40 Quotes On The Power Of Illusion

Illusion has a unique allure, weaving its way into art, literature, and everyday life. It blurs the lines between reality and imagination, challenging our perceptions and inviting us to explore the unknown. This curated collection of the top 40 quotes on the power of illusion captures the essence of this enigmatic force. From musings by renowned philosophers to reflections by modern thinkers, these quotes offer insights into how illusions shape our experiences, inspire creativity, and challenge our understanding of truth. Prepare to embark on a journey through words that reveal the captivating and sometimes deceptive nature of illusion.

1. “Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.” - Sigmund Freud

2. “Wish You Were Here So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell, Blue skys from pain. Can you tell a green field From a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell? And did they get you to trade Your heros for ghosts? Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze? Cold comfort for change? And did you exchange A walk on part in the war For a lead role in a cage? How I wish, how I wish you were here. We're just two lost souls Swimming in a fish bowl, Year after year, Running over the same old ground. What have we found? The same old fears. Wish you were here.” - Roger Waters

3. “A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.” - Saul Bellow

4. “There will be time, there will be timeTo prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.” - T.S. Eliot

5. “No, our science is no illusion. But an illusion it would be to suppose that what science cannot give us we can get elsewhere.” - Sigmund Freud

6. “The desert and the ocean are realms of desolation on the surface.The desert is a place of bones, where the innards are turned out, to desiccate into dust.The ocean is a place of skin, rich outer membranes hiding thick juicy insides, laden with the soup of being.Inside out and outside in. These are worlds of things that implode or explode, and the only catalyst that determines the direction of eco-movement is the balance of water.Both worlds are deceptive, dangerous. Both, seething with hidden life.The only veil that stands between perception of what is underneath the desolate surface is your courage.Dare to breach the surface and sink.” - Vera Nazarian

7. “And it all came to pass, all that she had hoped, but it did not fill her with rapture nor carry her away with the power or the fervor she had expected. She had imagined it all different, and had imagined herself different, too. In dreams and poems everything had been, as it were, beyond the sea; the haze of distance had mysteriously veiled all the restless mass of details and had thrown out the large lines in bold relief, while the silence of distance had lent its spirit of enchantment. It had been easy then to feel the beauty; but now that she was in the midst of it all, when every little feature stood out and spoke boldly with the manifold voices of reality, and beauty was shattered as light in a prism, she could not gather the rays together again, could not put the picture back beyond the sea. Despondently she was obliged to admit to herself that she felt poor, surrounded by riches that she could not make her own.” - Jens Peter Jacobsen

8. “[On Schopenhauer in Black and White] Schopenhauer's views of love are flawed. Love can't be merely an illusion of the mind to aid in procreation, but the path to redemption for an otherwise violently selfish species. Past human greatness has proven that when challenged, love can overpower impulsive instinct, and in essence, the vilest aspects of our nature.” - Tiffany Madison

9. “It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality.” - Virginia Woolf

10. “One day everything will be well, that is our hope. Everything's fine today, that is our illusion” - Voltaire

11. “How much weight can carry a thought which does not acknowledge that it is an illusion?” - Sorin Cerin

12. “Could there ever be a wise man without the wisdom or life or without the death of illusion?” - Sorin Cerin

13. “Liking other people is an illusion we have to cherish in ourselves if we are to live in society.” - John Fowles

14. “How strange when an illusion dies. It's as though you've lost a child.” - Judy Garland

15. “In the beginning there was faith - which is childish; trust - which is vain; and illusion - which is dangerous.” - Elie Wiesel

16. “I don't care if you're gay, black, Chinese, straight. That means nothing to me. It's all an illusion.” - Joe Rogan

17. “There is an old illusion. It is called good and evil.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

18. “Things aren't like this," he kept repeating. "It shouldn't be this way." As if he had access to some other plane of existence, some parallel, "right" universe, and had sensed that our time had somehow been put out of joint. Such was his vehemence that I found myself believing him, believing, for example, in the possibility of that other life in which Vina had never left and we were making our lives together, all three of us, ascending together to the stars. Then he shook his head, and the spell broke. He opened his eyes, grinning ruefully. As if he knew his thoughts had infected mine. As if he knew his power. "Better get on with it," he said. "Make do with what there is.” - Salman Rushdie

