Best 132 quotes in «reality check quotes» category

America is still AmeriKKKa. rather we like it or not

America was not made by Americans but by the hard work of those who came to America

And how is your head? Better?" he asked. "Very much. Sometimes it hurts." Right now it was throbbing. "But every day I am much improved." "Where did you hit it? Are you bruised?" I put a hand to the back of my head, a little to the left, where I had landed with such jarring force. "Here," I said. "It's still a little tender." And leaning forward, he touched my hair right where I had just laid my hand. Such was he glamour that attended him that I expected the ache to instantly melt away, healed by his royal caress. But in fact, I felt a sudden leap in my heart that made the pain briefly more intense.

And this," cried Darcy, as he walked with quick steps across the room, "is your opinion of me! This is the estimation in which you hold me! I thank you for explaining it so fully.

[..] being the most attractive rarely meant being the most beautiful

But like all moments trapped in time, that moment would end and Joey Boldt, as all the greats before him did, would begin to understand that clinging too tightly to anything results in Time and Fate shaking you until you can't hold on any longer. And then, when you are knocked for a six and lose your grip, they allow you to spiral into a freefall where men are broken and legends are made.

Bullish or bearish are terms used by people who do not engage in practicing uncertainty, like the television commentators, or those who have no experience in handling risk. Alas, investors and businesses are not paid in probabilities; they are paid in dollars. Accordingly, it is not how likely an event is to happen that matters, it is how much is made when it happens that should be the consideration.

Calm down, Ephraim. You seem really certain of what's possible and what's impossible, for a guy who's trying to convince me he has a magic wishing coin.

Carpe Diem By Edna Stewart Shakespeare, Robert Frost, Walt Whitman did it, why can't I? The words of Horace, his laconic phrase. Does it amuse me or frighten me? Does it rub salt in an old wound? Horace, Shakespeare, Robert Frost and Walt Whitman my loves, we've all had a taste of the devils carpe of forbidden food. My belly is full of mourning over life mishaps of should have's, missed pleasure, and why was I ever born? The leaf falls from the trees from which it was born in and cascade down like a feather that tumbles and toil in the wind. One gush! It blows away. It’s trampled, raked, burned and finally turns to ashes which fades away like the leaves of grass. Did Horace get it right? Trust in nothing? The shortness of Life is seventy years, Robert Frost and Whitman bared more, but Shakespeare did not. Butterflies of Curiosities allures me more. Man is mortal, the fruit is ripe. Seize more my darling! Enjoy the day.

...Capii che gli ubriachi e gli storpi vengono trascinati fuori dall'arena come Cristi disossati, un uomo sotto ogni braccio, coi piedi che strisciano a terra, gli occhi al cielo.

And that's when I heard the whisper in my heart's ear: "It's not about your childhood. It's about who you are!

Dismantle your friend to see how he behaves. If he smiles with a beautiful grin, then take him back, he's worthy to be called a friend.

Don't be about just any life. Be about the life you want to be about.

Don't, but if at all, then, lie to the whole damn world - never to your own damn, silly stupid self.

Don't spend your life wondering "what if" and worrying over something you have no control. What's done is done. Looking backwards will cause you to miss out on new blessings ahead. Move on.

Do you know how many people would give anything for what you have? Not the fame or wealth—the opportunity to wake up tomorrow healthy, pain free and with a future stretching out before them?

. . . failure is also the stern parent of truth. (p525)

Gay people getting married is not a threat to the institution of marriage. You know what's a threat to the institution of marriage? Infidelity is! Hate is! Unforgiveness is! Apathy is! Coldheartedness is! Fear is! And you know what's a threat to the kids? It’s not having gay parents! Most gay kids have straight parents! And plenty of gay parents raise respectable, straight kids! The threat to children isn't their parents being gay; the threat to children is their parents not loving one another! Not caring for one another! Not being crazy about each other! Domestic violence is a threat to children. Stupidity is a threat to children. A swimming pool in the backyard with no supervision is a threat to children!

Hay una realidad que demuestra la verdad de un hecho. Porque nuestra memoria y nuestros sentidos son demasiado inseguros, demasiado parciales. Incluso podemos afirmar que muchas veces es imposible discernir hasta qué punto un hecho que creemos percibir es real y a partir de qué punto sólo creemos que lo es. Así que para preservar la realidad como tal, necesitamos otra realidad -una realidad colindante- que la relativice. Pero, a su vez, esta realidad colindante necesita una base para relativizarse a sí misma. Es decir, que hay otra realidad colindante que demuestra, a su vez, que ésta es real. Y esta cadena se extiende indefinidamente dentro de nuestra conciencia y, en un cierto sentido, puede afirmarse que es a través de esta sucesión, a través de la conservación de esta cadena, como adquirimos conciencia de nuestra existencia misma. Pero si esta cadena, casualmente, se rompe, quedamos desconcertados. ¿La realidad está al otro lado del eslabón roto? ¿Está a este lado?

Global betterment is a mental process, not one that requires huge sums of money or a high level of authority. Change has to be psychological.

He hadn't had the satisfaction of telling someone he'd quit, of being believed; but he'd quit. Goodbye. None of this had anything to do with him anymore. Better to be nothing than a blind doorman at the head of civilization's parade.

