The things that matter in this country have been reduced in choice, there are two political parties, there are a handful insurance companies, there are six or seven information centers.. but if you want a bagel there are 23 flavors. Because you have the illusion of choice!
— George Carlin
Authentic Illusion Of Choice quotations
The worlds of Truth (love) and illusion (fear) are like parallel universes;
with every thought we make a choice which one to inhabit
However many people complain about the "red tape," it would be sheer illusion to think ... continuous administrative work can be carried out in any field except by means of officials working in offices.... The choice is only that between bureaucracy and dillettantism.
When a writer with a voice as good as Richard Christian Matheson's tells you something, you have no choice but to listen. In THE RITUAL OF ILLUSION the voices are legion, and the gaps between their testimonies drag us closer to understanding the darkly beating heart of all our, ephemeral, transfixing dreams. Dark, subtle, horrifically funny.
When it appears that there is no choice, some form of illusion is operating.
In general, it's not too hard to corrupt an American, mostly a matter of supply to their demand. Supply should be variegated to encourage the Illusion of Choice. Other than that they're looking for numbness, so be ready to sedate. Drugs, booze, television, shopping, etc.
All choices are illusions, or if they are not illusions their strength is illusory, for one choice must contend with the choices of all the other men and women deciding anything in that moment.
Bread sets free; but does not necessarily set free for good ends -- that dear illusion of so many generous hearts. It sets a man free to choose: it often sets free for the bad, but man has a right to that choice and to that evil, without which he is no longer a man.
The reason the factions were evil is because there was no way out of them.
They gave us the illusion of choice without actually giving us a choice.
I think love is often a bit selfish, even before we had consumerism.
That's not new. A consumer society gives you the illusion of having massive amounts of choice and saddles you with the freedom of being able to dabble in that choice. And at the same time, you are left with the tyranny of self-doubt and uncertainty about whether you made the right choice.
Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend... when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that's present -- love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure -- the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience Heaven on earth.
In each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice. We’re each of us our own chiaroscuro, our own bit of illusion fighting to emerge into something solid, something real. We’ve got to forgive ourselves that. I must remember to forgive myself. Because there is a lot of grey to work with. No one can live in the light all the time.
Even in an intensely mediated world, in a world that offers at least the illusion of radical self-invention and radical freedom of choice, I as a novelist am drawn to the things you can't get away from. Because much of the promise of radical self-invention, of defining yourself through this marvelous freedom of choice, it's just a lie. It's a lie that we all buy into, because it helps the economy run.
True technique will know how to maintain the illusion of liberty, choice, and individuality; but these will have been carefully calculated so that they will be integrated into the mathematical reality merely as appearances!
All pain in life comes from wishing things were different than they are.
Conversely, peace and happiness must come from accepting life as it is and breaking through the barriers of illusion to do so... All things that we label good or bad often hold in them surprises if we stay open. Each of us has choice in how we interpret life's events and in this way we are each responsible for our own reality.
Oh, the illusion of choice in the modern world - don't get me started.
But don't you agree that the Internet has softened our brains and made us forget that 'choice' used to mean something different from selecting options from menus?
In Lullabies, I wanted to capture what I remembered of the drunken babbling of unfortunate twelve-year-olds: their illusions, their ludicrously bad choices, their lack of morality and utter disbelief in cause and effect
Define yourself radically as one beloved by God.
This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion. God's love for you and his choice of you constitute your worth. Accept that, and let it become the most important thing in your life.
We may find it convenient to live with the illusion that circumstances or other people are responsible for the quality of our lives, but the reality is that we are responsible-response-able-for our choices.
Forgiveness is not a matter of feeling superior, of feeling sorry for our parents because they didn't' know any better. It comes when we understand that as humans we all do the very best we can, and we can't ask for more than that. Forgiveness is making the choice to find no more value in anger, and to see that we are all God's light, all joined, and the separations we feel are only part of the illusions of the ego.
...it is not for the illusion of a moment to govern the choice of a lifetime.