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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"There is this trouble about special providences namely, there is so often a doubt as to which party was intended to be the beneficiary. In the case of the children, the bears, and the prophet, the bears got more real satisfaction out of the episode than the prophet did, because they got the children."
"The real yellow peril: Gold."
"We called him Barney for short. We couldn't use his real name, there wasn't time."
"Every improvement that is put upon the real estate is the result of an idea in somebody's head. The skyscraper is another idea; the railroad is another; the telephone and all those things are merely symbols which represent ideas. An andiron, a wash-tub, is the result of an idea that did not exist before."
"The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing, it is the thing to watch over and care for and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous. . . ."
"As by the fires of experience, so by commission of crime you learn real morals. Commit all crimes, familiarize yourself with all sins, take them in rotation (there are only two or three thousand of them), stick to it, commit two or three every day, and by and by you will be proof against them. When you are through you will be proof against all sins and morally perfect. You will be vaccinated against every possible commission of them. This is the only way."
"I take care of military families. Their sacrifices are very real."
"For men tied fast to the absolute, bled of their differences, drained of their dreams by authoritarian leeches until nothing but pulp is left, become a massive, sick Thing whose sheer weight is used ruthlessly by ambitious men. Here is the real enemy of the people: our own selves dehumanized into the masses. And where is the David who can slay this giant?"
"Nobody says anything real today. Most of those girls have their songs written by other people. It annoys me, because 'eh oh eh oh ahh' is not a chorus..."
"Marilyn Monroe and Vivienne Leigh are real icons of mine. In terms of visual culture, they are both so iconic. There weren't any paparazzi shots of them falling out of taxis, so they will always look so incredible."
"I loved languages, and loved learning languages. It was fantastic. But I was alone there. I remember that time as a real Virginia Woolf time. More than any language it was her language that influenced me."
"I don't sit in my room and hide the whole time. I think people know my spirit is real."
"No," she said firmly. "I want you to stay when I go. Break tradition again, my love, and burn me alone in the home we built. I don't want you with me. You aren't done. You see too far ahead. You need to make the world in your thoughts a real one that our children can fly in." - Matalina to Jenks"
"To take a dislike to a young man, only because he appeared to be of a different disposition from himself, was unworthy the real liberality of mind"
"I had a very pleasant evening, however, though you will probably find out that there was no particular reason for it; but I do not think it worthwhile to wait for enjoyment until there is some real opportunity for it."
"I really think that people are getting fed up with the computer generated music. I think it had a little time where it was new and it kind of worked, but it's so overdone that people are getting sick of it, and are turning back to real music."
"But this is one of the things that makes rap at its best so human. It doesn't force you to pretend to be only one thing or another, to be a saint or a sinner. It recognizes that you can be true to yourself and still have unexpected dimensions and opposing ideas. Having a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other is the most common thing in the world. The real bullshit is when you act like you don't have contradictions inside you, that you're so dull and unimaginative that your mind never changes or wanders into strange, unexpected places."
"It's hard to sing really well when you're playing an instrument, but it'd be great to try and sing really well and have vocal effects and one drummer on a real drum-kit, and one on an electronic kit."
"Listen to me: a family man is never a real family man. An assassin is never entirely assassin. They play a role, you understand. While a dead man, he is really dead. To be or not to be, right?"
"Happiness has to be installed in each person as a state of affairs completely cut off from the process that brought it about and, in particular, from the real situation. Man has to be affected with happiness. It is a tonality given to him. Contradiction: if one does take care to give him happiness, it is because he is a free creature--but in order to give it to him, one turns him into an object."
