32 Quotes About Illusions

In a world where perception often blurs the line between reality and fantasy, illusions captivate our minds, challenging how we view life and truth. Whether it's the simple magic trick that astounds a child or the complex narratives we weave into our own lives, illusions hold a mirror up to our understanding of the world, prompting us to question what we perceive. This fascination has inspired countless thinkers, artists, and sages to reflect on the nature of illusion, offering profound insights into its role in our lives. In this blog post, we delve into a curated collection of the top 32 quotes about illusions, each one offering a unique perspective that invites contemplation and introspection. Join us as we explore these thought-provoking reflections and discover the myriad ways in which illusions shape our experiences and perceptions.

1. “Religious doctrines … are all illusions, they do not admit of proof, and no one can be compelled to consider them as true or to believe in them.” - Sigmund Freud

2. “Manifest plainness,Embrace simplicity,Reduce selfishness,Have few desires.” - Lao Tzu

3. “You're always free to change your mindand choose a different future, or a different past.” - Richard Bach

4. “The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world...Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.” - Karl Marx

5. “The past was but the cemetery of our illusions: one simply stubbed one's toes on the gravestones.” - Émile Zola

6. “Growing up is losing some illusions, in order to acquire others.” - Virginia Woolf

7. “One sometimes weeps over one's illusions with as much bitterness as over a death.” - Guy de Maupassant

8. “That's how I do this life sometimes by making the ordinary just like magic and just like a card trick and just like a mirror and just like the disappearing. Every Indian learns how to be a magician and learns how to misdirect attention and the dark hand is always quicker than the white eye and no matter how close you get to my heart you will never find out my secrets and I'll never tell you and I'll never show you the same trick twice. I'm traveling heavy with illusions.” - Sherman Alexie

9. “Here one comes upon an all-important English trait: the respect for constituitionalism and legality, the belief in 'the law' as something above the state and above the individual, something which is cruel and stupid, of course, but at any rate incorruptible.It is not that anyone imagines the law to be just. Everyone knows that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor. But no one accepts the implications of this, everyone takes for granted that the law, such as it is, will be respected, and feels a sense of outrage when it is not. Remarks like 'They can't run me in; I haven't done anything wrong', or 'They can't do that; it's against the law', are part of the atmosphere of England. The professed enemies of society have this feeling as strongly as anyone else. One sees it in prison-books like Wilfred Macartney's Walls Have Mouths or Jim Phelan's Jail Journey, in the solemn idiocies that take places at the trials of conscientious objectors, in letters to the papers from eminent Marxist professors, pointing out that this or that is a 'miscarriage of British justice'. Everyone believes in his heart that the law can be, ought to be, and, on the whole, will be impartially administered. The totalitarian idea that there is no such thing as law, there is only power, has never taken root. Even the intelligentsia have only accepted it in theory.An illusion can become a half-truth, a mask can alter the expression of a face. The familiar arguments to the effect that democracy is 'just the same as' or 'just as bad as' totalitarianism never take account of this fact. All such arguments boil down to saying that half a loaf is the same as no bread. In England such concepts as justice, liberty and objective truth are still believed in. They may be illusions, but they are powerful illusions. The belief in them influences conduct,national life is different because of them. In proof of which, look about you. Where are the rubber truncheons, where is the caster oil? The sword is still in the scabbard, and while it stays corruption cannot go beyond a certain point. The English electoral system, for instance, is an all but open fraud. In a dozen obvious ways it is gerrymandered in the interest of the moneyed class. But until some deep change has occurred in the public mind, it cannot become completely corrupt. You do not arrive at the polling booth to find men with revolvers telling you which way to vote, nor are the votes miscounted, nor is there any direct bribery. Even hypocrisy is powerful safeguard. The hanging judge, that evil old man in scarlet robe and horse-hair wig,whom nothing short of dynamite will ever teach what century he is living in, but who will at any rate interpret the law according to the books and will in no circumstances take a money bribe,is one of the symbolic figures of England. He is a symbol of the strange mixture of reality and illusion, democracy and privilege, humbug and decency, the subtle network of compromises, by which the nation keeps itself in its familiar shape.” - George Orwell

10. “if something is there, you can only see it with your eyes open, but if it isn't there, you can see it just as well with your eyes closed. That's why imaginary things are often easier to see than real ones.” - Norton Juster