Hope erodes slowly, over time, until you wake up one night at three o'clock in the morning and realize: I am not meant for that kind of thing.

He turned and saw Becky, crying in the doorway of her house. What was he doing here? Turning back he saw flashing blue lights at the end of the road, and realised the ringing in his ears was the sound of approaching sirens.

How to get and keep men interested in you (A Guide for the Modern Woman): Put them in the “friend” or “fuck” zone. Leave them there.

Humans are mostly kind only to their own-self, and their own. To another being, they're mostly indifferent, if not inhumane.

I borrowed a copy of Myths of the Norsemen by Roger Lancelyn Green and read and reread it with delight and puzzlement: Asgard, in this telling, was no longer a Kirbyesque Future City but was a Viking hall and collection of buildings out on the frozen wastes; Odin the all-father was no longer gentle, wise, and irascible, but instead he was brilliant, unknowable, and dangerous; Thor was just as strong as the Mighty Thor in the comics, his hammer as powerful, but he was . . . well, honestly, not the brightest of the gods; and Loki was not evil, although he was certainly not a force for good. Loki was . . . complicated.

I do not want to sound cynical or condescending, but your lips are moving, your mind unbending.

I’d like to think that the day I realize we will always be miserable will differ from every other. I hope it will so obnoxiously stand out from the monotonous cycle of my days, that I wouldn’t forget that sorrowful moment of comprehension. But, when that breeze of reality comes by, it wont be a memorable hurricane, nor a momentous tornado. It will be the same, sad, soft wind that I felt the day before, and the day before that. Because the moment you understand your inevitable misery in life, may also be the day you see you are to always be dejected.

If your believed in book-told god is a silly sod, you too are.

[...] if you don't know what you're running away from, chances are you'll bring it along anywhere you go.

Generalization is impossible. It is an insult.

I had an enemy - myself. Getting rid of the ego-self, in came the Self. Now, here, there, everywhere is nothing else. Just One Self.

If you want to be a successful writer you have to put your butt in the chair and your fingers on the keyboard and put words on the page. Even shitty words are better than no words. You can go back and fix them later.

In life your expectations and disappointments are directly linked. So too is your heartfulness and your contentedness

In reality, there is nether one-god nor many gods. Just a oneness, an indivisible unity sans this-that god.

If you have one friend in the end, it better be yourself.

I like to work late because I don’t like to work early—and I have to work sometime. If I get here first thing in the morning, I feel like I have to iron my clothes. But by 2 o’clock, nobody cares. And by 7, nobody’s here.

I like to work late because I don’t like to work early—and I have to work sometime.

I'm joking when I say I'm the grand-pop of those claiming to be an avatar-messiah or god. But if they're serious, then, I am who I am.

In a fight between our ideals and reality, the module of reality tends to win, but our ideals once reinforced and no longer surprised tend to kick reality’s derriere. - On Ideals and Reality

Influence is everything, and guilt or innocence merely an academic question

In the naivete of their youth, they believed Fate to be a kind mistress. None of them were prepared for the beast that was about to pick them up by the throats and shake them until their teeth rattled.

I realised throughout writing, that realistic can appear unrealistic in reality. What you may think is unbelievable is in fact someone's life.

-Iti spun un lucru. Ce este mai apropiat decat fratele de frate, mama de copil?Ce este mai apropiat decat mana de gura, gandul de minte? E viziunea, Roger. Nu ma astept ca tu sa intelegi asta... -Dar pricep,mai incape vorba! Jocelin isi inalta chipul si deodata zambi: -Chiar intelegi? -Dar vine clipa in care viziunea nu mai e decat jocul copilului de-a-sa-zicem. -Aha! Clatina din cap, incet, atent; si luminile plutira. -Atunci nu intelegi deloc. Deloc.

It is easy to give without loving yet DIFFICULT TO LOVE without GIVING. After all Love is a Verb, it must be demonstrated genuinely.

It is easy to give without loving yet DIFFICULT TO LOVE without GIVING. After all Love is a Vern, it must be demonstrated genuinely.

I plan to live my own way. Hopefully, it is as per God's Way.

[...] It’s not your job to fix the world; it’s your job to live well. That’s your birth right. Everyone knows it, but far too few people actually take to implementing it.

It was Colonel Parkman who upped stakes, crossed the border, and named our town, thus perversely commemorating a battle in which he'd lost. (Though perhaps that's not so unusual: many people take a curatorial interest in their own scars.) He's shown astride his horse, waving a sword and about to gallop into the nearby petunia bed: a craggy man with seasoned eyes and pointed beard, every sculptor's idea of every cavalry leader. No one knows what Colonel Parkman really looked like, since he left no pictorial evidence of himself and the statue wasn't erected until 1885, but he looks like this now. Such is the tyranny of Art. On the left-hand side of the lawn, also with a petunia bed, is an equally mythic figure: the Weary Soldier, his three top shirt buttons undone, his neck bowed as if for the headman's axe, his uniform rumpled, his helmet askew, leaning on his malfunctioning Ross rifle. Forever young, forever exhausted, he tops the War Memorial, his skin burning green in the sun, pigeon droppings running down his face like tears.

I’ve learned through a series of trials and errors that the median space is actually what's missing in our daily walk.