Deny Reality Quotes & Sayings

Christianity doesn't deny the reality of suffering and evil ... Our hope ... is not based on the idea that we are going to be free of pain and suffering. Rather, it is based on the conviction that we will triumph over suffering. — Brennan Manning

Jewish, Christian, and Muslim theologians have insisted for centuries that God does not exist and that there is 'nothing' out there; in making these assertions, their aim was not to deny the reality of God but to safeguard God's transcendence. — Karen Armstrong

Okay," Jack said. "I'm not really sure what you want from me." "I want you to stop trying to deny every feeling I ever have, Jack. I want you to stop telling me not to feel bad when I already do. I want you to stop telling me I look fine when it's so patently obvious that I don't. I want you to stop being so uncomfortable when things aren't perfect that you immediately start trying to pretend they are." Even as the words were coming out of my mouth, I realized how unfair I was being. Yes, I wanted for him to accept my emotional reality. But only when it suited me. I also wanted him to tell me that the baby would be fine when it was what I needed to hear. At least Jack was consistent. I was a nut job. — Jennifer Coburn

The best part about owning it is that when you accept what really is, you stop living in the past or in some dream world and start living in the real world, where you can actually do something about what's wrong. It enables action and change, whereas when you deny the reality of your situation, you stagnate. You can't get to the breakthrough place where you see what's true and recognize what you need to change. Owning it is a way to release your demons and come out on the other side. — Bethenny Frankel

I cannot deny that I have doubts, reservations and fears. However, I have come to the conclusion that in the present regional and international reality, Israel must act with courage to accept the political plan which I described. — Ariel Sharon

The great educational value of the war against Christendom lies in the absolute truthlessness of the priest. Such purity is rare enough. The 'man of God' is entirely incapable of honesty, and only arises at the point where truth is defaced beyond all legibility. Lies are his entire metabolism, the air he breathes, his bread and his wine. He cannot comment upon the weather without a secret agenda of deceit. No word, gesture, or perception is slight enough to escape his extravagant reflex of falsification, and of the lies in circulation he will instinctively seize on the grossest, the most obscene and oppressive travesty. Any proposition passing the lips of a priest is necessarily totally false, excepting only insidiouses whose message is momentarily misunderstood. It is impossible to deny him without discovering some buried fragment or reality. — Nick Land

At times, reality is love's great challenge. When our old stories and dreams are shattered, our first instinct may be to resist, deny, or cling to the way things were. But if we loosen our grip, often what fills the space is a tender forgiveness and the potential for a new and different kind of love. — Sharon Salzberg

When you deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Him, you die while you simultaneously truly live. That is when you experience the reality that "whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Matthew 16:25). — Tony Evans

I am firmly convinced that there is life after death, not in a primitive sense but as the entry of my completely finite person into God's infinity, as a transition into another reality beyond the dimension of space and time that pure reason can neither affirm nor deny. — Hans Kung

Chronosophy does involve ethics. Because our sense of time involves our ability to separate cause and effect, means and end. The baby, again, the animal, they don't see the difference between what they do now and what will happen because of it. They can't make a pulley, or a promise. We can. Seeing the difference between now and not now, we can make the connection. And there morality enters in. Responsibility. To say that a good end will follow from a bad means is just like saying that if I pull a rope on this pulley it will lift the weight on that one. To break a promise is to deny the reality of the past; therefore it is to deny the hope of a real future.
If time and reason are functions of each other, if we are creatures of time, then we had better know it, and try to make the best of it. To act responsibly. — Ursula K. Le Guin

It is reality that awakens possibilities, and nothing would be more perverse than to deny it. — Robert Musil

New York remains what it has always been : a city of ebb and flow, a city of constant shifts of population and economics, a city of virtually no rest. It is harsh, dirty, and dangerous, it is whimsical and fanciful, it is beautiful and soaring - it is not one or another of these things but all of them, all at once, and to fail to accept this paradox is to deny the reality of city existence. — Paul Goldberger

