Understanding Reality Quotes

Since my logic aims to teach and instruct the understanding, not that it may with the slender tendrils of the mind snatch at and lay hold of abstract notions (as the common logic does), but that it may in very truth dissect nature, and discover the virtues and actions of bodies, with their laws as determined in matter; so that this science flows not merely from the nature of the mind, but also from the nature of things.

The truth, I discovered, is a tree that grows as a man gains access to experience. A child sees the acorn of his daily life, but a man looks back on the oak.

No more harmful nonsense exists than [the] common supposition that deepest insight into great questions about the meaning of life or the structure of reality emerges most readily when a free, undisciplined, and uncluttered (read, rather, ignorant and uneducated) mind soars above mere earthly knowledge and concern.

Consider the concepts referred to in the words 'where', 'when', 'why', 'being', to the elucidation of which innumerable volumes of philosophy have been devoted. We fare no better in our speculations than a fish which should strive to become clear as to what is water.

The world is his who can see through its pretension.

When we look at thing, we must examine its essence and treat its appearance merely as an usher at the threshold, we must, once we cross the threshold, grasp the essence of the thing.

My purpose is to explain, not the meaning of words, but the nature of things.

We are looking for a complete, coherent, and simple understanding of reality. Given what we know about the universe, there seems to be no reason to invoke God as part of this description.

It seems to me that man is made to act rather than to know: the principles of things escape our most persevering researches.

I definitely feel that we cannot do the fantastic things based on the real, unless we first know the real.

Ignorance isn't bliss, but sometimes ignorance makes it possible for us to sleep at night.

There are for man only two principles available for a mental grasp of reality, namely, those of teleology and causality. What cannot be brought under either of these categories is absolutely hidden to the human mind. An event not open to an interpretation by one of these two principles is for man inconceivable and mysterious. Change can be conceived as the outcome either of the operation of mechanistic causality or of purposeful behavior; for the human mind there is no third way available.

You can try to control people, or you can try to have a system that represents reality. I find that knowing what's really happening is more important than trying to control people.

Philosophy is an attempt by man to find cause and effect. Religion has the same goal.

I like reality. It tastes like bread.

When you enter deeply into this moment, you see the nature of reality, and this insight liberates you from suffering and confusion. Peace is already there to some extent: the problem is whether we know how to touch it.

Reason and intellect are opening wedges in an understanding of reality.

Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it.

While their methods differ radically, artists and physicists share the desire to investigate the ways the interlocking pieces of reality fit together. This is the common ground upon which they meet.

Science,' said Mr Anders Anders. 'Science, not magic. I told you before: when things are not as they appear to be, it's because they're actually simpler than you think them to be. Things are never as difficult and complicated as folk believe. You'd be surprised just how straightforward and obvious things really are. The secret is in knowing how to look at them the right way.

Whether art is defined as a representation of or response to reality, it demands an intense engagement with things we haven't managed to understand fully.

All of my work is sort of fed by a question, a need to understand the world and why the world is what it is.

If you're asking me as the President, would I understand reality, I do.

The child intuitively comprehends that although these stories are unreal, they are not untrue.

I like writing about what to me are like questions that I have about myself and the human condition. I find quantum physics fascinating, so I like to write about that, and I like things that make me laugh.