You imagine the carefully pruned, shaped thing that is presented to you is truth. That is just what it isn't. The truth is improbable, the truth is fantastic; it's in what you think is a distorting mirror that you see the truth.
Jean RhysRead
One realized all sorts of things. The value of an illusion, for instance, and that the shadow can be more important than the substance. All sorts of things.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that perceptions and illusions can hold significant value, sometimes more than reality itself.
In this quote, Jean Rhys reflects on the nature of reality and illusion, emphasizing that what we perceive as real or valuable might not always be the substance of truth. She points out that the shadow, or the illusion, can sometimes overshadow the tangible reality, suggesting that our perceptions can shape our understanding and value of experiences in profound ways.
Themes
IllusionPerceptionRealityValueShadowSubstance
In practice
Example use cases
A speaker at a philosophy conference discussing the nature of reality versus perception.
More from Jean Rhys
All quotes →If I was bound for hell, let it be hell. No more false heaven. No more damned magic.
Jean RhysRead
The musty smell, the bugs, the lonliness, this room, which is part of the street outside-this is all I want from life.
Jean RhysRead
Yes, I am sad, sad as a circus-lioness, sad as an eagle without wings, sad as a violin with only one string and that one broken, sad as a woman who is growing old. Sad, sad, sad.
Jean RhysRead
My life, which seems so simple and monotonous, is really a complicated affair of cafés where they like me and cafés where they don't, streets that are friendly, streets that aren't, rooms where I might be happy, rooms where I shall never be, looking-glasses I look nice in, looking-glasses I don't, dresses that will be lucky, dresses that won't, and so on.
Jean RhysRead
I must write. If I stop writing my life will have been an abject failure. It is that already to other people. But it could be an abject failure to myself. I will not have earned death.
Jean RhysRead
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If the words 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' don't include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn't worth the hemp it was written on.
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A sensible man will remember that the eyes may be confused in two ways - by a change from light to darkness or from darkness to light; and he will recognize that the same thing happens to the soul.
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For it would have been better that man should have been born dumb, nay, void of all reason, rather than that he should employ the gifts of Providence to the destruction of his neighbor.
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