This is an important distinction, because most of the modern philosophies that deny that we can know reality, and ultimately truth, make the mistake of constructing epistemological systems to explain how we know reality without first acknowledging the fact that we do know reality. After they begin within the mind and find they can't construct a bridge to reality, they then declare that we can't know reality. It is like drawing a faulty road map before looking at the roads, then declaring that we can't know how to get from Chicago to New York! — Josh McDowell

I don't deny people their fantasy life, but I do think that we desperately need to start realizing just how complicated our reality is in America. Sitcoms just don't show us that. — Richard Rodriguez

It was as though some huge force were pressing down upon you - something that penetrated inside your skull, battering against your brain, frightening you out of your beliefs, persuading you, almost, to deny the evidence of your senses. In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. — George Orwell

It makes no sense at all to try to deny the reality of Jewish power and prominence in popular culture. Any list of the most influential production executives at each of the major movie studios will produce a heavy majority of recognizably Jewish names. — Michael Medved

Zen is all-inclusive. It never denies, it never says no to anything; it accepts everything and transforms it into a higher reality. — Rajneesh

Climate change is like that; it's hard to keep it in your head for very long. We engage in this odd form of on-again-off-again ecological amnesia for perfectly rational reasons. We deny because we fear that letting in the full reality of this crisis will change everything. And we are right.5 — Naomi Klein

The most consistent versions of materialism deny the reality of anything beyond matter - no soul, no spirit, no will, no mind. This is called reductionism: Humans are reduced to biochemical machines. — Nancy Pearcey

Newt had said I loved Ivy more than the church. I wasn't going to deny it, but there were all kinds of love, and how shallow would I be if my anchor to reality was a hunk of real estate? It was the people who were there that made it mean something. — Kim Harrison

To deny that human beings are filled with anti-social passions betrays a denial of reality and a lack of self-awareness. One has to be taught nonsense for a great many formative years to believe it. — Dennis Prager

Life is inherently disturbing. That's why we've created the myths-to help us overcome, defend or deny, to transcend the grim reality of what here seems to be. — Laurence Overmire

Love and self-denial for the object loved go hand-in-hand. If I profess to love a certain person, and yet will neither give my silver nor my gold to relieve his wants, nor in any way deny myself comfort or ease for his sake, such love is contemptible; it wears the name, but lacks the reality of love: true love must be measured by the degree to which the person loving will be willing to subject himself to crosses and losses, to suffering and self-denials. After all, the value of a thing in the market is what a man will give for it, and you must estimate the value of a man's love by that which he is willing to give up for it. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Satre found atheism 'cruel', Camus 'dreadful', and Nietzsche 'maddening'. Atheists who consistently try to live without God tend to commit suicide or go insane. Those who are inconsistent live on the ethical or aesthetic shadow of Christian truth while they deny the reality that made the shadow. — Norman Geisler

No man can deny the reality of kingdom of God because its laws are programmed within them — Sunday Adelaja

We are rarely able to interact only with folks like ourselves, who think as we do. No matter how much some of us deny this reality and long for the safety and familiarity of sameness, inclusive ways of knowing and living offer us the only true way to emancipate ourselves from the divisions that limit our minds and imaginations. — Bell Hooks

Grieving must be done in its own time. To deny the human reality that pain hurts only delays the process. — Roger Delano Hinkins

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

Reality may not be what you want it to be, but it is the reality you now must face. You can deny this reality and try to wish it away, or you can accept it and not waste any energy on wanting it to be different. — David W. Earle

By going along with feelings, you unify your emotional, mental and bodily states. When you try to fight or deny them, you divorce yourself from the reality of your being. — Jane Roberts

The process [of mass-media deception] has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt ... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies all this is indispensably necessary. — George Orwell

Breast cancer, I can now report, did not make me prettier or stronger, more feminine or spiritual. What it gave me, if you want to call this a "gift," was a very personal, agonizing encounter with an ideological force in American culture that I had not been aware of before - one that encourages us to deny reality, submit cheerfully to misfortune, and blame only ourselves for our fate. — Barbara Ehrenreich

The voice incessantly quelled in the chorus of human voices will always be the voice of God. And given a reality of this magnitude, I would be well advised to cease my babbling and encourage those around me to do the same. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

