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.
"America always put forth this phony melting pot theory, but it's a reality now. They couldn't accomplish the melting pot economically; they couldn't accomplish it politically, or through education and science. But America has become a consumer society, and I see young people in the cities - of all colors and races - hanging out together over consumerism."
"Know that the outward form passes away, but the world of reality remains forever. How long will you play at loving the shape of the jug? Leave the jug; go, seek the water!"
"Imagination consists in expelling from reality several incomplete persons, and then using the magic and subversive powers of desire to bring them back in the form of one entirely satisfying presence."
"I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. A thoughtless word hardly ever escaped my tongue or pen. Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. We find so many people impatient to talk. All this talking can hardly be said to be of any benefit to the world. It is so much waste of time. My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of truth."
"I'm always the "less is more" guy when it comes to a scene. So I'ma be the one who will keep it grounded. Even if I let it go off and go crazy, I'm still the voice of keeping things grounded in reality."
"Music is the mirror of reality."
"Without man and his potential for moral progress, the whole of reality would be a mere wilderness, a thing in vain, and have no final purpose."
"The Third World is not a reality but an ideology."
"The way of paradoxes is the way of truth. To test Reality we must see it on the tight-rope."
"You can follow the action, which gets you good pictures. You can follow your instincts, which will probably get you in trouble. Or, you can follow the money, which nine times out of ten will get you closer to the truth."
"Many have imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or known to exist in reality; for how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather bring about his own ruin than his preservation."
"This life is a process of learning."
"Whether there is such a thing as Reality, of which the various levels are only partial aspects, or whether there are only levels, is something that literature cannot decide. Literature recognizes rather the *reality of the levels.*"
"And if you worry that not finishing the food on your plate is a slap in the face of all the hungry people everywhere, you are not living in reality. The truth is that you either throw the food out or you throw it in, but either way it turns to waste. World hunger will not be solved by finishing the garlic mashed potatoes on your plate."
"The last verse [In My Secret Life] completely got to me, about how we all have great ideals but in reality we end up conforming, following everyone else. We want to be stronger so we lead that life inside, thinking of ourselves as these great brave souls. I literally thought when I was 15 that I was a musical genius and I could change the world, but in fact you're not and you can't and you don't, and that realisation is almost heartbreaking."
"In order to pin down reality as realilty, we need another reality to relativize the first. Yet that other reality requires a third reality to serve as its grounding. An endless chain is created within our consciousness, and it is the maintenance of this chain which produces the sensation that we are actually here, that we ourselves exist."
"In dreams you don't need to make any distinctions between things. Not at all. Boundaries don't exist. So in dreams there are hardly ever collisions. Even if there are, they don't hurt. Reality is different. Reality bites. Reality, reality."
"Perception is reality."
"You write in order to change the world ... if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it."
"No one can be free unless he is independent... In reality, he who is served is limited in his independence."
