Reality quotes

Reality

10.1K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

10.1K quotes

Explore further

Browse quotes that often appear alongside reality — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.

Quote collection

Reality quotes (page 17 of 507)

Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.

Baruch Spinoza Philosopher, Rationalist
Reality

"It may easily come to pass that a vain man may become proud and imagine himself pleasing to all when he is in reality a universal nuisance."

Read quote 33 likes
Adam Smith Philosopher, Economist
Reality

"Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all."

Read quote 33 likes
Alan Watts Philosopher, Writer
Reality

"Ego is a social institution with no physical reality. The ego is simply your symbol of yourself. Just as the word “water” is a noise that symbolizes a certain liquid without being it, so too the idea of ego symbolizes the role you play, who you are, but it is not the same as your living organism."

Read quote 33 likes
Albert Schweitzer Philosopher, Theologian
Reality

"Joy, sorrow, tears, lamentation, laughter -- to all these music gives voice, but in such a way that we are transported from the world of unrest to a world of peace, and see reality in a new way, as if we were sitting by a mountain lake and contemplating hills and woods and clouds in the tranquil and fathomless water."

Read quote 33 likes
Walker Evans Photographer
Reality

"In order to put meaning back into our lives, we should recognize illusions for what they are, and we should reach out and touch the fabric of reality."

Read quote 33 likes
Samuel Beckett Playwright, Novelist
Reality

"The time-state of attainment eliminates so accurately the time-state of aspiration, that the actual seems the inevitable, and, all conscious intellectual effort to reconstitute the invisible and unthinkable as a reality being fruitless, we are incapable of appreciating our joy by comparing it with our sorrow."

Read quote 33 likes
George Orwell Writer, Journalist
Reality

"The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield."

Read quote 33 likes
Jimi Hendrix Musician, Guitarist
Reality

"I used to live in a room full of mirrors; all I could see was me. I take my spirit and I crash my mirrors, now the whole world is here for me to see."

Read quote 33 likes
Michel Foucault Philosopher, Social Theorist
Reality

"The imaginary is not formed in opposition to reality as its denial or compensation; it grows among signs, from book to book, in the interstice of repetitions and commentaries; it is born and takes shape in the interval between books. It is the phenomena of the library."

Read quote 33 likes
Douglas Adams Writer, Humorist
Reality

"He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife."

Read quote 32 likes
Bryan Stevenson Lawyer, Author
Reality

"The reality is that capital punishment in America is a lottery. It is a punishment that is shaped by the constraints of poverty, race, geography and local politics."

Read quote 32 likes
Arnold Schwarzenegger Actor, Bodybuilder, Politician
Reality

"I can zero in on a vision of where I want to be in the future. I can see it so clearly in front of me, when I daydream, it's almost a reality. Then I get this easy feeling, and I don't have to be uptight to get there because I already feel like I'm there, that it's just a matter of time."

Read quote 32 likes
Akira Kurosawa Director, Screenwriter
Reality

"To be an artist means to search, to find and look at these realities. To be an artist means to never look away."

Read quote 31 likes
Bruce Lee Martial Artist, Actor, Director
Reality

"The Western approach to reality is mostly through theory, and theory begins by denying reality - to talk about reality, to go around reality, to catch anything that attracts our sense-intellect and abstract it away from reality itself. Thus philosophy begins by saying that the outside world is not a basic fact, that its existence can be doubted and that every proposition in which the reality of the outside world is affirmed is not an evident proposition but one that needs to be divided, dissected and analyzed. It is to stand consciously aside and try to square a circle."

Read quote 31 likes