Happiness Illusion Quotes & Sayings

We are born into this precious human existence to achieve the uni cation of opposites and become enlightened, or liberated, from the illusion of separation. — Dashama Konah Gordon

Who knows what true happiness is, not the conventional word.. but the naked terror. To the lonely themselves, that wears a mask, the most miserable outcast hugs some memory.. or some illusion. — Joseph Conrad

Must love be ever treated with profaneness as a mere illusion? or with coarseness as a mere impulse? or with fear as a mere disease? or with shame as a mere weakness? or with levity as a mere accident? whereas it is a great mystery and a great necessity, lying at the foundation of human existence, morality, and happiness,
mysterious, universal, inevitable as death. — Harriet Martineau

It was all a lie, it all stank, stank of lies, it all gave the illusion of meaning and happiness and beauty, and all of it was just putrefaction that no one would admit to. Bitter was the taste of the world. Life was a torment. — Hermann Hesse

"Pursuit of happiness" implies that we're running after happiness and happiness is running away from us. It also implies that happiness is somewhere out there, in material goods, which we have to pursue, whereas I believe that it is an illusion happiness is not out there, it is within us. — Satish Kumar

Soul mates' are fiction and an illusion; and while every young man and young woman will seek with all diligence and prayerfulness to find a mate with whom life can be most compatible and beautiful, yet it is certain that almost any good man and any good woman can have happiness and a successful marriage if both are willing to pay the price. — Spencer W. Kimball

Happy Endings are an illusion. Real life is filled with brief moments of fleeting happiness, but ultimately every life is a tragedy that ends in death and grief. — Oliver Gaspirtz

They were tough and sour, but as Pushkin said, 'Dearer to us than a host of truths is an exalting illusion.' I saw a happy man, whose cherished dream had so obviously come true, who had attained his goal in life, had gotten what he wanted, who was content with his fate and with himself. For some reason there had always been something sad mixed with my thoughts about human happiness, but now, at the sight of a happy man, I was overcome by an oppressive feeling close to despair.
- Gooseberries — Anton Chekhov

If freedom is a requisite for human happiness, then all that's necessary is to provide the illusion of freedom. — B.F. Skinner

I once heard a sober alcoholic say that drinking never made him happy, but it made him feel like he was going to be happy in about fifteen minutes. That was exactly it, and I couldn't understand why the happiness never came, couldn't see the flaw in my thinking, couldn't see that alcohol kept me trapped in a world of illusion, procrastination, paralysis. I lived always in the future, never in the present. Next time, next time! Next time I drank it would be different, next time it would make me feel good again. And all my efforts were doomed, because already drinking hadn't made me feel good in years. — Heather King

When possession of wealth or splendors brings happiness- it is an illusion, when attainment of certain mental state brings happiness- it is a real possession. — Debasish Mridha

Humility and Dignity had a daughter, called Arrogance, who was ashamed of her name and used to hide behind Pride. But Pride was in love with Truth, therefore arrogance married Illusion and forever despised Truth. Pride and Truth had a daughter, called Happiness, while Arrogance and Illusion had a son, called Despair. When both meet, one of them cries. — Robin Sacredfire

Happiness, you see, its just an illusion of Fate, a heavenly sleight of hand designed to make you believe in fairy tales. But there's no happily ever after. You'll only find happy endings in books. Some books. — Ellen Hopkins

All pain in life comes from wishing things were different than they are. Conversely, peace and happiness must come from accepting life as it is and breaking through the barriers of illusion to do so ... All things that we label good or bad often hold in them surprises if we stay open. Each of us has choice in how we interpret life's events and in this way we are each responsible for our own reality. — Kristine Carlson

It was hard and sour, but, as Poushkin said, the illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths. I saw a happy man, one whose dearest dream had come true, who had attained his goal in life, who had got what he wanted, and was pleased with his destiny and with himself. — Anton Chekhov

Until we learn to love each other, try to understand each other, and be compassionate to each other, peace will be an illusion. — Debasish Mridha

Illusion is a false perception but delusion is a fixed false belief. — Debasish Mridha

