What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case I definitely overpaid for my carpet. Woody Allen
If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion. Noam Chomsky
Contrary to a lot of illusions, the Vietnam War was fought primarily to ensure that an independent Vietnam would not develop successfully and become a model for other countries in the region. Noam Chomsky, lecture University of Massachusetts at Amherst 27 September 2012, ‘Who Owns the World? Resistance and Ways Forward’
Decorate your home. It gives the illusion that your life is more interesting than it really is. Charles M Schulz
Illusion is the first of all pleasures. Voltaire
76,928. Everything’s fine today, that is our illusion. Voltaire
Infinite love is the only truth. Everything else is illusion. David Icke
No, our science is no illusion. But an illusion it would be to suppose that what science cannot give us we can get elsewhere. Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion
Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires. Sigmund Freud, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis
How strange when an illusion dies. It’s as though you’ve lost a child. Judy Garland
Liking other people is an illusion we have to cherish in ourselves if we are to live in society. John Fowles, The Magus
That’s the whole burden of this novel – the loss of those illusions that give such color to the world that you don’t care whether things are true or false as long as they partake of the magical glory. F Scott Fitzgerald, introduction The Great Gatsby
There is an optical illusion about every person we meet. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays and Lectures
Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live. Mark Twain
Death is nothing, nor life either, for that matter. To die, to sleep, to pass into nothingness, what does it matter? Everything is an illusion. Mata Hari
Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in Physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. Albert Einstein, letter to Michele Besso’s family, March 1955, often cited as ‘Reality is merely an illusion albeit a very persistent one’
We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task of life is to find reality. Iris Murdoch, cited The Times 15th April 1983
Now, it is true that the nature of society is to create, among its citizens, an illusion of safety; but it is also absolutely true that the safety is always necessarily an illusion. Artists are here to disturb the peace. James Baldwin, 1961 interview
Welcome to the strange and wonderful world of illusions. Illusions to deceive your eyes, trick your tongue and fool your sense of touch ... These illusions hold the key to how our senses work. Horizon: Is Seeing Believing? BBC 2010
Synaesthesia is a mixing of the senses. A sensory experience in one sense can trigger an entirely different reaction in another. ibid.
We live a world made of a kaleidoscope of colours ... Are these colours really what they seem? Is the sky really blue? Are the leaves really green? Horizon: Do You See What I See? BBC 2011
It’s an unsettling idea that colours may not really exist ... Do you see red in the same way that I do? ibid.
Wearing red seemed to help people win in a sporting situation. ibid.
Colour can speed up time. But it’s not the colour red that does it ... Blue seems to be able to speed up time. ibid.
For us as a species the way we see colour has a history. ibid.
Red and green are colours we have had to learn. ibid.
Colour is created in your brain. It’s made from the language you speak, the memories you carry, even the moods you feel. It is one of Nature’s great illusions. ibid.
There’s even a difference between men and women. ibid.
So colour is effectively an illusion. It’s an illusion that helps us see the world in the way that’s useful to see. Dr Beau Lotto, University College London
We might say that all colour is an illusion. Helen Czerski, Colour: The Spectrum of Science III: Beyond the Rainbow, BBC 2015
The majority must resign itself to the consumption of fantasy. Illusions of wealth are sold to the poor, illusions of freedom to the oppressed, dreams of victory to the defeated and of power to the weak. Eduardo Galeano
Love of our country is another of those specious illusions, which have been invented by impostors in order to render the multitude the blind instruments of their crooked designs. William Godwin, 1756-1836, English philosopher & novelist, husband of Mary Wollstonecraft
And yet it feels as if we’re standing still. This appears to be such a simple observation. But the study of motion lies at the very foundation of modern physics, and leads to the astonishing conclusion that the division of time into past, present and future is an illusion. Our intuition is wrong. Forces of Nature with Brian Cox II, BBC 2016
What we kids didn’t understand was that we were living in a commercial, commodity culture. Everything in our environment had been bought and sold. As middle class Americans, we basically grew up on a movie set. The conscious values that are pushed are only part of the picture. The medium itself plays a much bigger part than anyone realizes: the creation of illusion. We are living surrounded by illusion, by professionally created fairy tales. We barely have contact with the real world. Robert Crumb, The Robert Crumb Handbook
The fact of your own existence is the most unbelievable fact you will ever be asked to believe. On one planet – possibly the only one planet in the entire universe – the laws of physics which elsewhere produce nothing more interesting than bits of rock and sand and water etc. on one planet the laws of physics filtered through a very strange and particular process called Evolution by Natural Selection produced an outstanding array of complex, beautiful, elegant things which carry a gigantic illusion of design. Richard Dawkins, lecture Duke University October 2010
Do we control our destinies? Or are we prisoners of fate? ... Is freedom of choice just an illusion? Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman, Science 2013
How much freedom do we really have? ibid.
Our democracy is an illusion. It has failed and has caused great suffering. We must not excuse it, but renew it. There must be peaceful resolution ... This axis has no interest in justice. Or in true democracy. It cannot warm to the smile of a child. Or comfort a tear. David Halpin, lecture Alternative View II conference, ‘The Vortex Sucks Ever Louder’
I believe that it is wrong to designate the feeling of having experienced something before as an illusion. On the contrary, in such moments something is really touched that we have already experienced, only we cannot consciously recall the latter because it never was conscious. In short, the feeling of déjà vu corresponds to the memory of an unconscious fantasy. Sigmund Freud, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life
What keeps us from seeing corruption are our illusions that our economy is a rational system, a free market open to all. Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner, Freakonomics, caption, Sky Atlantic
It was said of the Kennedys that they created illusions and called them as facts. Andrew Marr, JFK: The Making of Modern Politics, BBC 2010
Instead of delivering dreams, politicians now promise to protect us from nightmares. They say that they will rescue us from terrible dangers that we cannot see and do not understand. And the greatest danger of all is international terrorism ... But much of this threat is a fantasy which has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. It’s a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services and the international media. This is a series of films about how and why that fantasy was created and who it benefits. Adam Curtis, The Power of Nightmares III: The Shadows in the Cave, BBC 2004
The Islamists after their moment of triumph were virtually destroyed within months. While the Neo-Conservatives took power in Washington. But then the Neo-Conservatives begun to reconstruct the Islamists. They created a phantom enemy. And as this nightmare fantasy began to spread, politicians realised the new power it gave them in a deeply disillusioned age. ibid.