It's understandable why someone would like their entertainment to provide an escape from modern day worries and the reality of war. We feel this record creates a healthy opportunity to process some of these emotions rather than deny them. — Eddie Vedder

What you know
and don't deny that
you don't know
and knowing this
you know
what and why
you don't know.
Right? — Jennifer Hillman

In the end of the film there is hope, ... There's beauty in ugliness. It's really important for us Latinos to acknowledge each other and not deny the reality, because our reality is fascinating. — Jonathan Jakubowicz

Laws, it is said, are for the protection of the people. It's unfortunate that there are no statistics on the number of lives that are clobbered yearly as a result of laws: outmoded laws; laws that found their way onto the books as a result of ignorance, hysteria or political haymaking; antilife laws; biased laws; laws that pretend that reality is fixed and nature is definable; laws that deny people the right to refuse protection. A survey such as that could keep a dozen dull sociologists out of mischief for months. — Tom Robbins

If I don't speak the name of this thing, it still feels like it isn't real. Does that make any sense?'
The ColU spoke to them now, whispering in their earphones. 'It makes plenty of sense, Mardina Eden Jones Guthfrithson. The power of names: probably one of the oldest human superstitions, going back to the birth of language itself. To deny a name is to deny a thing reality. And yet now it is time to name names. — Stephen Baxter

The one factor that nobody can deny in life is the influence of weather; it makes demands upon human beings, every person faces its reality. Weather reminds us that the world is not composed of technological gismos and climate controlled office buildings. — Kilroy J. Oldster

To break a promise is to deny the reality of the past; therefore it is to deny the hope of a real future. — Ursula K. Le Guin

To deny that there was this dark side of life would be like pretending that the cold of winter was somehow only a temporary illusion, a way station on the way to the higher "reality" of long, warm, pleasant summers. But summer, it turned out, was no more real than the snow that melted in wintertime. — David Guterson

Deny that lack has any place or reality in your
thought or your affairs and affirm plenty as the only
appearance. Praise what you have, be it ever so little,
and insist that it is constantly growing larger. — Charles Fillmore

Sometimes you have to look reality in the eye, and deny it. — Garrison Keillor

For the record: Quantum mechanics does not deny the existence of objective reality. Nor does it imply that mere thoughts can change external events. Effects still require causes, so if you want to change the universe, you need to act on it. — Lawrence M. Krauss

But if I've learned anything, it is that goodness prevails, not in the absence of reasons to despair, but in spite of them. If we wait for clean heroes and clear choices and evidence on our side to act, we will wait forever, and my radio conversations teach me that people who bring light into the world wrench it out of darkness, and contend openly with darkness all of their days. [ ... ] They were flawed human beings, who wrestled with demons in themselves as in the world outside. For me, their goodness is more interesting, more genuinely inspiring because of that reality. The spiritual geniuses of the ages and of the everyday simply don't let despair have the last word, nor do they close their eyes to its pictures or deny the enormity of its facts. They say, "Yes, and ... ," and they wake up the next day, and the day after that, to live accordingly. — Krista Tippett

There are Eastern religions that deny the reality of pain and suffering. They just try to wipe it away by saying it's all an illusion. — Lee Strobel

The truth is, the very act of adoption is built upon loss. For the birth parents, the loss of their biological offspring, the relationship that could have been, a very part of themselves. For the adoptive parents, the loss of giving birth to a biological child, the child whose face will never mirror theirs. And for the adopted child, the loss of the birth parents, the earliest experience of belonging and acceptance. To deny adoption loss is to deny the emotional reality of everyone involved. — Sherrie Eldridge

They deny reality because the implications of that reality are, quite simply, unthinkable. — Naomi Klein

We can deny reality, but we can't deny the consequences of denying reality. — Richard Paul Evans