The mistake that people make in the focusing illusion involves attention to selected moments and neglect of what happens at other times. The mind is good with stories, but it does not appear to be well designed for the processing of time. During the last ten years we have learned many new facts about happiness. But we have also learned that the word happiness does not have a simple meaning and should not be used as if it does. Sometimes scientific progress leaves us more puzzled than we were before. — Daniel Kahneman

Illusory universality is the universality of the art of the culture industry, it is the universality of the homogeneous same, an art which no longer even promises happiness but only provides easy amusement as relief from labour. — J.M. Bernstein

SEPTIMUS: My lady, I was alone with my thoughts in the gazebo, when Mrs Chater ran me to ground, and I being in such a passion, in an agony of unrelieved desire
LADY CROOM: Oh ... !
SEPTIMUS:
I thought in my madness that the Chater with her skirts over her head would give me the momentary illusion of the happiness to which I dared not put a face.
(Pause.)
LADY CROOM: I do not know when I have received a more unusual compliment, Mr Hodge. I hope I am more than a match for Mrs Chater with her head in a bucket. Does she wear drawers?
SEPTIMUS: She does.
LADY CROOM: Yes, I have heard that drawers are being worn now. It is unnatural for women to be got up like jockeys. I cannot approve. — Tom Stoppard

The Vitarags (attachment-free enlightened one's) say, 'Make whatever intents that are suitable to you. If you get sensual intents towards Me, then do those sensual intents and if you have celibate intents towards Me, do celibate intents and if you get religious intents, do religious intents; if you get reverence-intents, do reverence intents and if you want to curse, then curse me. I confront [challenge] no one." A person that doesn't confront goes to Moksha and the person who confronts, resides here [worldly life bondage]. — Dada Bhagwan

All suffering is a consequence of a constant quest. A quest to follow a mirage, the mirage that is the creation of our mind, the illusion of happiness, the illusion of being loved. That is what it is. Love itself is an illusion. We misuse the word so much we forget what it means. It means nothing, because it simply does not exist. It is the destiny of the mind to seek. When it does not discover what it seeks, it gives birth to hopelessness. And given our undying spirit, from that hopelessness rises hope itself. This hope takes us to the quest all over again, churning us in an endless cycle of suffering. This cycle is called life. Suffer you will, one way or the other... — Nilesh Rathod

A man of wisdom knows that life is an illusion, so he lives a life of love and happiness as his mission. — Debasish Mridha

It is an illusion that money brings happiness — Sunday Adelaja

Oh! Happiness
I am looking for you
In the wilderness,
In and around the palaces,
In my possessions, in my wealth and splendor, I can see you far away,
Like an illusion,
I try to touch feel and smell but,
Like a morichica you dance far away. — Debasish Mridha

He dreams he is happy; that his corporeal nature has changed; or at least that he has flown off upon a purple cloud of another sphere peopled by beings of the same kind as himself. Alas! May his illusion last till dawn's awakening! He dreams the flowers dance round him in a ring like immense demented garlands, and impregnate him with their balmy perfumes while he sings a hymn of love, locked in the arms of a magically beautiful human being. But it is merely twilight mist he embraces, and when he wakes their arms will no longer be entwined. Awaken not, hermaphrodite. Do not wake yet, I beg you. Why will you not believe me? Sleep ... sleep forever. May your breast heave while pursuing the chimerical hope of happiness - that I allow you; but do not open your eyes. Ah! do not open your eyes. — Comte De Lautreamont

I desire nothing, seek nothing but peace, the slumber of the soul. I have tasted all the hollowness and wretchedness of life and I despise it heartily. Whoever has lived and thought cannot but, in his soul, despise humanity. Activity, cares, worries, distractions - I am sick of them all. I wish for nothing, I seek nothing. I have no aim, for one gains that which one is eager for - and sees that it is all illusion. My joyous days have passed. I have cooled to them. In the educated world, amidst human beings, I feel the disadvantages of life too strongly, but alone, far from the crowd, I turn to stone. In this trance anything can happen, I see neither others nor myself. I do nothing and do not notice the actions either of others or myself - and I am at peace, I am indifferent. There can be no happiness for me, and I will not succumb to unhappiness. — Ivan Goncharov

