Quotes about Reality

The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.

We must understand the Cosmos as it is and not confuse how it is with how we wish it to be.

We also know how cruel the truth often is, and we wonder whether delusion is not more consoling. HENRI POINCARÉ (1854—1912)

Nietzsche mourns the loss of "man's belief in his dignity, his uniqueness, his irreplace-ability in the scheme of existence." For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable.

We tell children about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy for reasons we think emotionally sound, but then disabuse them of these myths before they've grown. Why retract? Because their well-being as adults depends on them knowing the world as it really is. We worry, and for good reason, about adults who still believe in Santa Claus.

Whatever their neurological and molecular antecedents, hallucinations feel real. They are sought out in many cultures and considered a sign of spiritual enlightenment.

Pseudoscience is easier to contrive than science, because distracting confrontations with reality—where we cannot control the outcome of the comparison—are more readily avoided. The standards of argument, what passes for evidence, are much more relaxed. In part for these same reasons, it is much easier to present pseudoscience to the general public than science. But this isn't enough to explain its popularity.

If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits? For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

In everyday life, it is very rare that we are confronted with new facts about events of long ago. Our memories are almost never challenged. They can, instead, be frozen in place, no matter how flawed they are, or become a work in continual artistic revision.

God wouldn't exist just because she forced herself to believe, any more than Cade would be all right just because she wanted him to be.

The electron is first of all your concept of the electron.