In my youth I, too, entertained some illusions; but I soon recovered from them.
I don’t deny that Cuba poverty exists, but at least the peasants there have an illusion of progress, whereas the Bolivian lives without hope.
The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.
The history of Western science confirms the aphorism that the great menace to progress is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.
There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.
The majority of men prefer delusion to truth. It soothes. It is easy to grasp. Above all, it fits more snugly than the truth into a universe of false appearances—of complex and irrational phenomena, defectively grasped.
See {638470} for more on the subject by Mencken.
… fear false knowledge
The people wish to be deceived; let them be deceived.
It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth …I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.
I know how illusory would be the belief that my vote determined anything; but nevertheless when I go to the polls I have a satisfaction in the sense that we are all engaged in a common venture.
Reality even when it is sad is better than illusions. Illusions are at the mercy of any winds that blow. Real happiness must come from within, from a fixed purpose and faith in one's fellow men.
Our perceptions are fallible. We sometimes see what isn't there. We are prey to optical illusions. Occasionally we hallucinate. We are error-prone.
Every generation lives with illusions.
War is pillage versus resistance and if illusions of magnitude could be transmuted into ideals of magnanimity, peace might be realized.
Nothing that was real ever died, only names, forms, and illusions.
I'm less interested in reality. I'm more interested in perception, the truth of the universe that we see.
A lot of preconceived notions that I had about fame and status and money and joy and pain, and all of these things that I thought I knew, I didn't.
Politics is a pendulum whose swings between anarchy and tyranny are fueled by perennially rejuvenated illusions.
Official truths are often powerful illusions.
When I consider life, it is all a cheat. Yet fooled with hope, people favor this deceit.
Any sufficiently badly-written science is indistinguishable from magic.
The trouble with illusions is that you aren't aware you have any until they are taken away from you.
But what is Hope? Nothing but the paint on the face of Existence; the least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of.
For love to last, you had to have illusions or have no illusions at all. But you had to stick to one or the other. It was the switching back and forth that endangered things.
If people are fans of 'Mindfreak,' they are going to be so excited with 'Believe.' They are actually going to see those illusions that people think can only happen with trick photography.