Nothing real stands between you and your happiness, only illusion and confusion. — Robert Holden

Happiness is just an illusion. And any attempt to achieve it is the ultimate cause of your plight — Katie Kacvinsky

Happiness is as fragile and fleeting as a bubble soap. Water down the last dregs of happiness and turn them into bubbles to fill the void. It may nothing more than an illusion, but it was still better than the emptiness. — Kanae Minato

Control is an illusion, as is restraint. Dark to light, light to darkness. — Truth Devour

Happiness will come
Today, tomorrow and every year
Now, then and every moment
For if, we learn to love, care and share.
Happiness will come
To fill our heart with kindness
It is a gift from the universe
To touch our life with joyful silence.
Happiness will come
For if we know, wealth and splendors are illusion
But attainment of certain mental state,
And Unconditional love is a real possession. — Debasish Mridha

We're all pieces of the same ever-changing puzzle;
some connected for mere seconds, some connected for life,
some connected through knowledge, some through belief,
some connected through wisdom, some through Love, and some connected with no explanation at all. Yet, as spiritual beings having a human experience, we're all here for the sensations this reality or illusion has to offer. The best anyone can hope for is the right to be able to Live, Learn, Love then Leave. After that, reap the benefits of their own chosen existence in the hereafter by virtue of simply believing in what they believe. As for here, it took me a while but this progression helped me with my life: I like myself. I Love myself. I am myself. — Stanley Victor Paskavich

The only thing that keeps us from a place of joy is an illusion, the illusion of fear. — Molly Friedenfeld

Therefore, philosophy does not give sense in mind happiness. It keeps in mind the only truth. However, it is very possible that the truth may be painful, may be distressing, may be destructive of happiness or makes it impossible. Religion, unlike philosophy, is under the category of the useful one. It promises happiness and says what it is necessary to do and what it is necessary to be to deserve or to obtain it. Consequently, illusion is more important than truth if it gets happiness. — Marcel Conche

When a man sleeps, he is steeped and lost in a limp toneless happiness: awake he is restless, tortured by his body and the illusion of existence. Why have men spent the centuries seeking to overcome the awakened body? Put it to sleep, that is a better way. Let it serve only to turn the sleeping soul over, to change the blood-stream and thus make possible a deeper and more refined sleep. — Flann O'Brien

There is yet another illusion, that it is important to be respectable, to be loved and appreciated, to be important. Many say we have a natural urge to be loved and appreciated, to belong. That's false. Drop this illusion and you will find happiness. We have a natural urge to be free, a natural urge to love, but not to be loved. — Anthony De Mello

There are only two profound ways to reach enlightenment: Laugh by yourself, or get tickled. — Saurabh Sharma

Life is an illusion because we still don't know what reality is. — Debasish Mridha

The reverie would not last if it were not nourished by the images of the sweetness of living, by the illusions of happiness. — Gaston Bachelard

I think my quarry is illusion. I war against magic. I believe that, though illusion often cheers and comforts, it ultimately and invariably weakens and constricts the spirit. — Irvin D. Yalom

Mass culture is Peter Pan culture. It tells us that if we close our eyes, if we visualize what we want, if we have faith in ourselves, if we tell God that we believe in miracles, if we tap into our inner strength, if we grasp that we are truly exceptional, if we focus on happiness, our lives will be harmonious and complete. This cultural retreat into illusion, whether peddled by positive psychologists, Hollywood, or Christian preachers, is a form of magical thinking. It turns worthless mortgages and debt into wealth. It turns the destruction of our manufacturing base into an opportunity for growth. It turns alienation and anxiety into a cheerful conformity. It turns a nation that wages illegal wars and administers off-shore penal colonies where it openly practices torture into the greatest democracy on earth. — Chris Hedges

Sometimes the illusion of happiness could inadvertently create it. — Jojo Moyes

Until you really loving, kind, caring, and compassionate, happiness will be an illusion to you. — Debasish Mridha

