Robert Benchley Quotes

Any refusal to recognize reality, for any reason whatever, has disastrous consequences. There are no evil thoughts except one: the refusal to think. Don't ignore your own desires.... Don't sacrifice them. Examine their cause. There is a limit to how much you should have to bear.

When hypocrisy is a character trait, it also affects one's thinking, because it consists in the negation of all the aspects of reality that one finds disagreeable, irrational or repugnant.

The Democrats have responded to the Republicans' lack of dealing with reality by truly not dealing with reality, either.

To the fantastic mental illness of Rationalism, hard facts are regrettable things, and to talk about them is to create them.

The neocons are not only denying reality but are attacking it.

We seem to prefer a comfortable lie to the uncomfortable truth. We punish those who point out reality, and reward those who provide us with the comfort of illusion. Reality is fearsome .. but experience tells us that more fearsome yet is evading it.

That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior....I think Obama gets up every morning with a worldview that is fundamentally wrong about reality...If you look at the continuous denial of reality, there has got to be a point where someone stands up and says that this is just factually insane.

People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state on innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.

Folks always seemed to think that as long as they didn't know about something bad, it wasn't happening, so whoever told them actually caused it to be true.

Why did we become blind, I don't know, perhaps one day we'll find out, Do you want me to tell you what I think, Yes, do, I don't think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see.

The intellectual's struggle to deny the obvious is never more desperate than when reality is unpleasant and at variance with his preconceptions and when full acknowledgment of it would undermine the foundations of his intellectual worldview.

Well I can tell you that for me generally speaking that I think things that I deal with are all to do with not accepting things, not excepting life on life's terms. My life becomes a lot easier when I'm willing to just accept. I don't have to like circumstances as they are, but I have to accept them and that's where I always seem to get thrown, when I try to will my way instead of accept things the way they are.

There are many people out there who don't even think of themselves as being averse to facts, but the truth is, they are not getting it.

Some people simply bury their heads in the sand and refuse to think about the sorrow of the world, but this is an unwise course, because, if we are entirely unprepared, the tragedy of life can be devastating.

Never underestimate the human capacity for wishful thinking and willful blindness,' said Miles. Such as a whole society of people who became so wrapped up in avoiding death, they forgot to be alive?

So you drive as far as you can, even when you can clearly read the sign. You want to think you are exempt, that it doesn’t apply to you. But it does. Life is still a dead end. And we still have a hard time believing it

The more clearly one sees this world; the more one is obliged to pretend it does not exist.

I don't think that the Olympic games are a good place to bring up any political issues because it should be about the athletes and about coming together. This year's motto was One World, One Dream and to take that away it's just not a good time.

All thinking, knowing, perception, space-time, occur in consciousness. You are a non-local consciousness. The world is in you.

The professor leaned forward. “But there’s nothing more profound than creating something out of nothing.” Her lovely face turned fierce. “Think about it Cath. That’s what makes a god—or a mother. There’s nothing more intoxicating than creating something from nothing. Creating something from yourself.

I think there is a part of me that's always a little bit like, "Why would I torture myself? Just in case you forgot how big the shoes are you're walking in, take a look again"

It's bullshit to think of friendship and romance as being different. They're not. They're just variations of the same love. Variations of the same desire to be close.

Nobody thinks about technical issues anymore because cameras or camera phones take care of that automatically. On the other hand, you still have the option of controlling every technical aspect. It's the most accessible, democratic medium available in the world.

Trade has always existed, but we used to defend our strategic interests. Could you imagine the United States allowing French engineering giant Alstom to purchase General Electric? I don't think so.