Roger Ebert Quotes

Reality is mind-made.

The world consists of images on a screen, and consciousness is the steady light that emanates from the projector.

'Tell me one last thing,' said Harry. 'Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?' Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry's ears even though the bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure. 'Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?'

It seems to me that the real problem is the mind itself and not the problem which the mind has created and tries to solve.

Where conscious subjectivity is concerned, there is no distinction between the observation and the thing observed.

I recognise a distinction between dream life and real life, between appearances and actualities. I confess to an over-powering desire to know whether I am asleep or awake--whether the environment and laws which affect me are external and permanent, or the transitory products of my own brain.

The mind was dreaming. The world was its dream.

How much of what we call 'reality' is actually out there or rather within our own head?

Reality is a state of mind. To the banker, the money in his ledger book is all very real, though he doesn't actually see it or touch it. But to the Brahma, it simply doesn't exist the way the air and the earth, pain and loss do. To him, the banker's reality is folly. To the banker, the Brahma's ideas are as inconsequential as dust.

A hallucination is a species of reality, as capable of teaching you as a videotape about Kilimanjaro or anything else that falls through your life.

The physical body is conceived and constructed in consciousness as are time and space. All happens within our self.

The world is real. Consciousness is the illusion.

Yet, the Universe is real enough to the conscious beings in it, which are as unreal as it is itself.

Nothing has existence unless you, I, or some living creature perceives it, and how it is perceived further influences that reality. Even time itself is not exempted from biocentrism.

The real world is much smaller than the imaginary

We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull.

It's all real and it's all illusory: that's Awareness!

I think reality is over-rated

Life and death are nothing but the mind. Years, months, days, and hours are nothing but the mind. Dreams, illusions, and mirages are nothing but the mind. The bubbles of water and the flames of fire are nothing but the mind. The flowers of the spring and the moon of the autumn are nothing but the mind. Confusions and dangers are nothing but the mind.

Reality can easily become the current fantasy.

Insanity is believing your hallucinations are real. Religion is believing that other peoples' hallucinations are real.

The world is chiefly a mental fact. From mind it receives the forms of time and space, the principle of casuality[sic], color, warmth, and beauty. Were there no mind, there would be no world.

The mind is the reality. You are what you think.

Space is all one space and thought is all one thought, but my mind divides its spaces into spaces into spaces and thoughts into thoughts into thoughts. Like a large condominium. Occasionally I think about the one Space and the one Thought, but usually I don't. Usually I think about my condominium.

The physical universe that you see is all in your mind. When you turn your mind off, or become unconscious, the physical universe, for you, disappears. Then, when you awaken your consciousness, the universe reappears magically. Quite simple really - no thoughts on your part, no physical world. As Walt Whitman succinctly stated: "The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual - namely to You." Without your mind to process it, the universe simply disappears into nothingness.