Each time I make a photograph I celebrate the life I love and the beauty I know and the happiness I have experienced. All my photographs are made like that responding to my intuition ... After all these years, I am still motivated by the radiance that light creates when it transforms an object into something magical. What the eye sees is an illusion of what is real. The black-and-white image is yet another transformation. What exactly exists, we may never know. — Ruth Bernhard

As long as one is ruled by illusion, one's thinking process is also illusory and that is nothing but misery. In Gnanis' [the enlightened one's] language, there is no such thing as happiness or unhappiness. — Dada Bhagwan

All these years I had been sustained by an illusion-happiness through victory- and now that illusion was burned to ashes. I was no more happier, no more fullfilled, for all my achievements. Finally I saw through the clouds I saw that I had never learned how to enjoy life, only how to achieve. All my life i had been busy seeking happiness, but never finding it or sustaining it. — Dan Millman

Do not fall into the terrible trap of thinking that life depends on money and that, in comparison with money, anything else is devoid of value or dignity. This is nothing but an illusion! We cannot take money with us into the life beyond. Money does not bring us happiness. — Pope Francis

We are apt to think we know what time is because we can measure it, but no sooner do we reflect upon it than that illusion goes. So it appears that the range of the measureable is not the range of the knowable. There are things we can measure, like time, but yet our minds do not grasp their meaning. There are things we cannot measure, like happiness or pain, and yet their meaning is perfectly clear to us. — Robert Morrison MacIver

It was such a blessing to find myself thriving in the middle of the pain. Unless you find a way to do that, there's always going to be this fake illusion that once you get there--wherever "there" is for you--you'll be happy. But that's just not life. If you can't find happiness in the ugliness, you're not going to find it in beauty, either. — Joanna Gaines

It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideal which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded. It looks as if they were victims of a conspiracy; for the books they read, ideal by the necessity of selection, and the conversation of their elders, who look back upon the past through a rosy haze of forgetfulness, prepare them for an unreal life. They must discover for themselves that all they have read and all they have been told are lies, lies, lies; and each discovery is another nail driven into the body on the cross of life. — W. Somerset Maugham

Where happiness was not a possibility, the illusion of it was always more important. — Colum McCann

Here we live in the illusion of happiness where we forget that we were created to handle the balance not just to bear it. We brought into being from nothingness not to live in deep wells of subconscious and be satisfied on the echoes of the convoys we came to hear. We are here to spread the wings of happiness, purposefully built in within ourselves to come out from the wells of our falsification of self and bring forth the real us ... . The ones with compassion, kindness and self- esteem shaping in perfection the most gifted creation of the most powerful creator and to become part of these immortal convoys for the times to come. — Annie Ali

Spiritual practice, by uprooting our personal mythologies of isolation, uncovers the radiant, joyful heart within each of us and manifests this radiance to the world. We find, beneath the wounding concepts of separation, a connection both to ourselves and to all beings. We find a source of great happiness that is beyond concepts and beyond convention. Freeing ourselves from the illusion of separation allows us to live in a natural freedom rather than be driven by preconceptions about our own boundaries and limitations. — Sharon Salzberg

Happiness is a color that you can never run out of. You can paint a picture or an illusion with happiness. It's a color that you always pick, before actually choosing a color. — Lionel Suggs

You wish to be free, but there is no such thing as freedom. You can redecorate dungeon to give illusion of freedom, but you are still in dungeon." "I should've had the choice." "Choice is illusion, same as happiness and freedom. — Carolyn Crane

When you seek power and control over other people, you waste energy. When you seek money or power for the sake of the ego, you spend energy chasing the illusion of happiness instead of enjoying happiness in the moment. When you seek money for personal gain only, you cut off the flow of energy to yourself, and interfere with the expression of nature's intelligence. But when your actions are motivated by love, there is no waste of energy. When your actions are motivated by love, your energy multiplies and accumulates - and the surplus energy you gather and enjoy can be channeled to create anything that you want, including unlimited wealth. — Deepak Chopra

