Quotes on Real Things

Because one does not want to be disturbed, to be made uncertain, he establishes a pattern of conduct, of thought, a pattern of relationships to man. He then becomes a slave to the pattern and takes the pattern to be the real thing.

When I saw Jimi Hendrix I knew immediately that this guy was the real thing ... and when he played it was like a rough sketch of what he was going to become ... this guy was our generation, and he wasn't in a suit .. he played a Howlin' Wolf song 'Killing Floor', and then we (The Cream) had to carry on the set. It was pretty hard to follow.

Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that this is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not bring us any closer to the secrets of the "Old One." I, at any rate, am convinced that He is not playing at dice.

I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built up on the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think. Whereas, if the child is left to himself, he will think more and better, if less showily.

Mere inflation-that is, the mere issuance of more money, with the consequence of higher wages and prices-may look like the creation of more demand. But in terms of the actual production and exchange of real things it is not.

An administrator in a bureaucratic world is a man who can feel big by merging his non-entity in an abstraction. A real person in touch with real things inspires terror in him.

Today's aikido is so dimensionless. It's hollow, empty on the inside. People try to reach the highest levels without even paying their dues. That's why it seems so much like a dance these days. You have to master the very basics solidly, with your body, and then proceed to develop to the higher levels.... Now we see nothing but copying or imitation without any grasp of the real thing.

Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened: and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God’s myth where the others are men’s myths: i.e., the Pagan stories are God expressing Himself through the minds of poets, using such images as He found there, while Christianity is God expressing Himself through what we call 'real things'.

The real things haven't changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures; and have courage when things go wrong.

The Center for Public Integrity is the real thing. A group of dedicated people who remember that great journalism is about grit and guts and stamina and razor-sharp instincts. They are, thank heaven, here to stay.

Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient we try to get away from where we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later, and somewhere else. Let's be patient and trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.

Then she was kissing him as she had never kissed him before...and it was blissful oblivion, better than firewhisky; she was the only real thing in the world.

Love and work are the only two real things in our lives. They belong together, otherwise it is off. Work is in itself a form of love.

I'm no model lady. A model's just an imitation of the real thing.

I am interested in people who swim in the deep end. I want to have conversations about real things with people who have experienced real things. I'm tired of talking about movies and gossiping about friends. Life is crunchy and complicated and all the more delicious.

What difference is there, do you think, between those in Plato's cave who can only marvel at the shadows and images of various objects, provided they are content and don't know what they miss, and the philosopher who has emerged from the cave and sees the real things?

Men often applaud an imitation and hiss the real thing.

What is the use of merely listening to lectures? The real thing is practice.

For me, film-making is combining images and sounds of real things in an order that makes them effective. What I disapprove of is photographing things that are not real. Sets and actors are not real.

When the child goes out, it is the world itself that offers itself to him. Let us take the child out to show him real things instead of making objects which represent ideas and closing them up in cupboards.

A child hasn't a grown-up person's appetite for affection. A little of it goes a long way with them; and they like a good imitation of it better than the real thing, as every nurse knows.