Agnes Repplier Quotes

I find that the further I go back, the better things were, whether they happened or not.

The past is what you remember, imagine you remember, convince yourself you remember, or pretend you remember.

Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory.

The past always looks better than it was. It’s only pleasant because it isn’t here.

When you look back on things, your version is always perfect.

There is nothing that makes a man more self-satisfied than a poor memory.

When you get down to the bottom of it, only about half of what we remember really happened. We tend to modify things to make ourselves look better in our own eyes and in the eyes of others. Then, if what we did wasn't really very admirable, we tend to forget that it ever happened. A normal human being's grasp on reality is very tenuous at best. Our imaginary lives are usually much nicer.

That which we remember is, more often than not, that which we would like to have been; or that which we hope to be. Thus our memory and our identity are ever at odds; our history ever a tale told by inattentive idealists.

Everything is danger, but we pretend that it's not.

Those who think their intellect will keep them from deception are already deceived.

I guess I've always lived upside down when I want things I can't have. My wife actually thinks I have a syndrome called Reality Distortion Field. It's kind of like drugs, only you can't come back from it. Reality Distortion is almost a permanent condition. Things come in and they go out: Presto, chango! To a certain extent, I did that with myself. As a kid, I did want to be an old-timer, since they were the ones with the big stories and the cool clothes. I wanted to go there. Now, I guess I want to bring that with me and go back in time.

But maybe every life looked wonderful if all you saw was the photo albums.

When you're certain you cannot be fooled, you become easy to fool.

Everything that happens is at least one dimension smaller than you've imagined it to be.

There's no disappointment in memory, and one's exaggerations are always on the good side.

Rob the average man of his life-illusion, and you rob him of his happiness at the same stroke.

When we think of the past it's the beautiful things we pick out. We want to believe it was all like that.

Things may look different to you than they did before. I've had that experience myself. But don't let appearances fool you. There's only one reality.

We often confuse what we wish for with what is.

Our everyday, traditional ideas of reality are delusions which we spend substantial parts of our daily lives shoring up, even at the considerable risk of trying to force facts to fit our definition of reality instead of vice versa.

Memory inevitably romanticizes, pressing reality to recede like pain.

All you know is what you think you know, but that isn't always what's real.

When we're deluded there's a world to escape. When we're aware, there's nothing to escape.

It is a curious fact that in bad days we can very vividly recall the good time that is now no more; but that in good days, we have only a very cold and imperfect memory of the bad.

I remember things the way they should have been.