He came through the door howling, an axe arched high over his head. His eyes danced in madness, stuck fast on the two of them kissing, caught in their embrace and unaware of him. For a moment they went on, oblivious, untouched by the madman soon to come. It was a bright bubble of illusion on the eve of utter and complete madness.
She was the first to see. The image of her stepfather captured in Mateo's eyes, the furious glee of the Nazi's vengeance, sharp and mirrored in their emerald beauty. Soon those eyes were wide with terror and sorrow in a moment of unbidden regret caught at the end of such happiness. — Amanda M. Lyons

Happiness, thou art naught but an illusion. Thy enchantments are cast upon my eyes, my mind, my spellbound heart. Dependent upon nothing but thy victim's perception of thee, souls soar at thy artful hand! I have fallen in love with thy illusions, Happiness. Thou hast made me a part of them, and I am left delirious. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Happiness is an illusion — ShinigamiGew

We suffer from the illusion that the faster we run, the more likely we are to grasp happiness. The truth is that the velocity necessary for success rarely exceeds the rate of reflection. — Sam Keen

The Didots created happiness and power, or in this case, pain and sadness ... but only within its subject's mind.
The power it held was real, but it was not a physical power. It was the power of persuasion, the power of illusion.
Mr. Bradshaw was a genius. — Embee

The moon is very charming, alluring, attracting and magical, not because of its beauty, but because of its illusion and reflection of change. — Debasish Mridha

Love is supposed to bring you peace and happiness. If you are not feeling this in a relationship, you are living an illusion. — Leon Brown

The facility of the entrance into another world is an illusion: you start writing in a rush, anticipating the happiness of a future reading, and the void yawns on the white page. — Italo Calvino

Love is the illusion you get in the mids of infatuation and happiness. — Tia Clark

According to the Buddha, the failure to recognize the illusion of the self is the source of all ignorance and unhappiness. It is only by renouncing the self, that is, by dropping his ego defences and committing metaphorical suicide, that a person can open up to different modes of being and relating and thereby transform himself into a pure essence of humanity. In so doing, he becomes free to recast himself as a much more joyful and productive person, and attains the only species of transcendence and immortality that is open to man. — Neel Burton

True happiness is devoid of any illusion. — Dada Bhagwan

Money almost always ends up disappointing.
Buying things to give lasing satisfaction is an illusion. Money can't buy happiness. The people with the most money are often times the MOST miserable people. — Lisa Bedrick

Three weeks ago, he'd seen hail fall from the sky, only
to be followed minutes later by a spectacular rainbow that seemed to frame the azalea bushes. The colors, so vivid they seemed almost alive, made him think that nature sometimes sends us signs, that it's important to remember that joy can always follow despair. But a moment later, the rainbow had vanished and the hail returned, and he realized that joy was sometimes only an illusion. — Nicholas Sparks

He became absorbed beyond mere happiness as he felt himself exercising control over living things. He talked to them, urging them, ordering them. Driven back by the tide, his footprints became bays in which they were trapped and gave him the illusion of mastery. — William Golding

Some people center the universe around themselves; while making other people nothing but decorations to their existence. "I will do this and then I will do that and then people will think this about me and then people will think that about me, and then I will add that person to my life when the convenient time arrives, and this person over here would make a very convenient addition as well ... " They build their own thrones for themselves, and add decorations all around their thrones. The problem with that is: it does not bring happiness. A throne must be built for you; it must not be you who builds your own throne. If so, everything that you think you are is only an illusion! And illusions dissolve one day. Poof! — C. JoyBell C.

All my joys resemble more a momentary intoxication than the real gold of happiness. It was all but an illusion. — Richard Von Krafft-Ebing

I think the pursuit of happiness is the pursuit of reality because illusion never leaves us ultimately happy. — Parker Palmer

God is our final say in who and what's negative and who and what's positive in our lives. It is best not to have this so over-simplified as the illusioned superstitionists have it; an infinite being's tests may not always be so flowery, and the things we may see as positive are in many cases simply desires of our sinful nature. We are to protect our spirit without falling into the narcissistic mistake of trying to protect our selfish emotions, which the latter, in turn, is more than unlikely to bring peace and happiness. But rather guilt and emptiness. When one walks around constantly, in his mind, attempting to separate positive versus negative people, he is already controlled by something even worse than those he calls the 'negative people', and that is before he spots it soon enough to avoid it as he hypocritically tries to avoid them. — Criss Jami