Avoiding awareness of our own reality is often an attempt to deny thoughts, desires, or intentions that we feel will threaten or contradict the needs of those with whom we feel strong attachment. We instinctively hide feelings and thoughts we assume would be threatening to other people, and might cause them to leave us. . . People who learned early in life to adapt to parental needs to an extent that we were unable to focus on our own developmental tasks and needs will often continue to play out this working mode" of conditional attachment. "You will attach to me as long as I meet your needs. — Mary Crocker Cook

Jean-Jacques Rousseau defined civilization as when people build fences. A very perceptive observation. And it's true - all civilization is the product of a fenced-in lack of freedom. The Australian Aborigines are the exception, though. They managed to maintain a fenceless civilization until the seventeenth century. They're dyed-in-the-wool free. They go where they want, when they want, doing what they want. Their lives are a literal journey. Walkabout is a perfect metaphor for their lives. When the English came and built fences to pen in their cattle, the Aborigines couldn't fathom it. And, ignorant to the end of the principle at work, they were classified as dangerous and antisocial and were driven away, to the outback. So I want you to be careful. The people who build high, strong fences are the ones who survive the best. You deny that reality only at the risk of being driven into the wilderness yourself. — Haruki Murakami

Q: But isn't race "just skin deep"? Don't most scientists now agree that race is a social construct, not a biological reality? A: Biological evidence shows that race is not a social construct. Coroners in crime labs can identify race from a skeleton or even just the skull. They can identify race from blood, hair, or semen as well. To deny the existence of race is unscientific and unrealistic. Race is much more than "just skin deep. — J. Philippe Rushton

This is the latest approach by antitheistic thinkers who seek to explain good and evil apart from God. Over the years naturalists first denied causality as an argument to prove God's existence: Why do we have to have a cause? Why can't the universe just be? Then they denied design as an argument for God's existence: Why do we need a designer? Why could it not have all just come together with the appearance of design? Now they deny morality as an argument for God's existence: Why do we need to posit a moral law or a moral law source? Why can't it just be a pragmatic reality? This I find fascinating! They want a cause for suffering or a design for suffering, but they have already denied that either of these is necessary to account for every effect. This — Ravi Zacharias

Understanding the physiological and neurological features of spiritual experiences should not be interpreted as an attempt to discredit their reality or explain them away. Rather, it demonstrates their physical existence as a fundamental, shared part of human nature. Spiritual experiences cannot be considered irrational, since we have seen that, given their physiological basis, experiencers' descriptions of them are perfectly rational... All human perceptions of material reality can ultimately be documented as chemical reactions in our neurobiology; all our sensations, thoughts, and memories are ultimately reducible to chemistry, yet we feel no need to deny the existence of the material world; it is not less real because our perceptions of it are biologically based... It is not rational to assume that the spiritual reality of core experiences is any less real than the more scientifically documentable material reality. — Sabina Magliocco

I cannot disobey something which I do not know and the reality of which I have the right to deny. — Vladimir Nabokov

Dualism is the closest human feeling, but it is not necessarily the highest human philosophy. On the contrary, all great philosophies have been monistic. Man experiences the world dualistically, but monism is the essence of all human thinking. Philosophy disagrees with dualism. However, this fact does not mean too much, because life, being superior to thought, may not be judged by it. In reality, since we are human beings, we are living two realities. We can deny these two worlds, but we cannot escape from them. Life does not depend too much on our understanding of it. — Alija Izetbegovic

The Social Justice Warrior is best regarded as a sort of unpaid amateur propagandist. SJWs are clearly not insane, as their observable discomfort with the more troubling and problematic aspects of reality suffices to demonstrate that they are able to distinguish between that which is real and that which is not. They are also not sociopathic because they are herd animals who are often willing to lie in the perceived interest of the herd-defined narrative, not only in their own immediate interest. Also unlike sociopaths, they are seldom inclined to deny previous statements when caught out but instead tend to respond by moving the goalposts, abruptly falling silent, or otherwise ending the conversation. — Vox Day

The child must adapt to ensure the illusion of love, care, and kindness, but the adult does not need this illusion to survive. He can give up his amnesia and then be in a position to determine his actions with open eyes. Only this path will free him from his depression. Both the depressive and the grandiose person completely deny their childhood reality by living as though the availability of the parents could still be salvaged: the grandiose person through the illusion of achievement, and the depressive through his constant fear of losing "love." Neither can accept the truth that this loss or absence of love has already happened in the past, and that no effort whatsoever can change this fact. — Alice Miller

