Paul Watzlawick Quotes

We only exist in terms of how we think we exist. Meaning every cultural development is fabricated and can be fabricated.

If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.

It is not important whether or not the interpretation is correct-- if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.

Everyone feels entitled to their own facts.

People value that part of knowledge which is known. They do not know how to avail themselves of the Unknown in order to reach knowledge. Is this not misguided?

The people of Tlön are taught that the act of counting modifies the amount counted, turning indefinites into definites. The fact that several persons counting the same quantity come to the same result is for the psychologists of Tlön an example of the association of ideas or of memorization.

I feel that the people I see in the media are sometimes more real than I am, which is utter bullshit.

In real science a hypothesis can never be proved true...A science which confines itself to correlating phenomena can never learn anything about the reality underlying the phenomena, while a science which goes further than this and introduces hypotheses about reality, can never acquire certain knowledge of a positive kind about reality; in whatever way we proceed, this is forever denied us.

Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real.

You know, when you're real and speak your truth (in respectful ways), people won't always like you. But you'll like you.

Real estate prices are way out of whack with what people earn.

Reality is not digital, an on-off state, but analog. Something gradual. In other words, reality is a quality that things possess in the same way that they possess, say, weight. Some people are more real than others, for example. It has been estimated that there are only about five hundred real people on any given planet, which is why they keep unexpectedly running into one another all the time.

There are always two deaths, the real one and the one people know about.

My life is a movie set. These people, they all think this is real, but it's not.

Our consciousness is our contribution to reality. What we perceive as real, becomes real.

My staged work looks so real that people actually take it for documentary. But, in fact, that is my intention, to disguise the manufacturedness of it. Half of my work, or probably more than that, is staged.

The bulk of the world's knowledge is an imaginary construction.

The only reality I can possibly know is the world as I perceive it at this moment. The only reality you can possibly know is the world as you see it at this moment. And the only certainty is that those perceived realities are different. There are as many “real worlds” as there are people!

It's not so much a question of whether we've shot it through 35mm or digital video; what is important is whether the audience accepts it as real.

We do always have to make sure we keep people safe. There are the right ways of doing it, and then there are ways that are ineffective.

A real litmus test for me is how people treat someone who is waiting on them. That's a dealbreaker for me.If I were on the verge of getting into a serious relationship and I saw that person be mean to a waiter... I'm out.

I'm pleased it turned out the way that it did, because I know lots of other people who did fantastic work and did not see this particular kind of recognition [like Emmy].

The way we're currently educating people about heroin is to say that heroin is so awful. Heroin is not so much the problem. It's when you combine it. It's hard to die from heroin alone.

On their way to freedom, some people find riches, some people find death.

Many people have just enough natural religion to make them immune to the real thing.