#illusion

People live with the illusion that we have a democratic system, but it's only the outward form of one. In reality we live in a plutocracy, a government of the rich. ↗

— Jose Saramago

#democratic system #form #government #illusion #live

Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal. ↗

— Jean-Paul Sartre

#eternal #illusion #life #lose #meaning

We have that illusion that we are 'deciding' what to make a character do, in order to 'convey our message' or something like that. But, at least in my experience, you are often more like a river-rafting guide who's been paid a bonus to purposely steer your clients into the roughest possible water. ↗

— George Saunders

#bonus #character #clients #convey #deciding

Just as the 99% of Soviet citizens who supported the Soviet regime in 1985 was no indication of what the people inside the USSR really thought, the army of true believers that we think we see in the Arab world is an illusion. ↗

— Natan Sharansky

#arab world #army #believers #citizens #illusion

The experiences of promoting my first album were really something; there is so much illusion in my environment (touring and pop music) that I wanted to clear away. ↗

— Duncan Sheik

#away #clear #environment #experiences #first

Saying you have a political solution is like saying you can write a pop song that's going to stay at the top of the list forever. I don't have many illusions about this, but I'm not cynical about it. ↗

— Bruce Sterling

#cynical #forever #going #i #illusions

Man is created to be God's deputy on earth and it is important to realize the obligation to rid ourselves of all illusions and to make our lives a preparation for the next life. ↗

— Cat Stevens

#deputy #earth #god #illusions #important

It is often tragic to see how blatantly a man bungles his own life and the lives of others yet remains totally incapable of seeing how much the whole tragedy originates in himself, and how he continually feeds it and keeps it going. Not consciously, of course—for consciously he is engaged in bewailing and cursing a faithless world that recedes further and further into the distance. Rather, it is an unconscious factor which spins the illusions that veil his world. And what is being spun is a cocoon, which in the end will completely envelop him. ↗

— C.G. Jung

#illusions #receding #tragedy #tragic #life

I'm an actor. I hate to blow everyone's illusions. ↗

— Stephen Colbert

#blow #everyone #hate #i #illusions

What is a movie star? It is an illusion. It was everything I ever wanted to be, but it became a kind of shell, non? It was what made me famous and got me women. But it wasn't real. ↗

— Jean Claude Van Damme

#ever #everything #famous #got #i