Alter Reality Quotes & Sayings

In reality there are two, and only two, foundations of law; and they are both of them conditions without which nothing can give it any force: I mean equity and utility. With respect to the former, it grows out of the great rule of equality, which is grounded upon our common nature, and which Philo, with propriety and beauty, calls the mother of justice. All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they may alter the mode and application, but have no power over the substance, of original justice. The other foundation of law, which is utility, must be understood, not of partial or limited, but of general and public, utility, connected in the same manner with, and derived directly from, our rational nature: for any other utility may be the utility of a robber, but cannot be that of a citizen, - the interest of the domestic enemy, and not that of a member of the commonwealth. — Edmund Burke

Thoughts become perception, perception becomes reality. Alter your thoughts, alter your reality. — William James

Alter your perception and your reality changes. — Truth Devour

I'm a cartoonist, it's what I am at heart, so cartoons take reality and deform it and make it grotesque, you make it funny, but you alter it. If it works, it's based on reality. That's what I try to do. — Terry Gilliam

God has given us the DNA of righteousness. We are saints. Nothing we do will make us more righteous than we already are. Nothing we do will alter this reality. God knows our DNA. He knows that we are "Christ in me." And now He is asking us to join Him in what He knows is true! — John S. Lynch

Consciousness that is not translated into appropriate action is a betrayal of consciousness ... Living consciously is living responsibly toward reality. We do not necessarily have to like what we see but we recognize that wishes or fears or denials do not alter facts. — Nathaniel Branden

Finge went on. There are some things, however, they must not know. Prime among them, of course, is the manner in which we alter Reality when necessary. The insecurity such knowledge would arouse would be most harmful. It is always necessary to breed out of Reality any factors that might lead to such knowledge and we have never been troubled with it. — Isaac Asimov

The first step to finding your path to success is not to alter your dreams to fit reality, but to alter your reality to fit your dreams. — Tiffany L. Jackson

Reading good literature is not so different then taking good drugs, do it enough and it will certainly alter your mind. The drugs can have positive yet often negative affects as well, however literature will always have positive affects. Certainly no one has ever over dosed from reading too much, as far as I know. The best literature should bend your reality until you can tie it in a knot.
-Andrew Pritchard — Andrew James Pritchard

So think how this might alter the memory of The Matrix: In some protracted reality, film historians will reinvestigate an extremely commercial action movie made by people who (unbeknownst to the audience) would eventually transition from male to female. Suddenly, the symbolic meaning of a universe with two worlds - one false and constructed, the other genuine and hidden - takes on an entirely new meaning. — Chuck Klosterman

Literature is indispensable to the world. The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way a person looks at reality, then you can change it. — James Baldwin

The definition of disappointment in life is expectations minus reality equals disappointment. The only two solutions you have to get over disappointment is to either alter your reality or alter your expectations. — Randy Carlson

The only thing worth writing about is people. People. Human beings. Men and women whose individuality must be created, line by line, insight by insight. If you do not do it, the story is a failure. [ ... ] There is no nobler chore in the universe than holding up the mirror of reality and turning it slightly, so we have a new and different perception of the commonplace, the everyday, the 'normal', the obvious. People are reflected in the glass. The fantasy situation into which you thrust them is the mirror itself. And what we are shown should illuminate and alter our perception of the world around us. Failing that, you have failed totally. — Harlan Ellison

The first truth is the most basic affirmation of our faith: God loves us. This is not a general rule to which you, personally, may be an exception. It is not a conditional rule that applies only when you are good, pure, and lovable. God's passionate and personal love for each and every human being expresses who God is. Unfailing love is the divine nature and the divine choice in relation to us. God loves us with an overwhelming love that none of our sins can erase.While we can grieve and disappoint this love, nothing we do or fail to do can alter its depth or reality. It is a gift, a given.We cannot control whether God loves us by efforts to gain this love or even to lose it. Since we neither deserve nor earn such love, God's fondest dream is that we will receive and respond to it. — Marjorie, J. Thompson

