America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.
Henry A. KissingerRead
The body is imaginary, and we bow to the tyranny of a phantom. Love is a privilege perception, the most total and lucid not only of the unreality of the world but of our own unreality: not only do we traverse a realm of shadows; but ourselves are shadows.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that love reveals the illusory nature of existence and ourselves, highlighting the shadows we inhabit.
Adolfo Bioy Casares reflects on the idea that our physical forms and the world around us are merely illusions, and it is through love that we gain insight into this unreality. Love, being described as a privileged perception, allows us to understand not only the ephemeral nature of the world but also the impermanent quality of our own identities. In this sense, both love and reality are connections to a deeper understanding of existence as we navigate through shadows, indicating that much of what we perceive is an illusion.
Themes
LoveIllusionRealityExistenceSelf
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the nature of reality, one might cite this quote to emphasize the importance of love in understanding our existence.
Similar quotes
No one in this country need go hungry, and alleviating the problem is primarily a matter of readjusting our priorities. In both the government and the private sector, self-interest has displaced the ideal of community that made this country great. The old world view of "us, we, our" has been replaced by "I, me, mine." The reasons for this are manifold and complex, but at the end of the day, we need to remember that, if one of us is suffering needlessly, all of us are diminished.
Don HenleyRead
Is it not arrogance or narrow-mindedness to claim that there is only one way of salvation or that the way we follow is the right way? I think not. After all, do we fault a pilot for being narrow-minded when he follows the instrument panel while landing in a rainstorm? No, we want him to remain narrowly focused!
Billy GrahamRead
Accustom yourself not to be disregarding of what someone else has to say: as far as possible enter into the mind of the speaker.
Marcus AureliusRead
We say that Christ so died that He infallibly secured the salvation of a multitude that no man can number, who through Christ's death not only may be saved, but are saved, must be saved, and cannot by any possibility run the hazard of being anything but saved.
Charles SpurgeonRead
Language comes first. It's not that language grows out of consciousness, if you haven't got language, you can't be conscious.
Alan MooreRead