Real quotes
21.1K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside real — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideals which have been instilled in them, and each time they come into contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded."
"For if the proper study of mankind is man, it is evidently more sensible to occupy yourself with the coherent, substantial and significant creatures of fiction than with the irrational and shadowy figures of real life."
"What seems real to the mind can be as important as any material fact. We live by the spirit and the imagination as well as by our senses. Cartoon animation can give fantasy the same reality as those things we can touch and see and hear."
"To the real artist in humanity, what are called bad manners are often the most picturesque and significant of all."
"To get back to the real substance of all things, you must get back into the thought world. Until one knows that the thought-energy is the cause of which is back of all things, and the product only the effect, then he is tied to the effect and is limited by it."
"I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States. No man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of the word, without coming here."
"In order to experience real magic it is necessary to make a dramatic shift from outcome to purpose."
"Nothing is real beyond imaginative patterns men make of reality."
"In the shower, with the hot water coming down, you've left the real world behind, and very frequently things open up for you. It's the change of venue, the unblocking the attempt to force the ideas that's crippling you when you're trying to write."
"I don't like theatrical actors and actresses. I like people that talk like real human beings."
"When you write the script, you're home in a room by yourself, and you're writing, and there's no connection with the real performing world. So you get a lot of things wrong and make a lot of mistakes and make a lot of bad choices."
"Fantasy is only a state of mind that you can employ when existing in a real context."
"Anecdote: It is by no means self-evident that human beings are most real when most violently excited; violent physical passions do not in themselves differentiate men from each other, but rather tend to reduce them to the same state."
"The cynicism that you have is not your real soul."
"I just kept it real and had the freedom to do what I want. It's not designed for any age group. It's not made for radio. There are no edits. The whole album contains explicit lyrics but that's because you need it."
"For me, everyone I write of is real. I have little true say in what they want, what they do or end up as (or in). Their acts appall, enchant, disgust or astound me. Their ends fill me with retributive glee, or break my heart. I can only take credit (if I can even take credit for that) in reporting the scenario. This is not a disclaimer. Just a fact."
"All true and living devotion presupposes the love of God and indeed it is neither more nor less than a very real love of God, though not always of the same kind; for that Love one while shining on the soul we call grace, which makes us acceptable to His Divine Majesty; when it strengthens us to do well, it is called Charity; but when it attains its fullest perfection, in which it not only leads us to do well, but to act carefully, diligently, and promptly, then it is called Devotion."
"Real problem is not population explosion, but what the population is doing."
"I really like the stuff that is very absurd and very real at the same time. I think Anton Chekhov is the greatest comedy writer of all time. I think he would make a great addition to The Office staff. If you look through Chekhov plays there is a lot of awkward pauses in there. His mixture of pathos, absurdity, truthfulness and whimsy is just mixed together perfectly."
"The soul has greater need of the ideal than of the real"
