Frederick Allen Quotes

Things do not pass for what they are, but for what they seem. Most things are judged by their jackets.

I already know what things look like - I don't want description. People believe in appearances, and I don't believe in appearances at all.

Things are always more complicated than most people believe.

The reality of a question is inevitably more complicated than we would like to suppose.

How little do they see what is, who frame their hasty judgments upon that which seems.

I must begin by saying something about the old Germany. That Germany, too, suffered from superficial judgment, because appearances and reality were not always kept apart in people's minds.

The great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are.

Fantasies are not always what people think they are.

Reality is far more complex and messy than many of the grander themes and explanations would have us believe.

The problem with assumptions is that we believe they are the truth.

It often happens that things are other than what they seem, and you can get yourself into trouble by jumping to conclusions.

Truth is too simple for us: we do not like those who unmask our illusions.

And simple truth miscalled simplicity

The most dangerous of our calculations are those we call illusions.

Misconceptions play a prominent role in my view of the world.

As any old Taoist walking out of the woods can tell you, simple-minded does not necessarily mean stupid.

When we believe in lies, we cannot see the truth, so we make thousands of assumptions and we take them as truth. One of the biggest assumptions we make is that the lies we believe are the truth!

There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.

We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusions. We are haunted, not by reality, but by those images we have put in their place.

Reality seems so simple. We just open our eyes and there it is. But that doesn't mean it is simple.

Reality only appears to us tragical because of the disequilibrium and confusion of its appearances.

Truth is always a delusion.

The world we live in is vastly different from the world we think we live in.

I'm nothing more than what you actually see, but I am also the complete opposite.

I think one of the major misconceptions about me is that I live my life the way people think I lead my life, with hot and cold drinks running everywhere and a party all the time. They think of my life in terms of certain excesses that don't really exist. Things are actually fairly simple.