It is always easier to deny reality than to allow our worldview to be shattered, a fact that was as true of die-hard Stalinists at the height of the purges as it is of libertarian climate change deniers today. — Naomi Klein

I am not a believer of the law of attraction (though I do not deny the possibilities of it to be true), but I firmly believe in the ability of making choices, the ability to take conscious decisions. — Namrata Kumari

I withdraw my consent from reality. I deny it my assistance. I dedicate myself to the temptations of escapism, and throw myself wholeheartedly into the endlessness of unreality. — Ursula Poznanski

And here, for me, is another profound truth: understanding, as well as truth, comes not only from the intellect but also from the body. When we begin to listen to our bodies, we begin to listen to reality through our own experiences; we begin to trust our intuition, our hearts. The truth is also in the "earth" of our own bodies. So it is a question of moving from theories we have learned to listening to the reality that is in and around us. Truth flows from the earth. This is not to deny the truth that flows from teachers, from books, from tradition, from our ancestors, and from religious faith. But the two must come together. Truth from the sky must be confirmed and strengthened by truth from the earth. We must learn to listen and then to communicate. — Jean Vanier

Upon reflection, it is relatively easy to understand how Americans come to deny the evils of mass incarceration. Denial is facilitated by persistent racial segregation in housing and schools, by political demagoguery, by racialized media imagery, and by the ease of changing one's perception of reality simply by changing television channels. There is little reason to doubt the prevailing "common sense" that black and brown men have been locked up en masse merely in response to crime rates when one's sources of information are mainstream media outlets. — Michelle Alexander

On top of the abuse and neglect, denial heaps more hurt upon the child by requiring the child to alienate herself from reality and her own experience. In troubled families, abuse and neglect are permitted; it's the talking about them that is forbidden. — Marcia Sirota

To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality; to assert the emptiness of things is to miss their reality. The more you talk and think about it, the further astray you wander from the truth. Stop talking and thinking and there is nothing you will not be able to know. — Sengcan

The more you know, the more unflinchingly you deny casual beliefs and Accepted Wisdom when it flies in the face of reality, the more carefully you observe the world and its people around you, the better chance you have of writing something meaningful and well-crafted. — Harlan Ellison

Finally, it is important to make it clear that imagination is not an exercise for those detached from reality, those who live in the air. On the contrary, when we imagine something, we do it necessarily conditioned by a lack in our concrete reality. When children imagine free and happy schools, it is because their real schools deny them freedom and happiness. — Paulo Freire

have learned that the process of teaching and learning, of communication, involves movement, back and forth: the one who is healed and the one who is healing constantly change places. As we begin to understand ourselves, we begin to understand others. It is part of the process of moving from idealism to reality, from the sky to the earth. We do not have to be perfect or to deny our emotions. — Jean Vanier

Whenever I come across someone speaking negatively about escapism or looking down on those who seek a temporary escape from this world, I can't help but look at them as absolute fools. To deny someone the right to find temporary peace in escapism is to deny human nature itself as well as all the benefits of such a beautiful concept. Often times, these instances show them saying that "it'll only make things worse" or "it's not gonna change anything", except, a lot of times, that's not the case at all. How many times has someone shut themselves away from the world by listening to a song they hold dear only to return more ready to face the world than before, how many times has someone learned something about themselves through the fictional events of a novel that they wouldn't have other wise, how many times has society experienced great change through people who dreamed of making the world a better place, only to eventually make those dreams into a reality. — Justin Allen

When you're right there in the crisi, you'll do anything to make yourself feel better, distract yourself from the misery, deny reality, not matter how stupid. — Anna Maxted

