Terence McKenna
Ethnobotanist, Philosopher, Writer
"What we call reality is in fact nothing more than a culturally sanctioned and linguistically reinforced hallucination."
Hallucinations quotes
Hallucinations
52 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Bertrand Russell
Philosopher, Mathematician
"A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it."
George Bernard Shaw
Playwright, Critic
"Kings are not born: they are made by artificial hallucination."
Mikhail Bulgakov
Novelist, Playwright
"Actually, I do happen to resemble a hallucination. Kindly note my silhouette in the moonlight." The cat climbed into the shaft of moonlight and wanted to keep talking but was asked to be quiet. "Very well, I shall be silent," he replied, "I shall be a silent hallucination."
Scott Adams
Cartoonist
"I respectfully decline the invitation to join your hallucination."
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside hallucinations — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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Hallucinations quotes (page 1 of 3)
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"Truth! Truth! Truth! crieth the Lord of the Abyss of Hallucinations"
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"Pick up any history book, and I suggest you begin with studying the 20th century, and you will find that a large part of the history of our species has all the characteristics we would normally associate with a nightmare or an insane hallucination."
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"I have auditory hallucinations, I hear voices saying derogatory things, like I'm terrible and I'm going to die, and they're usually worse in the afternoon."
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"Lack of awareness of the basic unity of organism and environment is a serious and dangerous hallucination."
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"If you understand hallucination and illusion, you don't blindly follow any leader. You must know if the person is sane or insane, over the abyss."
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"There's more of gravey than grave about you, whatever you are!" - Scrooge, referring to Marley's ghost which he believes is a hallucination from food poisoning"
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"I'm fascinated by hallucinations. I mean, to me that is the sina qua non that you're getting somewhere."
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"Ideas without execution are hallucinations."
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"I think it's all lovely hallucination but I love it sorta."
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"All observers not laboring under hallucinations of the senses are agreed, or can be made to agree, about facts of sensible experience, through evidence toward which the intellect is merely passive, and over which the individual will and character have no control."
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"Ordinarily it would take me about fifteen minutes to get a hallucination going," wrote Feynman, "but on a few occasions, when I smoked some marijuana beforehand, it came very quickly."
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"Don't blindly follow any leader."
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"[William Butler] Yeats has the phrase Hodos Chameliontos, chameleon-like, in that you don't know where the beginning or the middle or the end is, so it's an unrelieved hallucination, because you don't know where you're coming in and you don't know where you're going out. It ends, you're going into the hallucination, or maybe coming out of it, I don't know."
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"The hallucination of being a separate ego will not stand up to biological tests."
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"All psychedelic explorers should be aware of the concept of what is called a cognitive hallucination. The is a much more insidious phenomenon. This is, quite simply, an out-and-out delusion."
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"Aside from the nagging, he's the most entertaining hallucination I've ever had."
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