Reality Quotes - Page 267

The number and richness of man's signifiers always surpasses the set of defined objects that could be termed signifieds. The symbolic function must always precede its object and does not encounter reality except when it precedes it into the imaginary.

I get so used to saying what I think people want to hear, I forget they might just want the truth sometimes.

When appearance and reality coincide, philosophy and literary criticism find themselves with nothing to say.

The facts, even the real ones, must be imagined before they can be stated.

Placing the extraordinary at the center of the ordinary, as realism does, is a great comfort to us stay-at-homes.

The realist lies for advantage. The fantasist lies to give his dreams a flavor of reality.

The absolute has moved into the fortress of the absurd.

Those who sit at the feast will continue to enjoy themselves even though the veil that separates them from the world of toiling reality below has been lifted by mass revolts and critics.

I don't think abortion is a good idea. I personally am opposed to abortion, but I will not judge anybody else's right in that regard because I am not a woman and I could never face the actual reality of it.

I love The West Wing for many reasons. The show has been a fantasy. But we have offered a parallel universe to reality.

Everything begins in thought and the reality is only our interpretation of the situation.

Freedom of the press and also of speech, assembly, and worship can persist as social forms and legal guarantees, while at the same time their functional realities can be gradually slipping away.

But in reality the point of free speech is for the stuff that’s over the line, and strikingly unbalanced. If free speech is only for polite persons of mild temperament within government-policed parameters, it isn’t free at all. So screw that.

The combination of extremist ideology, a warped understanding of reality and nuclear weapons is a combination that no-one in the international community can accept.

Reflection in the mirror makes reality look at you

General Systems Theory, a related modern concept [to holism], says that each variable in any system interacts with the other variables so thoroughly that cause and effect cannot be separated. A simple variable can be both cause and effect. Reality will not be still. And it cannot be taken apart! You cannot understand a cell, a rat, a brain structure, a family, a culture if you isolate it from its context. Relationship is everything.

Old Newtonian physics claimed that things have an objective reality separate from our perception of them. Quantum physics, and particularly Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, reveal that, as our perception of an object changes, the object itself literally changes.

She wants to see the goals in the bill become a reality.

[Donald Trump] basically has said, 'No it's more of a threat than an actual reality.' I do not think we're going to see tariffs put in place, but that would be the worry.

No matter what rallying cries the orators give to the idiots who fight, no matter what noble purposes they assign to wars, there is never but one reason for a war. And that is money. All wars are in reality money squabbles.

Nothing in oratory is more important than to win for the orator the favour of his hearer, and to have the latter so affected as to be swayed by something resembling an impulse of the spirit impetu quodam animi or emotion perturbatione, rather than by judgment or deliberation. For men decide far more problems by hate, or love, or lust, or rage, or sorrow, or joy, or hope, or fear, or illusion, or some other inward emotion aliqua permotione mentis, than by reality or authority, or any legal standard, or judicial precedent or statute.

When it comes to exploring your creative side, it's very easy to think of all the reasons you can't do it-you don't have the time, you don't have the money, etc.-but if you are truly passionate about expressing yourself, you can find a way. When you feel as though you can't do something, the simple antidote is action: Begin doing it. Start the process, even if it's just a simple step, and don't stop at the beginning. Take the next step and the next until what you've dreamed about begins to become reality.

He who fears death either fears to lose all sensation or fears new sensations. In reality, you will either feel nothing at all, and therefore nothing evil, or else, if you can feel any sensations, you will be a new creature, and so will not have ceased to have life.

The practical reality that in order for us to identify homegrown violent extremism and prevent it or root it out before it takes action, we are going to need the cooperation of Muslim communities in this country.

But when one believes in the reality of things, making them visible by artificial means is not quite the same as feeling that they are close at hand.