ALBERT

EINSTEIN:
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

ALEXIS CARREL:
Intuition comes very close to clairvoyance; it appears to be the extrasensory perception of reality.

ANNE SEXTON:
What is reality?
I am a plaster doll; I pose
with eyes that cut open without landfall or nightfall
upon some shellacked and grinning person,
eyes that open, blue, steel, and close.
Am I approximately an I. Magnin transplant?

ARTHUR EDDINGTON:
Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.

BYRON KATIE:
When you argue with reality, you lose - but only 100% of the time.

DIETRICH BONHOEFFER:
To understand reality is not the same as to know about outward events. It is to perceive the essential nature of things. The
best-informed man is not necessarily the wisest. Indeed there is a danger that precisely in the multiplicity of his knowledge
he will lose sight of what is essential. But on the other hand, knowledge of an apparently trivial detail quite often makes it
possible to see into the depth of things. And so the wise man will seek to acquire the best possible knowledge about
events, but always without becoming dependent upon this knowledge. To recognize the significant in the factual is wisdom.

GRAHAM GREENE:
Reality in our century is not something to be faced.

GROUCHO MARX:
I'm not crazy about reality, but it's still the only place to get a decent meal.

GUSTAVE FLAUBERT:
Reality does not conform to the ideal, but confirms it.

HENRY MILLER:
Reality is not protected or defended by laws, proclamations, ukases, cannons and armadas. Reality is that which is
sprouting all the time out of death and disintegration.

ISAAC ASIMOV:
[W]hen people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical they were
wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is
wronger than both of them put together.

JOHN LENNON:
Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.
LIONEL TRILLING:
In the American metaphysic, reality is always material reality, hard, resistant, unformed, impenetrable, and unpleasant.

LOUIS-FERDINAND CÉLINE:
To hell with reality! I want to die in music, not in reason or in prose. People don't deserve the restraint we show by not
going into delirium in front of them. To hell with them!

MARGARET FULLER:
I accept the universe!
(Ralph Waldo Emerson's reported response: "By God, she'd better!")

MASON COOLEY:
Reality is the name we give to our disappointments.

PHILIP K. DICK:
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON:

The reality is more excellent than the report.

ROBERT HELLER:
Never ignore a gut feeling, but never believe that it's enough.

SALMAN RUSHDIE:
Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems -- but as
you approach the present, it inevitably seems incredible.

SALVADOR DALI:
I believe that the moment is near when by a procedure of active paranoiac thought, it will be possible to systematize
confusion and contribute to the total discrediting of the world of reality.

SAUL ALINSKY:
As an organizer I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be.

SIGMUND FREUD:
Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore
accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.

TOM CLANCY:
The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.

WALLACE STEVENS:
Reality is the beginning not the end,
Naked Alpha, not the hierophant Omega,
Of dense investiture, with luminous vassals.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN:
The best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time.

ALBERT EINSTEIN:
I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.

ALEX HALEY:
In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future.

ANAIS NIN:
We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow
partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull
us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.

C. S. LEWIS:
The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.

CHARLIE DANIELS:
A brief candle; both ends burning
An endless mile; a bus wheel turning
A friend to share the lonesome times
A handshake and a sip of wine
So say it loud and let it ring
We are all a part of everything
The future, present and the past
Fly on proud bird
You're free at last.
written en route to the funeral for his friend, Ronnie Van Zant of the band, Lynyrd Skynyrd.

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN:

Let us revere, let us worship, but erect and open-eyed, the highest, not the lowest; the future, not the past!

DOROTHY THOMPSON:
Courage, it would seem, is nothing less than the power to overcome danger, misfortune, fear, injustice, while continuing to
affirm inwardly that life with all its sorrows is good; that everything is meaningful even if in a sense beyond our
understanding; and that there is always tomorrow.

EDWARD EVERETT HALE:

To look forward and not back,
To look out and not in, and
To lend a hand.

EDWARD GIBBON:
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way of judging of the
future but by the past.

ELAINE MAXWELL:
My will shall shape the future. Whether I fail or succeed shall be no man's doing but my own. I am the force; I can clear
any obstacle before me or I can be lost in the maze. My choice; my responsibility; win or lose, only I hold the key to my
destiny.
ERIC HOFFER:
In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world
that no longer exists.

GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER:

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the
striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because some day in life you will have been all of these.

GEORGE WILL:
The future has a way of arriving unannounced.

GLORIA DEAN RANDLE SCOTT:

The critical responsibility for the generation you're in is to help provide the shoulders, the direction, and the support for
those generations who come behind.

HANNAH ARENDT:
Promises are the uniquely human way of ordering the future, making it predictable and reliable to the extent that this is
humanly possible.

JEAN ROSTAND:
When a scientist is ahead of his times, it is often through misunderstanding of current, rather than intuition of future truth.
In science there is never any error so gross that it won't one day, from some perspective, appear prophetic.

JOHN DEWEY:
Education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living.

JOHN F. KENNEDY:
The wave of the future is not the conquest of the world by a single dogmatic creed but the liberation of the diverse
energies of free nations and free men.

JOHN F. KENNEDY:
Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

JOHN L. LEWIS:
Let the workers organize. Let the toilers assemble. Let their crystallized voice proclaim their injustices and demand their
privileges. Let all thoughtful citizens sustain them, for the future of Labor is the future of America.

MARCUS AURELIUS:
Every man's life lies within the present; for the past is spent and done with, and the future is uncertain.

NIELS BOHR:
Prediction is very difficult, especially of the future.

PATRICIA HAMPL:
The future is here, now, and the past is full of actual deeds, real history. Utopias hardly have the meat on their bones to
sustain a people in grave times.

PEARL S. BUCK:
One faces the future with one's past.

PEMA CHODRON:
Everything is material for the seed of happiness, if you look into it with inquisitiveness and curiosity. The future is
completely open, and we are writing it moment to moment. There always is the potential to create an environment of
blame -- or one that is conducive to loving-kindness.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY:

Fear not for the future, weep not for the past.

PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN:

The future belongs to those who give the next generation reason for hope.

SIMONE WEIL:
The future is made of the same stuff as the present.

THICH NHAT HANH:

Life can be found only in the present moment. The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to
ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.

THOMAS BERRY:
If the earth does grow inhospitable toward human presence, it is primarily because we have lost our sense of courtesy
toward the earth and its inhabitants.

THOMAS JEFFERSON:
I like dreams of the future better than the history of the past.

VERNON COOPER:
These days people seek knowledge, not wisdom. Knowledge is of the past, wisdom is of the future.

W. E. B. DU BOIS:
Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season.
It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year.
It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow.
Today is the seed time, now are the hours of work, and tomorrow comes the harvest and the playtime.