198 Quotes About Reality-check

Testing the wrong person can prove a massive failure for the antagonist.

. . . failure is also the stern parent of truth. (p525)

Don't be about just any life. Be about the life you want to be about.

I like to work late because I don’t like to work early—and I have to work sometime.

I like to work late because I don’t like to work early—and I have to work sometime.If I get here first thing in the morning, I feel like I have to iron my clothes. But by 2 o’clock, nobody cares. And by 7, nobody’s here.

Presque tous les malheurs de la vie viennent des fausses idées que nous avons sur ce qui nous arrive. Connaître à fond les hommes, juger sainement des événements, est donc un grand pas vers le bonheur."("Almost all our misfortunes in life come from the wrong notions we have about the things that happen to us. To know men thoroughly, to judge events sanely, is, therefore, a great step towards happiness.")[Journal entry, 10 December 1801]

Today, people are inclined to think that the sincerity and fervency of one's beliefs are more important than the content. As long as we believe something honestly and strongly, we are told, then that is all that really matters. Reality is basically indifferent to how sincerely we believe something.

We spend much of our lives going about completely blind to reality, and yet we still have the gall to act victimized when it invariably catches up to us.

They like the words but not the speaker.