What are your favorite quotes about reality?

“People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that’s bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they’re afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they’re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It’s all in how you carry it. That’s what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you’re letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.”
― Jim Morrison

“Without inwardness there can be no external world, and without imagination there can be no reality.” Franz Werfel

“I have a personal relationship with reality”

“Reality is an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”—Albert Einstein

Here’s a terrific quote by Philip K. Dick that could be addressed to climate change disbelievers…

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”

Row, row, row your boat
gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
lIfe is but a dream.

“Wow reality, what a concept.” Robin Williams

”Five simple rules for happiness:
1. Free your heart from hatred.
2. Free your mind from worries.
3. Live simply.
4. Give more.
5. Expect less.”

“You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one.”

“There’s only one thing more beautiful than a beautiful dream, and that’s a beautiful reality.© Ashleigh Brilliant

@TossingSpades, how is that a quote about reality? Not saying it isn’t—just asking you for the connection.

“The only difference between reality and fiction is that fiction needs to be credible.”
-Mark Twain

@Blueroses, nice quote.

Time and space are our own limitations. We must not impose them on God.

@bkcunningham, how is that a quote about reality? I’m not saying it isn’t—just asking you to make the connection.

It was my notion (perhaps incorrect) that a quote about reality would make some reference to reality.

Here’s one I like, for example:

“Reality” is the one word that is meaningless without quotation marks. —Vladimir Nabokov

I think that quote gives another perspective of reality. Time and space are two realities that most people would find are hard to argue. Yet, when looked at in the concept of the quote, they are given a new angle to look at what most consider facts or realities.

The limitations you impose on reality shouldn’t be imposed on God. His reality may not be seen as a timeframe or realm that you perceive as reality. Time and space are our own limitations when it comes to realities known by man. There may be things beyond our understandings. We shouldn’t impose our human restrictions on a God whose understanding surpasses things like time and space.

From Eisenhower:

Farming is easy when you’re a thousand miles from the cornfield and your plow is a pencil.

Life’s a bitch,

and then you die.

Ok, I guess we’ve broadened the idea of “quotes about reality” to “quotes about anything because anything is about reality.”

Something along the lines of “The great thing about science is that it’s true whether you believe it or not.”
Although I disagree with just using the term “science” because not all science is right. Maybe replace science with another word.

I didn’t have a quote that readily came to mind on the subject of reality. I have remedied that and now have a collection.

So here are two I picked from my new favorites, not because they are my absolute favorite.

I chose according to what I felt fit me for the majority of my life. The first informs the second.

Dogmas- religious, political, scientific- arise out of the erroneous belief that thought can encapsulate reality or truth. Dogmas are collective conceptual prisons. And the strange thing is that people love their prison cells because they give them a sense of security, a false sense of “I know.”
Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

The unreal is much more powerful then the real. Because nothing is as perfect you can imagine it. Because it’s only intangibles, ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die.
Chuck Palaniuk, Choke

Thanks for the question Jeruba and I enjoyed several of the responses.

re·al·i·ty
/rēˈalətē/Noun
1.The world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them: “he refuses to face reality”.
2.A thing that is actually experienced or seen, esp. when this is grim or problematic: “the harsh realities of life”.

Pretty broad subject.

Life begins on the other side of despair.
Sartre

I just found this so can’t claim it, but it does have a certain ring. (And wasn’t someone asking about Kiefkegaard here recently?)

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.

Soren Kierkegaard

Well, @rojo, you can fault me for imprecision if you like, although I thought I was pretty clear when I said “on the subject of reality” and gave an example. I meant quotes about “reality” per se and not about all the things that the term “reality” might take in.

Apropos of redefining things according to your wishes or intentions, here is a chilling quote from Philip K. Dick (US science fiction author [1928 – 1982]):

The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.
—Philip K. Dick, “How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later” (1978) [ link ]

Humankind cannot bear very much reality. – T.S. Eliot

The dream of a mad philosopher. That which would remain in the cupel if one should assay a phantom. The nucleus of a vacuum.
The entry for reality in “The Devil’s Dictionary” by Ambrose Bierce.

“Life is what happens while we’re all busy making plans.”

I am sorry, @Jeruba, for my contribution to this thread. I didn’t mean to add to the confusion of what you meant. I misunderstood the question.

Actually, @bkcunningham, I thought you defended your interpretation pretty well, even though it wasn’t what I had in mind. I’m just puzzled at how I could have been so unclear in seven simple words.

Thank you, @Jeruba. Speaking just for myself, when I saw your question and the word reality I began to feel philosophical and thought I’d wax poetic. I was blinded by my own ego and self-perceived cleverness.

“The belief that one’s own view of reality is the only reality is the most dangerous of all delusions.” —Paul Watzlawick

莊周夢蝶 : “Was it Chuang Chou dreaming that he was a butterfly, or the butterfly dreaming that it was Chuang Chou?”

http://www.the-philosopher.co.uk/butter.htm

Reality, what a concept.
Conception… now there’s a reality.

I HEAR THE KNOCKING ON THE DOOR, BUT KEEP HOPING THAT IF I DON’T ANSWER, REALITY WILL GO AWAY. .© Ashleigh Brilliant