quotes about reality

Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today. ~James Dean



When there's a single thief, it's robbery. When there are a thousand thieves, it's taxation. ~Vanya Cohen



Even stranger things have happened; and perhaps the strangest of all is the marvel that mathematics should be possible to a race akin to the apes. ~Eric T. Bell, The Development of Mathematics



I got rid of my teeth at a young age because I'm straight. Teeth are for gay people. That's why fairies come and get them. ~Dana Snyder



Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory. ~Franklin Pierce Adams



If the jury have no right to judge of the justice of a law of the government, they plainly can do nothing to protect the people against the oppressions of the government; for there are no oppressions which the government may not authorize by law. ~Lysander Spooner, Trial by Jury



In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this. ~Terry Pratchett



Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness. ~Maya Angelou, Gather Together in My Name



Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are good is like expecting the bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian. ~Dennis Wholey



Half the modern drugs could well be thrown out the window except that the birds might eat them. ~Martin H. Fischer, Fischerisms



He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery



They may talk of a comet, or a burning mountain, or some such bagatelle; but to me a modest woman, dressed out in all her finery, is the most tremendous object of the whole creation. ~Oliver Goldsmith



Man will begin to recover the moment he takes art as seriously as physics, chemistry or money. ~Ernst Levy



Learning to skip has brought control into her life. Whenever she feels all sad, she switches into this wholly happy gait, sliding, hopping, and sliding again; when doing this, it seems as though her head separates from her body, making her feel dizzy and emptied out of bad thoughts. Does anyone else know this trick, she wonders? Probably not, although her Mother sometimes smiles and waves from the window. ~Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries



Here's to matrimony, the high sea for which no compass has yet been invented! ~Heinrich Heine



We must laugh before we are happy, for fear of dying without having laughed at all. ~Jean de La Bruyere



Our tax code is so long it makes War and Peace seem breezy. ~Steven LaTourette



When you knock, ask to see God - none of the servants. ~Henry David Thoreau



Your children need your presence more than your presents. ~Jesse Jackson



A person given to barefaced flattery, will usually balance the account with interest in your absence. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827