Reality quotes
10.1K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside reality — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"A second variety concentrated on presumed major transformations of the capitalist system as of some recent point in time, in which the whole earlier point of time served as a mythologized foil against which to treat the empirical reality of the present."
"You say this victory is dangerous. I say that today no one can yet tell if it's dangerous, that today I don't see the risks you mention. If, however, those risks should become reality...I'll act in accordance with the new reality."
"I'm told [ Zulfikar Ali] Bhutto is ambitious. I hope he's very ambitious; ambition may help him see reality."
"They must remember that they are constantly on the run, and that the world's reality is actually expressed by their escape."
"Legends have always played a powerful role in the making of history. ... Without ever relating facts reliably, yet always expressing their true significance, they offered a truth beyond realities, a remembrance beyond memories."
"The startling reality of things is my discovery every single day."
"I'm a man for whom the outside world is an inner Reality."
"For, try as we may, we cannot get behind the appearence of things to reality. And the terrible reason may be that there is no reality in the things apart from their appearences."
"The best one can say of modern creative art is that it is just a little less vulgar than reality."
"It is not good for man to cherish a solitary ambition. Unless there be those around him, by whose example he may regulate himself, his thoughts, desires, and hopes will become extravagant, and he the semblance, perhaps the reality, of a madman"
"It's difficult to make movies. For me it was easier, as a refugee in Switzerland, to make documentary films, because I didn't need a lot of money for it. The way I tell my story or my opinion would be very similar in both fiction and documentary forms. But I found I could speak more effectively to convey this brutal reality through documentary than I could through fiction."
"In all my documentaries, I have great respect for the people I work with. Really, I love them. And it's very important for me that when I finish a movie, they stay my friends. It's important that they won't feel that I in any way manipulated them or showed them in a bad light. I want to show them in all their reality - not as subjects but as people with flesh and blood - but I want to do this with all my respect."
"Communists must always go into the why's and wherefore's of anything, use their own heads and carefully think over whether or not it corresponds to reality and is really well founded; on no account should they follow blindly and encourage slavishness."
"We're not going to walk into the World Cup thinking, 'Ah, you know, we beat Norway 5-0 and we beat Japan so now we're great and we're untouchable'. It's a reality check for a few guys and that's a good thing at this time so it doesn't happen on June 12 (when the U.S. team opens World Cup play against the Czech Republic)."
"With comedy, you have to do it right. In a drama, there's a lot of different ways to succeed in a moment. But comedy comes from reality. You can't try to be funny."
"The more you know, the more unflinchingly you deny casual beliefs and Accepted Wisdom when it flies in the face of reality, the more carefully you observe the world and its people around you, the better chance you have of writing something meaningful and well-crafted."
"Ignoring platforms that have gained critical mass is a great way to look slow and out-of-touch. Do not cling to nostalgia. Do not put your principles above the reality of the market. Do not be a snob."
"Juggling is an illusion. ... In reality, the balls are being independently caught and thrown in rapid succession. ... It is actually task switching."
"Sometimes big things happen, and they echo. Those echoes crash across worlds. They are the ripples in the fabric of things. Often they manifest as storms. Reality is a fragile thing, after all."
"In reality the world is made of thousands of groups of about five hundred people, all of whom will spend their lives bumping into each other, trying to avoid each other, and discovering each other in the same unlikely teashop in Vancouver. There is an unavoidability to this process. It's not even coincidence. It's just the way the world works, with no regard for individuals or propriety."