19. “...it is not for the illusion of a moment to govern the choice of a lifetime.” - Pierre A.F. Choderlos de Laclos

20. “All order, I've come to understand, is theoretical, unreal — a harmless, sensible, smiling mask men slide between the two great, dark realities, the self and the world — two snake pits.” - John Gardner

21. “Everybody talks about freedom, citizens," the big man said gently, seeming to draw upon that very sure source of personal knowledge again, "but they dont really want it. Half of them wants it but the other half dont. What they really want is to maintain an illusion of freedom in front of their wives and business associates. Its a satisfactory compromise, and as long they can have that they can get along without the other which is more expensive. The only trouble is, every man who declares himself free to his friends has to make a slave out of his wife and employees to keep up the illusion and prove it; the wife to be free in front of her bridgeclub has to command her Help, Husband and Heirs. It resolves itself into a battle; whoever wins, the other one loses. For every general in this world there have to be 6,000 privates.” - James Jones

22. “Death is merely an illusion of the departed... Just because you cannot physically see the idea of God, doesn't mean that he or she isn't there. Just because you cannot physically see someone that isn't here, doesn't mean that they aren't there.” - Lionel Suggs

23. “That was why, later on, he began to lose interest in photography: first when colour took over, then when it became plain that the old magic of light-sensitive emulsions was waning, that to the rising generation the enchantment lay in a techne of images without substance, images that could flash through the ether without residing anywhere, that could be sucked into a machine and emerge from it doctored, untrue. He gave up recording the world in photographs then, and transferred his energies to saving the past.” - J.M. Coetzee

24. “What a strange thing it is to wake up to a milk-white overcast June morning! The sun is hidden by a thick cotton blanket of clouds, and the air is vapor-filled and hazy with a concentration of blooming scent.The world is somnolent and cool, in a temporary reprieve from the normal heat and radiance.But the sensation of illusion is strong. Because the sun can break through the clouds at any moment . . .What a soft thoughtful time.In this illusory gloom, like a night-blooming flower, let your imagination bloom in a riot of color.” - Vera Nazarian

25. “Memory is an illusion, nothing more. It is a fire that needs constant tending.” - Ray Bradbury

26. “Whatever is a reality today, whatever you touch and believe in and that seems real for you today, is going to be, like the reality of yesterday, an illusion tomorrow.” - Luigi Pirandello

27. “To hell with the truth! As the history of the world proves, the truth has no bearing on anything. It's irrelevant and immaterial, as the lawyers say. The lie of a pipe dream is what gives life to the whole misbegotten mad lot of us, drunk or sober.” - Eugene O'Neill

28. “The illusion is reality. The only contradiction is the observer.” - Lionel Suggs

29. “The true genius of a Woman is her subtle flair in creating the illusion that you are the smart one” - Josh Stern

30. “Tomorrow is an illusion suggesting that another chance always exists.  It is a dangerously false illusion.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

31. “Depending on the reality one must face, one may prefer to opt for illusion.” - Judith Guest

32. “A world without problems is an illusion, so is a world without solutions.” - Gianni Sarcone

33. “You lost your ability to choose the moment you started to use your eyes to see, and your heart to feel. Choice has become nothing but an illusion for you.” - Lionel Suggs

34. “It takes discipline to turn illusion into reality.” - Lionel Suggs

35. “I can fight with a real problem. But I cannot solve the ignorance. I cannot solve the illusion of your mind.” - Ravindra Shukla

36. “All my joys resemble more a momentary intoxication than the real gold of happiness. It was all but an illusion.” - Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing

37. “Looking aroundthere is nothing but illusionEverything is drownedin the oceans of illusion” - Rixa White

38. “Look at meI am the life in a wastelandLook at meI am the slavery through the agesLook at meI am the mirror of the worldLook at meI am the illusion I’ve fought forLook at meI’m still loving youand I keep being herefor you, for me,and for what’s worth breathing” - Rixa White

39. “Ah, love. That’s what the world has lost. There’s no more love, only the illusion of it.” - Lauren DeStefano

40. “To find out if she really loved me, I hooked her up to a lie detector. And just as I suspected, my machine was broken.
” - Dark Jar Tin Zoo