knows but one unchanging emotion - ECSTASY - the ecstasy of Love - the ecstasy which has its beginnings in an inner joyousness of one who is far on the road to the discovery of his immortal Self.

  Walter Russell

  Selfish, Grief, Loss

  23 Copy quote

• The stripping away of illusion and the struggle to find personal reality can be likened to the peeling of an apple. As one peels away the layers of unreality. . . eventually only the core remains.

  Meredith L. Young-Sowers

  Struggle, Reality, Apples

  4 Copy quote

• When we realise our oneness with our RULER, then the matter shall have no longer power over us, and we shall see it as the unreality it is.

  Annie Besant

  God, Oneness, Matter

  Annie Besant (1904). “A Study in Consciousness: A Contribution to the Science of Psychology”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We are insane. That is what sin is. Sanctity is identitical with sanity. It means living the truth, living in reality. Sin always substitutes unreality for reality.

  Peter Kreeft

  Mean, Reality, Insane

  Peter Kreeft (2009). “The God Who Loves You: Love Divine, All Loves Excelling”, p.138, Ignatius Press

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The leprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature in attendance.

  Charles Dickens

  Attendance, Leprosy, Appearance

  Charles Dickens (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Charles Dickens (Illustrated)”, p.6863, Delphi Classics

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• Yes, there was an element of abstraction and unreality in misfortune. But when an abstraction starts to kill you, you have to get to work on it.

  Albert Camus

  Elements, Abstraction, Misfortunes

  "The Plague". Book by Albert Camus, 1947.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Each day had a tranquility a timelessness about it so that you wished it would never end. But then the dark skin of the night would peel off and there would be a fresh day waiting for us glossy and colorful as a child's transfer and with the same tinge of unreality.

  Gerald Durrell

  Children, Dark, Night

  Gerald Durrell, Lee Durrell (1996). “The best of Gerald Durrell”, Harpercollins

  27 Copy quote

  Show source

• The global warming deniers persist in this air of unreality. After all, the entire north polar icecap, which has been there for most of the last 3 million years, is disappearing before our eyes. Forty percent is already gone. The rest is expected to go completely within the next decade. What do they think is causing this?

  Al Gore

  Eye, Thinking, Years

  "Gore talks climate change, jobs in an interview with NBC's Andrea Mitchell". www.nbcnews.com. December 9, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The deadliest Pharisaism today is not hypocrisy, but unconscious unreality.

  Oswald Chambers

  Hypocrisy, Today, Pharisaism

  Oswald Chambers (2011). “My Utmost for His Highest Classic Edition”, p.163, Discovery House

  7 Copy quote

  Show source