Delusive Quotes & Sayings

Wonder of wonders! Intrinsically all living beings are Buddhas, endowed with wisdom and virtue, but because men's minds have become inverted through delusive thinking they fail to perceive this. — Gautama Buddha

Condemned to Hope's delusive mine,
As on we toil from day to day,
By sudden blasts or slow decline
Our social comforts drop away. — Samuel Johnson

Would it be possible that I should not in any degree succeed? I can scarcely think so. Ah delusive hope, how much further wilt thou lead me? — John James Audubon

The physical ego serves as its own worst enemy when, by delusive material behavior, it eclipses its true nature as the ever blessed soul. — Paramahansa Yogananda

Democracy will itself accomplish the salutary universal change from delusive to real, and make a new blessed world of us by and by. — Thomas Carlyle

In doing zazen it is desirable to have a quiet room. You should be temperate in eating and drinking, forsaking all delusive relationships. Setting everything aside, think of neither good nor evil, right nor wrong. Thus having stopped the various functions of your mind, five up even the idea of becoming a Buddha. — Dogen

The physical ego, the active consciousness in man, should uplift its body-identified self into unity with the soul, its true nature; it should not allow itself to remain mired in the lowly delusive strata of the senses and material entanglement. — Paramahansa Yogananda

Lead then, said EVE. Hee leading swiftly rowld In tangles, and make intricate seem strait, To mischief swift. Hope elevates, and joy Bright'ns his Crest, as when a wandring Fire Compact of unctuous vapor, which the Night Condenses, and the cold invirons round, Kindl'd through agitation to a Flame, Which oft, they say, some evil Spirit attends, Hovering and blazing with delusive Light, Misleads th' amaz'd Night-wanderer from his way To Boggs and Mires, & oft through Pond or Poole, There swallow'd up and lost, from succour farr. — John Milton

Births and deaths are inevitable for man only during the state of ignorance in which he thinks he is the body and cannot exist without it. Only the man who will not seek the awakening of wisdom must suffer the nightmares and delusive dreams of births and deaths and the fanciful miseries and limitations attending them. (gt) — Paramahansa Yogananda

FALK. I feel myself like God's lost prodigal; I left Him for the world's delusive charms. With mild reproof He wooed me to His arms; And when I come, He lights the vaulted hall, Prepares a banquet for the son restored, And makes His noblest creature my reward. From this time forth I'll never leave that Light, - But stand its armed defender in the fight; Nothing shall part us, and our life shall prove A song of glory to triumphant love! — Henrik Ibsen

Many writers upon the science of political economy have declared that it is the duty of a nation first to encourage the creation of wealth; and second, to direct and control its distribution. All such theories are delusive. — Leland Stanford

In writing, as in life, faults are endured without disgust when they are associated with transcendent merit, and may be sometimes recommended to weak judgments by the lustre which they obtain from their union with excellence; but it is the business of those who presume to superintend the taste or morals of mankind to separate delusive combinations, and distinguish that which may be praised from that which can only be excused. — Samuel Johnson

Unnumbered suppliants crowd Preferment's gate
Athirst for wealth, and burning to be great;
Delusive Fortune hears th' incessant call,
They mount, they shine, evaporate, and fall. — Samuel Johnson

The very bulk of scientific publications is itself delusive. It is of very unequal value; a large proportion of it, possibly as much as three-quarters, does not deserve to be published at all, and is only published for economic considerations which have nothing to do with the real interests of science. — John Desmond Bernal

Men little think how immorally they act in rashly meddling with what they do not understand. Their delusive good intention is no sort of excuse for their presumption. — Yuval Levin

When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part. — George Bernard Shaw

Every reminiscence is colored by the way things are today, and therefore by a delusive point of view. — Albert Einstein

You, too, will be driven away from your native land and ancient domains as leaves are driven before the wintry storms. Sleep not longer, O Choctaws and Chickasaws, in false security and delusive hopes. Our broad domains are fast escaping from our grasp. — Tecumseh