For sure we live in a youth-obsessed culture that is constantly trying to tell us that if we're not young and glowing and "hot," we don't matter. But I refuse to buy into such a distorted view of reality. And I would never lie about or deny my age. To do so is to contribute to a sickness pervading our society - the sickness of wanting to be what you're not. I know for sure that only by owning who and what you are can you step into the fullness of life. I feel sorry for anyone who buys into the myth that you can be what you once were. The way to your best life isn't denial. It's owning every moment and staking a claim to the here and now. You're not the same woman you were a decade ago; if you're lucky, you're not the same woman you were last year. The whole point of aging, as I see it, is change. If we let them, our experiences can keep teaching us about ourselves. I celebrate that. Honor it. Hold it in reverence. And I'm grateful for every age I'm blessed to become. — Oprah Winfrey

You do believe it,' he said. 'You do believe everything. We all believe everything, even when we deny everything. The denyers believe. The unbelievers believe. Don't you feel in your heart that these contradictions do not really contradict: that there is a cosmos that contains them all? The soul goes round upon a wheel of stars and all things return; perhaps Strake and I have striven in many shapes, beast against beast and bird against bird, and perhaps we shall strive for ever. But since we seek and need each other, even that eternal hatred is an eternal love. Good and evil go round in a wheel that is one thing and not many. Do you not realize in your heart, do you not believe behind all your beliefs, that there is but one reality and we are its shadows; and that all things are but aspects of one thing: a centre where men melt into Man and Man into God?'
'No,' said Father Brown. — G.K. Chesterton

There are those, of course, who deny that they need any form of authority. They are the popular atheists and agnostics. Such men say that they must be shown by 'reason' whatever they are to accept as true. But the great thinkers among non-Christian men have taken no such position. They know that they cannot cover the whole area of reality with their knowledge. — Cornelius Van Til

Whether you face reality head on and make a life change, or deny your responsibility, you've made a choice. The way I see it you choose either a life of abundant strength and energy, or you're living in the gap, far beneath the quality of life you could be enjoying. — Shawn Phillips

The reality of life is that, your friends can deny you, your family can deny you but God will never deny you. — Abdulazeez Henry Musa

I have, and always will, respect people that keep it real no matter what. Most people say "Just keep it real with me," but the fact of the matter is this: Most people can't handle the truth, don't want to accept the truth, deny the truth, or simply aren't willing to face THEIR truth. The next time that you tell somebody to be honest with you, make sure that you mean what you say. Have the courage to pay more attention, listen, and observe. But have greater courage to acknowledge "what is" and face YOUR truth with boldness. The truth is better than a lie any day. Be fearless! — Stephanie Lahart

Atheism became the salvation of the wise and it was common knowledge that if God is for you then reality was against you. Among the core beliefs that the survivors shared, there were two considered supreme: the right to life, and the wisdom that God was just an imaginary being the religious used to deny the permanence of death. — C.J. Anderson

We live in this irreparably broken world, and I don't wish to deny reality, but the amazing thing to me is not that we refuse to relinquish hope as a species. The amazing thing is that we're right to hold on to hope. The world may be broken, but hope is not crazy ... Obviously not all stories end happily. We don't always have good fortune, but hope gives us, as a species and as individuals, what we otherwise wouldn't have: A chance. — John Green

To him a thinking man's job was not to deny one reality at the expense of the other, but to include and to connect. — Ursula K. Le Guin

You can't deny reality just because you can't explain it. — Toby Jones

To bracket form and finality out of one's investigations as far as reason allows is a matter of method, but to deny their reality altogether is a matter of metaphysics. — David Bentley Hart

What white Americans do not face when they regard a Negro reality- the fact that life is tragic. Life is tragic simply because he earth turn and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps, the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves all he beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, race, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which us rye inly fact we have. — James Baldwin

What is a body that casts no shadow? Nothing, a formlessness, two-dimensional, a comic-strip character. If I deny my own profound relationship with evil I deny my own reality. I cannot do, or make; I can only undo, unmake. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Atheist: 'I hear the voice of conscience, but I deny the reality of God.' St. Thomas: 'That is like listening to someone speak, but denying that anyone is there.' Atheist: 'That's right; nobody is.' St. Thomas: 'Then you deny not only God but conscience, because you consider it a hallucination.' Atheist: 'I misspoke. What I meant to say is that when I am listening to conscience, I am really listening to myself.' St. Thomas: 'Then you still deny conscience, because you deny its authority to judge you. Instead you claim to judge yourself, but no one can be judge in his own case. — J. Budziszewski