To ask any parent to suffer the loss of a child is to ask more than any parent can possibly give. But to deny any individual the right to walk the path they have chosen, because we cannot imagine our lives without them, carries a heavy price. You have never known this because you have never faced this choice. You've never had to sacrifice anything, because of your power to alter reality to suit your whims. I understand this truth. We mortals have tried to soften it in platitudes. 'The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.' 'Death before dishonor.' In the end, nothing makes it easier to accept. I've given my life once for those I love, and I'm about to do it again. To have made any other choice was to grant fear dominion. Your son is a remarkable individual. Don't ask him to be less than he is. He has made his choice. — Kirsten Beyer

There are those who cannot see the stains on their souls. Some lack the capacity to look in the glass of introspection, perhaps, and others alter reality without and within. It — R.A. Salvatore

What are you doing?" Alain asked.
"Starting a fire, of course." Mari held up the thing in her hand. "It's a fire-starter. A really simple device. Haven't you ever seen one?"
Alain shook his head. "Never. That thing seems very complicated. I do not understand how it can work."
"How do you start fires?"
That was a Guild secret. Or was it? The elders had told him that no Mechanic could understand how it worked. What would this Mechanic say if he told her? "I use my mind to channel power to create a place where it is hot, altering the nature of the illusion there," Alain explained, "and then use my mind to put that heat on what I want to burn."
"Oh," Mechanic Mari said. "Is that actually how you visualize the process?"
"That is how it is done," Alain said.
"That's ... interesting." She grinned. "So, instead of making fire by doing something complicated or hard to understand like striking a flint, you just alter the nature of reality. That is a lot simpler. — Jack Campbell

If humanity has any hope of effecting real change for the better, it will not come from the Madison Avenue false reality makers who've cast Barack Obama as the savior of the world. To alter our course from tyranny to liberty, to defeat the corrupt elite, we must get past the puppets and confront the real power structure of the planet. — Alex Jones

You may not be able to alter reality, but you can alter your attitude towards it, and this, paradoxically, alters reality. Try it and see. — Margaret Atwood

Here's what girlfriends do for you: they provide the reality check. They are the ones who tell you when you have spinach between your teeth or when your ass looks fat in a pair of jeans or when you're being a bitch. They tell you, and there's no drama or agenda, like there would be if the message had come from your husband. They tell you the truth because you need to hear it, but it doesn't alter the bond between you. — Jodi Picoult

If I can alter my perception of the reality, I can change the reality itself. — Thomm Quackenbush

Winston worked in the RECORDS DEPARTMENT (a single branch of the Ministry of Truth) editing and writing for The Times. He dictated into a machine called a Speakwrite. Winston would receive articles or news-items which for one reason or another it was thought necessary to alter, or, in Newspeak, rectify. If, for example, the Ministry of Plenty forecast a surplus, and in reality the result was grossly less, Winston's job was to change previous versions so the old version would agree with the new one. — George Orwell

When Leonardo da Vinci wanted to create a whole new style of painting, one that was more lifelike and emotional, he engaged in an obsessive study of details. He spent endless hours experimenting with forms of light hitting various geometrical solids, to test how light could alter the appearance of objects. He devoted hundreds of pages in his notebooks to exploring the various gradations of shadows in every possible combination. He gave this same attention to the folds of a gown, the patterns in hair, the various minute changes in the expression of a human face. When we look at his work we are not consciously aware of these efforts on his part, but we feel how much more alive and realistic his paintings are, as if he had captured reality. — Robert Greene

Philosophers of science constantly discuss theories and representation of reality, but say almost nothing about experiment, technology, or the use of knowledge to alter the world. This is odd, because 'experimental method' used to be just another name for scientific method ... I hope [to] initiate a Back-to-Bacon movement, in which we attend more seriously to experimental science. Experimentation has a life of its own. — Ian Hacking

To whatever extent the Hell's Angels may or may be latent sadomasochists or repressed homosexuals is to me
after nearly a year in the constant company of outlaw motorcyclists
almost entirely irrelevant. There are literary critics who insist that Ernest Hemingway was a tortured queer and that Mark Twain was haunted to the end of his days by a penchant for interracial buggery. It is a good way to stir up a tempest in the academic quarterlies, but it won't change a word of what either man wrote, nor alter the impact of their work on the world they were writing about. Perhaps Manolete was a hoof fetishist, or suffered from terrible hemorrhoids as a result of long nights in Spanish horn parlors ... but he was a great matador, and it is hard to see how any amount of Freudian theorizing can have the slightest effect on the reality of the thing he did best. — Hunter S. Thompson