11. “Subhuti, someone might fill innumerable worlds with the seven treasures and give all away in gifts of alms, but if any good man or any good woman awakens the thought of Enlightenment and takes even only four lines from this Discourse, reciting, using, receiving, retaining and spreading them abroad and explaining them for the benefit of others, it will be far more meritorious. Now in what manner may he explain them to others? By detachment from appearances-abiding in Real Truth. -So I tell you-Thus shall you think of all this fleeting world:A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream;A flash of lightening in a summer cloud,A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.When Buddha finished this Discourse the venerable Subhuti, together with the bhikshus, bhikshunis, lay-brothers and sisters, and the whole realms of Gods, Men and Titans, were filled with joy by His teaching, and, taking it sincerely to heart they went their ways.” - Siddhārtha Gautama

12. “To be godless is probably the first step to innocence," he said, "to lose the sense of sin and subordination, the false grief for things supposed to be lost."So by innocence you mean not an absence of experience, but an absence of illusions."An absence of need for illusions," he said. "A love of and respect for what is right before your eyes.” - Anne Rice

13. “And it's his illusions about whatconstitutes the real world which are inhibiting him...His reality, his reason, his society ... These are what must be destroyed” - Luke Rhineheart

14. “Are you glad to see me?” - Aprilynne Pike

15. “He'd been back for about two weeks, and everything in Laurel's life had been thrown into Chaos. Sexy, sexy chaos.” - Aprilynne Pike

16. “Human locks? Please," Tamani said. "May as well leave the door open.” - Aprilynne Pike

17. “But with me, you are never just a spring faerie.” - Aprilynne Pike

18. “Are you looking for something real in this world of illusions? Call me. Casual Flings need not apply. I am looking for Love.” - Aprilynne Pike

19. “Music makes me forget myself, my true condition, it carries me off into another state of being, one that isn't my own: under the influence of music I have the illusion of feeling things I don't really feel, of understanding things I don't understand, being able to do things I'm not able to do (...) Can it really be allowable for anyone who feels like it to hypnotize another person, or many other persons, and then do what he likes with them? Particularly if the hypnotist is the first unscrupulous individual who happens to come along?” - Leo Tolstoy

20. “...I lost my illusions in a black rain of bitterness - now what do you see in my eyes? How can you still love me? How can I be tender? ...” - John Geddes

21. “If you are not careful you will end up living the illusions that others have created for you.” - Steven Redhead

22. “The telling and hearing of stories is a bonding ritual that breaks through illusions of separateness and activates a deep sense of our collective interdependence.” - Annette Simmons

23. “Non mi manca quello che mostravi di essere, mi manca quello che pensavo tu fossi.” - Alda Merini

24. “I damned myself for my earlier romanticism. That Croaker who had come north, so thoroughly bemused by the mysterious Lady, was another man. A stripling, filled with the foolish ignorances of youth. Yeah. Sometimes you lie to yourself just to keep going.” - Glen Cook

25. “There's no point in clinging to illusions.” - Eva Heller

26. “What happened was simple, even banal: I became naked, died, lost parts of my flesh and most of my ego along with a few illusions such as a belief in the uniqueness of my personal scrap of consciousness and the cosmic importance therof, and went on from there.” - MacDonald Harris

27. “In those days, we imagined ourselves as being kept in some kind of holding pen, waiting to be released into our lives. And when the moment came, our lives -- and time itself -- would speed up. How were we to know that our lives had in any case begun, that some advantage had already been gained, some damage already inflicted? Also, that our release would only be into a larger holding pen, whose boundaries would be at first undiscernible.” - Julian Barnes

28. “To understand yourself: Is that a discovery or a creation?” - Pascal Mercier

29. “Some people center the universe around themselves; while making other people nothing but decorations to their existence. "I will do this and then I will do that and then people will think this about me and then people will think that about me, and then I will add that person to my life when the convenient time arrives, and this person over here would make a very convenient addition as well..." They build their own thrones for themselves, and add decorations all around their thrones. The problem with that is: it does not bring happiness. A throne must be built for you; it must not be you who builds your own throne. If so, everything that you think you are is only an illusion! And illusions dissolve one day. Poof!” - C. JoyBell C.

30. “You see, that is why it is so easy to fool people with our illusions, Yue. In this world, illusions are usually much kinder than the truth.” - Zoë Marriott

31. “We're all mad, the whole damned race. We're wrapped in illusions, delusions, confusions about the penetrability of partitions, we're all mad and in solitary confinement.” - William Golding

32. “Why do we call all our generous ideas illusions, and the mean ones truths?” - Edith Wharton