When my words are concealed
With lies and disguises, truth and beyond
Insecurities in the veil of trust
Betrayal in bounds of lies
It's just the charm of words darling
Giving the illusion of happiness inside misery — Irum Zahra

Pleasure can be supported by an illusion; but happiness rests upon truth. — Nicolas Chamfort

When I look over my past, I see that the stages in my life are like the phases of the moon. I've had periods where I was the waxing gibbous: fat with wealth and success. There have been other seasons when my happiness was like the waning crescent and I watched my joy fade away slowly, merging with the atmosphere around me as if it never existed. Then I felt as if I was left with nothing more than an illusion, but happiness returns in time and glows once more in corpulent fullness. It's time that makes the difference. — Amy Neftzger

For years, i lived my life, waiting for the other shoe to drop ... i thought control was something i could have over my life. My goal was to live life, in such a way, that i would never again have to suffer any form of trauma or abuse that would remind me of my painful past. I was living life on a tightrope of tension. I was only happy when things went smoothly and came apart at the seams when i was thrown a curveball.
NOW, i realize, that the key to happiness is surrendering to the illusion of control. And to trust that, no matter what happens to me, i have the infinite inner-wisdom and strength to find my way through. — Jaeda DeWalt

When you are in love, reality becomes
illusion and illusion become reality. — Debasish Mridha

I know what this is. I know this is my truth. My past. My present. My future. It is what I knew all along and, like a freaking idiot, ignored because my beautiful illusion was so much better than my tragic reality.
For once, I had embraced happiness. Bliss. In spite of finding out what I was, finding out that I was a half Light, half Dark inbreed, I was happy. Even with a damn supernatural assassin out for my
blood, I was content. Because of him. He made me whole. A new and improved Gabs. A girl that wanted to be good enough. For him.
Fuck. Him. — S.L. Jennings

Pleasure may come from illusion, but happiness can come only of reality. — Nicolas Chamfort

Cleverness is egocentric, dramatic, gives you an illusion of success. We are always running behind it and ultimately suffer. Whereas simplicity is spiritual, blissful, not dramatic, simple but joyful and gives inner peace. Which is our ultimate goal. — Debasish Mridha

That's exactly the problem! People don't want to open their eyes and see the Truth because the illusion suits them. As long as they're fed whatever lies they want to hear they're happy, because the Truth means nothing to them. Look at my parents - they're struggling under the weight of so many pointless pressures, but if they could ever free themselves from this self-inflicted oppression they would find genuine happiness. Instead, they continue to go down a path of achievements and accomplishments and material success and shit that means nothing because that's what America's all about, and now they're trapped. And they don't get it! — Imbolo Mbue

Possible Ending #16 (Life Imitates Art Imitates Life Imitates Art Imitates): I'd seen this movie. Obvious ending: outright betrayal, lesson learned, life is heartbreak, people who mean well still fuck you over, everyone's sad, greedy, looking out for number one, no consideration for the fragile fat boy whose displayed cynicism only masks a deeper hope that everyone's okay, will ultimately end up all right, that love exists, that happiness may not be stable but at least comes in bursts, that everything worthwhile wasn't just a self-created illusion. — Adam Wilson

It was clear to her now, Happiness was a seductive illusion. No one as fucked up as her deserved one drop of joy. But oh god was it delicious when it fell into her lap for a little while. (Such a pretty face) she muses (with such a bruised and battered soul). When the dawn of a promise fades into the dusk of reality, all that remains is the nightmare. Sweet, sweet loneliness. Shadows come to play and prey on her beaten mind. Her lovely little dreams of poison. — Solange Nicole