When I work with experimental gadgets, like new variations on virtual reality, in a lab environment, I am always reminded of how small changes in the details of a digital design can have profound unforeseen effects on the experiences of the humans who are playing with it. The slightest change in something as seemingly trivial as the use of a button can sometimes completely alter behavior patterns.
For instance, Stanford University researcher Jeremy Bailenson has demonstrated that changing the height of one's avatar in immersive virtual reality transforms self-esteem and social self-perception. Technologies are extensions of ourselves, and, like the avatars in Jeremy's lab, our identities can be shifted by the quirks of gadgets. It is impossible to work with information technology without also engaging in social engineering. — Jaron Lanier

The artist's task is not to alter the world as the eye sees it into a world of aesthetic reality, but to perceive the aesthetic reality within the actual reality. (On photographs by Helen Levitt) — James Agee

Deprivation or overstimulation, combined with fear and peer pressure, are the conversion tools of many religions. A loud Pentecostal service, an Evangelical revival, a fear-mongering sermon by an imam or a dark campfire service during a week of church camp are all designed to overwhelm the senses, confuse the mind and alter perceptions of reality. — Darrel Ray

You write in order to change the world ... if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it. — James Baldwin

In a world of shifting past, these memories are wheat in wind, fleet in dreams, shapes in clouds. Events, once happened, lose reality, alter with a glance, a storm, a night. In time, the past never happened. — Alan Lightman

THE FIRMER YOUR GRASP ON REALITY, THE MORE POWER YOU WILL HAVE TO ALTER IT FOR YOUR PURPOSES. — 50 Cent

What we need to consider about the computer has nothing to do with its efficiency as a teaching tool. We need to know in what ways it is altering our conception of learning, and how, in conjunction with television, it undermines the old idea of school. Who cares how many boxes of cereal can be sold via television? We need to know if television changes our conception of reality, the relationship of the rich to the poor, the idea of happiness itself. A preacher who confines himself to considering how a medium can increase his audience will miss the significant question: In what sense do new media alter what is meant by religion, by church, even by God? And if the politician cannot think beyond the next election, then we must wonder about what new media do to the idea of political organization and to the conception of citizenship. — Neil Postman

Just when she thought she had it all figured out something happened to test her faith or alter her view of reality. — Deanna Kahler

So a lot of me is still a little kid, and I think that kind of helps alter my sense of reality - it makes me able to just become Belle every single night. — Christy Romano

To live in modernity
an era contemporaneous with the triumph of the news
is to be constantly reminded that, thanks to science and technology, change and improvement are continuous and relentless. This is part of the reason we must keep checking the news in the first place: we might at any moment be informed of some extraordinary development that will fundamentally alter reality. Time is an arrow following a precarious, rapid and yet tantalizingly upward trajectory. — Alain De Botton

Comedy is inherently subversive because it turns the normal reality on its head. The art form is all about these questions and contradictions. In comedy, we're dealing with language that we all understand, but words can have a dozen other things around them that alter or affect meaning. — Paul Provenza

He thought each memory recalled must do some violence to its origins. As in a party game. Say the words and pass it on. So be sparing. What you alter in the remembering has yet a reality, known or not. — Cormac McCarthy

Even if you time travel your past, it can't be changed, likewise you can't possibly change your future, it is always the present which matters. — Pushpa Rana

To help with that, I suggested some new agreements - what I would come to call "The Four Agreements" - to alter old behavior patterns. I told them not to take things personally, and to stop making assumptions. I asked them to be impeccable with the wondrous gift of language: the words they spoke and the words that comprised their innermost thoughts. I asked them to do their best in every effort. Four simple agreements. I also reminded them again and again not to believe, but to listen. Put into practice, these new agreements would cause a disturbance that would alter their reality. — Miguel Ruiz

Our beliefs are what create our experiences. As we change our beliefs, we alter our perception, our version of reality. — Iyanla Vanzant

WHETHER OR NOT we believe that Heaven is open does not negate the truth that it is. Our thoughts do not alter the open heaven over our lives; instead, they determine whether or not we partake of this reality. Jesus Christ secured an open heaven for every single Spirit-indwelt believer. This is a fact. The question is: Do our minds agree with this fact or do they entertain a lie? — Bill Johnson