Now, we deny not, but that politicians may sometimes abuse religion, and make it serve for the promoting of their own private interests and designs; which yet they could not do so well neither, were the thing itself a mere cheat and figment of their own, and had no reality at all in nature, nor anything solid at the bottom of it. — Ralph Cudworth

I Don't Know whether lust is a human coarseness or a human fineness: I don't know why death holds a so sweet lure since it would take away my Body: I don't know that I wouldn't deny my Christ, if I had one, three times before a given cockcrow: I don't know on the other hand that I would: I don't know whether honor is a reality in human beings or a pose: I don't know that I mayn't be able to think with my Body when it is in its coffin. — Mary MacLane

Hell has been cloaked in folklore and disguised in fiction for so long, many people deny the reality of such a place. — Billy Graham

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. — Anthony Daniels

Midlife dynamically, for both straight and gay males, is often challenging as we face the reality that many of the dreams we had for our lives might not become a reality and unresolved conflicts come to the surface. For us to successfully transition in to the next phase of our lives we must find reconciliation of these issues. And for the gay male there is a sense that the gay self we have tried to keep in the closet or so many years begins to scream out. "Time is running out. When do I get to live?" You can't ignore that voice in the end, you can try and suppress it, and you can try and deny it, you can try and silence it by filling your life with other noises and diverting attention ... but that voice still exists. "Will my entire life be a lie? — Anthony Venn-Brown

Through the present moment, you have access to the power of life itself, that which has traditionally been called "God." As soon as you turn away from it, God ceases to be a reality in your life, and all you are left with is the mental concept of God, which some people believe in and others deny. Even belief in God is only a poor substitute for the living reality of God manifesting every moment of your life. — Eckhart Tolle

The most effective way to distort reality is to deny it; if we tell ourselves there isn't a problem, then we never have to worry about what to do about it. And the most effective way to deny a reality is to make it invisible. — Melanie Joy

In reality, those who deny climate change and demand a halt to emissions reduction and mitigation work, want us to take a huge gamble with the future of every human being on the planet, every future human being, our children and grand children, and every other living species — Edward Davey

If we generic gay and lesbian whitefolks set as our movement's goal being assimilated into American culture, getting 'our piece of the pie,' we ignore or deny the reality that gay and lesbian people of color will never be assimilated in the same way within this system because it was constituted to exclude them. — Mab Segrest

Oh yes, I don't deny I married you because I was sorry for you. And then-I found you the best and jolliest and dearest little pal and chum a fellow ever had. Witty-loyal-sweet. You made me believe again in the reality of friendship and love. — L.M. Montgomery

Never deny yourself any pleasure, real or imaginary. — Marty Rubin

Americans feel that this federal city belongs to them, but if they lay claim to the national treasures, they can't deny their collective responsibility for the other Washington where drugs, murder, and poverty are testaments to the nation's failure. Washington is America's city, in glorious myth and tragic reality. — Harry S. Jaffe

Concepts of well-being for countries, for peoples and for individuals are changing. In such a world, to argue for rules that never change would be to deny the reality found in scientific knowledge and reasoned judgment. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Materialists thereby deny the reality of mind (while they use their minds to advance materialism), determinists deny the reality of human choice (while they choose determinism), and relativists deny the fact of right and wrong (while they judge you if you disagree). — Nancy Pearcey

A lot of people are living in a dream world - they want to deny that aging occurs or believe it doesn't have to occur. They'll hold on to this belief until the moment they die. The reality will eventually hit them. — S. Jay Olshansky

Love for that princess became for him the expression for an eternal love, assumed a religious character, was transfigured into a love for the Eternal Being, which did to be sure deny him the fulfilment of his love, yet reconciled him again by the eternal consciousness of its validity in the form of eternity, which no reality can take from him. — Soren Kierkegaard