Before embarking on a voyage, first speak with the ancient sailors, listen to and understand the winds, then patiently make a boat and sail. Yet, even then, be open to other dreams, changes, circumstances. Throughout our lives, we limit ourselves to fixed goals, only to get on the local ferry and just travel the distance between two known points. Yet, we create an illusion of freedom and choice, accompanied by a sense of independence. Thus, we carefully study weather reports, ride on the port side on odd numbered days, starboard on holidays, have tea at fixed times, never speak with those who wear glasses, always smile at those who wear green and of course allow ourselves just the slight possibility of a dream about jumping ship and going off to our island one day.
C'est la vie? Our predictably totalitarian lives are an insult to the human spirit. — Gunduz Vassaf

Was it just fear? the voices wonder. We were fearful in the best of times; how could we cope with the worst? So we found the tallest walls and poured ourselves behind them. We kept pouring until we were biggest and strongest, elected the greatest generals and found the most weapons, thinking all this maximalism would somehow generate happiness. But nothing so obvious could ever work. — Isaac Marion

When your actions are motivated by love, you expend least effort and your energy multiplies, allowing you to create anything you want, with a spirit of play and joy. When you seek power and control over others, you waste energy chasing the illusion of happiness. — Deepak Chopra

People wear masks in the light because true happiness are the agents of deception and delusion. — Lionel Suggs

I can take this real world and superimpose upon it the world of illusion (which isn't, really), in order to either fix or prevent many of life's difficulties
or even better, create happiness and well-being for both myself and others. I can do this, and so can you ... if you really want to. — Silver RavenWolf

God is like an umbrella of illusion and belief,
In rainy days we use him, in sunny days we forget him. — Debasish Mridha

Happiness is an illusion, Natalie. It doesn't actually exist."
"Of course it does," I said. "It's what you feel when you're not sad."
"That's unconsciousness. And I'm pretty sure that I'm miserable when I am unconscious, too. — Lee Goldberg

Rob the average man of his life-illusion, and you rob him of his happiness at the same stroke. — Henrik Ibsen

The happiness of being envied is glamour.
Being envied is a solitary form of reassurance. It depends precisely upon not sharing your experience with those who envy you. You are observed with interest but you do not observe with interest - if you do, you will become less enviable. In this respect the envied are like bureaucrats; the more impersonal they are, the greater the illusion (for themselves and for others) of their power. The power of the glamorous resides in their supposed happiness: the power of the bureaucrat in his supposed authority. — John Berger

Pleasure is 'suffering' (vedna) and pain is distress as well. If pleasure is 'suffering', it cannot be considered a pleasure. If pleasure is enjoyed excessively, it becomes 'suffering'. How can it be considered a pleasure? These are all entanglements of those living in illusion [of the Self]. To live in the ocean of happiness and yet no dislike arises; that is known as true happiness. — Dada Bhagwan

Every restaurant is a theater, and the truly great ones allow us to indulge in the fantasy that we are rich and powerful. When restaurants hold up their end of the bargain, they give us the illusion of being surrounded by servants intent on ensuring our happiness and offering extraordinary food.
But even modest restaurants offer the opportunity to become someone else, at least for a little while. Restaurants free us from mundane reality; that is part of their charm. When you walk through the door, you are entering neutral territory where you are free to be whoever you choose for the duration of the meal. — Ruth Reichl

If an illusion makes a man happy, destroy that illusion! Because happiness must come via the truth! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

We learn by experience that happiness and pleasure are a fata morgana, which, visible from afar, vanish as we approach; that, on the other hand, suffering and pain are a reality, which makes its presence felt without any intermediary, and for its effect, stands in no need of illusion or the play of false hope. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Once I started trying to give positive reviews, though, I began to understand how much happiness I took from the joyous ones in my life
and how much effort it must take for them to be consistently good=tempered and positive. It is easy to be heavy; hard to be light. We nonjoyous types suck energy and cheer from the joyous ones; we rely on them to buoy us with their good spirit and to cushion our agitation and anxiety. At the same time, because of a dark element in human nature, we're sometimes provoked to try to shake the enthusiastic, cheery folk out of their fog of illusion
to make them see that the play was stupid, the money was wasted, the meeting was pointless. Instead of shielding their joy, we blast it. — Gretchen Rubin