Half the work that is done in this world is to make things appear what they are not.
What seems to be, is, to those to whom it seems to be, and is productive of the most dreadful consequences to those to whom it seems to be, even of torments, despair, eternal death.
A pleasant illusion is better than a harsh reality.
Pray look better, Sir... those things yonder are no giants, but windmills.
Pleasure can be supported by an illusion; but happiness rests upon truth.
We must select the Illusion which appeals to our temperament and embrace it with passion, if we want to be happy.
It is respectable to have no illusions, and safe, and profitable and dull.
For what we call illusions are often, in truth, a wider vision of past and present realities --a willing movement of a man's soul with the larger sweep of the world's forces --a movement towards a more assured end than the chances of a single life.
What difference is there, do you think, between those in Plato's cave who can only marvel at the shadows and images of various objects, provided they are content and don't know what they miss, and the philosopher who has emerged from the cave and sees the real things?
The impression forces itself upon one that men measure by false standards, that everyone seeks power, success, riches for himself, and admires others who attain them, while undervaluing the truly precious thing in life.
Oh, how powerfully the magnet of illusion attracts.
— Gutzkow
People who have realized that this is a dream imagine that it is easy to wake up, and are angry with those who continue sleeping, not considering that the whole world that environs them does not permit them to wake. Life proceeds as a series of optical illusions, artificial needs and imaginary sensations.
For me, it is as though at every moment the actual world had completely lost its actuality. As though there was nothing there; as though there were no foundations for anything or as though it escaped us. Only one thing, however, is vividly present: the constant tearing of the veil of appearances; the constant destruction of everything in construction. Nothing holds together, everything falls apart.
It appears to me that almost any man may like the spider spin from his own inwards his own airy citadel.
Nothing is more sad than the death of an illusion.
Therefore trust to thy heart, and to what the world calls illusions.
Better a dish of illusion and a hearty appetite for life, than a feast of reality and indigestion therewith.
We always think every other man's job is easier than our own. The better he does it, the easier it looks.
The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there.
A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.
Disillusion is a natural stage that follows the holding of an illusion.
It isn't safe to sit in judgment upon another person's illusion when you are not on the inside. While you are thinking it is a dream, he may be knowing it is a planet.
Artists use frauds to make human beings seem more wonderful than they really are. Dancers show us human beings who move much more gracefully than human beings really move. Films and books and plays show us people talking much more entertainingly than people.
The one person who has more illusions than the dreamer is the man of action.