The Cosmic Director has written His own plays, and assembled the tremendous casts for the pageant of the centuries. From the dark booth of eternity, He pours His creative beam through the films of successive ages, and the pictures are thrown on the screen of space. Just as the motion-picture images appear to be real, but are only combinations of light and shade, so is the universal variety a delusive seeming. The planetary spheres, with their countless forms of life, are naught but figures in a cosmic motion picture, temporarily true to five sense perceptions as the scenes are cast on the screen of man's consciousness by the infinite creative beam. — Paramahansa Yogananda

Decades have a delusive edge to them. They are not, of course, really periods at all, except as any other ten years may be. But we, looking at them, are caught by the different name each bears, and give them different attributes, and tie labels on them, as if they were flowers in a border. — Rose Macaulay

Drugs are delusive; they do not adjust anything. — Daniel D. Palmer

I would much rather fight pride than vanity, because pride has a stand-up way of fighting. You know where it is. It throws its black shadow on you, and you are not at a loss where to strike. But vanity is that delusive, that insectiferous, that multiplied feeling, and men that fight vanities are like men that fight midges and butterflies. It is easier to chase them than to hit them. — Henry Ward Beecher

An ignorant man, who is not fool enough to meddle with his clock, is however sufficiently confident to think he can safely take to pieces, and put together at his pleasure, a moral machine of another guise, importance and complexity, composed of far other wheels, and springs, and balances, and counteracting and co-operating powers. Men little think how immorally they act in rashly meddling with what they do not understand. Their delusive good intention is no sort of excuse for their presumption. They who truly mean well must be fearful of acting ill. — Edmund Burke

When harvests are exuberant, joy and health follow in their train; but let delusive prosperity draw industry from agriculture; let an insiduous disease attack one of its important products; let an insect, or a parasite, fasten on a single esculent, and mark the effect upon commerce and human life. Upon such an event all business is deranged. — Elias Hasket Derby

Scientific truth is always paradox, if judged by everyday experience, which catches only the delusive appearance of things. — Karl Marx

O Hope, sweet flatterer! thy, delusive touch
Sheds on afflicted minds the balm of comfort,
Relieves the load of poverty, sustains
The captive, bending with the weight of bonds,
And smooths the pillow of disease and pain. — Richard Glover

Now we must remark, that there are two parts in the Commandment-the first forbids the erection of a graven image, or any likeness; the second prohibits the transferring of the worship which God claims for Himself alone, to any of these phantoms or delusive shows. — John Calvin

No, there is nothing on the face of the earth that can, for a moment, bear a comparison with Christianity as a religion for man. Upon this the hope of the race hangs. From the very first, it took its position, as the pillar of fire, to lead the race onward. The intelligence and power of the race are with those who have embraced it; and now, if this, instead of proving indeed a pillar of fire from God, should be found but a delusive meteor, then nothing will be left to the race but to go back to a darkness that may be felt, and to a worse than Egyptian bondage. — Mark Hopkins

Spirit vibrated into matter; hence, both Spirit and matter exist. Matter, however, does not exist in the way that it appears to us. It exists as we see it owing to the delusive force of maya, which makes the indivisible Spirit seem finite and divisible to all appearances. Matter has existence in the same delusive way as does a mirage in the desert. — Paramahansa Yogananda

Before, I suspected I might not amount to anything, and now I now I won't, so at least it takes away the wearisome burden of delusive hope — Jasper Fforde

The truth is that art does not teach; it makes you feel, and any teaching that may arise from the feeling is an extra, and must not be stressed too much. In the modern world, and in Canada as much as anywhere, we are obsessed with the notion that to think is the highest achievement of mankind, but we neglect the fact that thought untouched by feeling is thin, delusive, treacherous stuff. — Robertson Davies

Someone who wants to attain enlightenment must be brave. He must rush into the crowd of enemies with a dagger. In the practice of Zen, enemies are our delusive thoughts and passions. — Yamada Koun

O sweet, delusive Noon, Which the morning climbs to find, O moment sped too soon, And morning left behind. — Helen Hunt Jackson

By engaging in a delusive quest for happiness, we bring only suffering upon ourselves. In our frantic search for something to quench our thirst, we overlook the water all around us and drive ourselves into exile from our own lives. — Sharon Salzberg