Unfortunately our children today seem to spend less and less time with their overworked parents, and so they draw more information about the world from the images on movie and TV screens. The true power of the media is the ability to redefine reality, to alter our expectations about what constitutes normal life. TV and the movies have abused that power by advancing the notion that wholesome, ordinary happiness is impossible. — Michael Medved

The church's teaching on marriage is unequivocal, it is uniquely, the union of a man and a woman and it is wrong that governments, politicians or parliaments should seek to alter or destroy that reality. — Keith O'Brien

Within your dreams, your subconscious reveals the secrets to alter your reality; It's up to you in your reality to stay faithful and ensure your dreams come true. — Jes Furhmann

You can create absolutely new reality, both in your personal and professional life and with the same people, by altering your perception towards life, and by putting necessary work into it. — Roshan Sharma

You are so part of the world
that your slightest action contributes to its reality.
Your breath changes the atmosphere.
Your encounters with others
alter the fabrics of their lives,
and the lives of those
who come in contact with them. — Jane Roberts

We're not concerned with the temporal and transient. Our success isn't measured in hours, or even centuries. Our focus is fixed on eternity. The gospel is hard to believe, and the people who bring it to the world are nobodies. The plan is still the same for all who are God's clay pots. To summarize, here is Paul's humble, five-point strategy: We will not lose heart. We will not alter the message. We will not manipulate the results, because we understand that a profound spiritual reality is at work in those who do not believe. We will not expect popularity, and therefore, we will not be disappointed. And we will not be concerned with visible and earthly success but devote our efforts toward that which is unseen and eternal. — John F. MacArthur Jr.

Obama was willing to compromise and Republicans were not. That's not a biased statement. One of my problems with the limitations of journalism is that straightforward descriptions of reality are seen as being biased. — Jonathan Alter

Consciousness is a mystery that faces the mystery of potential and transforms it into actuality. We do that with every choice we make. Our choices determine the destiny of the world. By making a choice, you alter the structure of reality — Jordan Petersen

Whether or not you currently feel that God is around doesn't alter reality. Whether or not you feel He loves you, or even that you are worthy of His love, doesn't change reality either. — Brant Hansen

Ancient philosophies were entranced by the order of the cosmos; they marveled at the mysterious power that kept the heavenly bodies in their orbits and the seas within bounds and that ensured that the earth regularly came to life again after the dearth of winter, and they longed to participate in this richer and more permanent existence. They expressed this yearning in terms of what is known as the perennial philosophy, so called because it was present, in some form, in most premodern cultures.11 Every single person, object, or experience was seen as a replica, a pale shadow, of a reality that was stronger and more enduring than anything in their ordinary experience but that they only glimpsed in visionary moments or in dreams. By ritually imitating what they understood to be the gestures and actions of their celestial alter egos - whether gods, ancestors, or culture heroes - premodern folk felt themselves to be caught up in their larger dimension of being. — Karen Armstrong

Events, once happened, lose reality, alter with a glance, a storm, a night. In time, the past never happened. But who could know? Who could know that the past is not as solid as this instant ... — Alan Lightman

The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness. But it does not matter much because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. — Thomas Merton

To possess and exercise omniscience is to never have sensed temperature, experienced a single emotion, or practiced a single vice. It is to have never been amazed, concerned, analytical, or sympathetic. By exercising omniscience, an Omni-maximum being could not move, be moved, or inspired. Such a being could not interfere, empathise, interject, alter, adjust, or give advice. Ever. Such a being could not devise a plan, hear music, imagine a story, or recognise art or deviancy in any guise, for it could never differentiate creativity from cold reality. Such a being could not know doubt, desire, success, or failure. It could not, therefore, know itself, and if it is incapable of that, then it is incapable of experiencing pleasure. — John Zande

The images which the [press] photographer has filtered from reality, whether particular events or the anguish of human reactions to them, already bear a stamp of authenticity which the photographer is powerless to alter by one jot or tittle; the meaning of the objects, by a process of purification, itself becomes the theme of the work. — Yukio Mishima

A person whom is unhappy with life realizes that their construction of a self-image is incompatible with their earthly reality. An unhappy person must alter their internal or external world; otherwise, their sadness, sorrow, grief, and misery will remain unabated. Misery and desperation can lead to change, but only if a person is willing to learn, explore, and try. — Kilroy J. Oldster