Voltaire Quotes

I always see that there's a - from a philosophical point of view - there's the appearance of things that everybody wants you to think is happening, then there's the reality underneath it.

Sometimes what we see, what's going on in front of us, isn't really what's happening.

Now it's clear to me/ that everything you see/ ain't always what it seems.

I realize that nothing's as it seems.

Appearances are a glimpse of the unseen.

What lies behind appearance is usually another appearance.

Image is what people perceive my life to be. It's nothing like the truth.

I have the terrible feeling that, because I am wearing a white beard and am sitting in the back of the theatre, you expect me to tell you the truth about something. These are the cheap seats, not Mount Sinai.

Everything you see is not always real.

If we knew the truth, we'd see it; all else is system and outskirts.

Please remember: things are not what they seem.

An illusion which makes me happy is worth a verity which drags me to the ground.

In Shakespeare's world, characters cannot trust their senses. Is the ghost in Hamlet true and truthful, or is it a demon, tempting young Hamlet into murderous sin? Is Juliet dead or merely sleeping? Does Lear really stand at the edge of a great cliff? Or has the Fool deceived him to save his life?

Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.

Success has always been a great liar.

There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.

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

Photography deals exquisitely with appearances, but nothing is what it appears to be.

Dandyism is a lie which reveals the truth, and the truth is that we are what we pretend to be.

It seems to me that there are two kinds of trickery: the 'fronts' people assume before one another's eyes, and the 'front' a writer puts on the face of reality.

To be called one thing, is oftentimes to be another.

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

The world is cynical and sarcastic, but that doesn't mean that that's always the truth.

You never see what you want to see, forever playing to the gallery.

Like the physical, the psychical is not necessarily in reality what it appears to us to be.