Delusive hope still points to distant good. — Euripides

it was a delusive pie, the crust being like a disappointing head, phrenologically speaking: full of lumps and bumps, with nothing particular underneath. — Charles Dickens

It seems important to find ways of reminding ourselves that most 'familiarity' is meditated and delusive. — David Foster Wallace

The air is so crisp it gives me a brief, delusive sense of health and youth.
those I don't have but I have learned not to scorn the substitutes: quiet, plenty of time, and a job to spend it on. — Wallace Stegner

But on they rould in heaps, and up the Trees Climbing, sat thicker then the snakie locks That curld MEGAERA: greedily they pluck'd The Frutage fair to sight, like that which grew Neer that bituminous Lake where SODOM flam'd; This more delusive, not the touch, but taste Deceav'd; they fondly thinking to allay Thir appetite with gust, instead of Fruit Chewd bitter Ashes, which th' offended taste VVith spattering noise rejected: oft they assayd, Hunger and thirst constraining, drugd as oft, VVith hatefullest disrelish writh'd thir jaws VVith foot and cinders fill'd; so oft they fell Into the same illusion, not as Man Whom they triumph'd once lapst. Thus — John Milton

A wandering knight
wambling in an endless road
Thinking to himself
Where the others are?
Taking care of what?
Who am I?
but a fading footprint
on a dark empty land
under a starless sky
seized by roaring shadows
and delusive hopes — Rixa White

Youth is marked by a breathtaking novelty that diminishes with each year of age - until life becomes a delusive struggle to break routines, escape the ordinary, and rediscover the joy of discovery. — Zack Love

in the words of George Bernard Shaw, marriage inspired by love brings two people together "under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions. — Sheena Iyengar

But loneliness is as delusive a belief in the pertinence of the world as is love: in choosing to feel lonely, as in choosing to love, one carves a space next to oneself to be filled by others - a friend, a lover, a toy poodle, a violinist on the radio. — Yiyun Li

An answer in words is delusive; it is really no answer to the questions you ask. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Most men seem to live for themselves, without much or any regard for thy glory, or for the good of others;
They earnestly desire and eagerly pursue the riches, honor, and pleasures of this life, as if they supposed that wealth, greatness, merriment, could make their immortal souls happy;
But, alas, what false delusive dreams are these!
And how miserable ere long will those be that sleep in them, for all out happiness consists in loving thee and being holy as thou art holy. — Arthur Bennett

While all the pomp and circumstance of war animated others, it only saddened me; and all of past reflection, all of future dread, made the whole grandeur of the martial scene, and all the delusive seduction of martial music, fill my eyes frequently with tears ... — Fanny Burney

Closure is just as delusive-it is the false hope that we can deaden our living grief. — Stephen Grosz

Man is the yokel par excellence, the booby unmatchable, the king dupe of the cosmos. He is chronically and unescapably deceived, not only by the other animals and by the delusive face of nature herself
by his incomparable talent for searching out and embracing what is false, and for overlooking and denying what is true. — H.L. Mencken

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. — Patrick Henry

Here am bound, the scorn of fate; 'Twas a dream that once a state I enjoyed of light and gladness. What is life? 'Tis but a madness. What is life? A thing that seems, A mirage that falsely gleams, Phantom joy, delusive rest, Since is life a dream at best, And even dreams themselves are dreams. — Pedro Calderon De La Barca

He bemoans our miseries with the tender pity of a Cowper, who, in warning us of life's grovelling pursuits and empty joys, seeks, by withdrawing us from their delusive dominion, to prepare us for "another and a better world." No. — Samuel Johnson

Unlawful pleasure, trenching on another's rights, is delusive and envenomed pleasure-its hollowness disappoints at the time, its poison cruelly tortures afterwards, its effects deprave forever. — Charlotte Bronte

Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? — Patrick Henry

The Lord wants us to escape this delusive world. He cries for us, for He knows how hard it is for us to gain His deliverance. But you have only to remember that you are His child. Don't pity yourself. You are loved just as much by God as are Krishna and Jesus. You must seek His love, for it encompasses eternal freedom, endless joy, and immortality. — Paramahansa Yogananda