I have always considered imaginative truth to be more profound, more loaded with significance, than every day reality... Everything we dream about, and by that I mean everything we desire, is true (the myth of Icarus came before aviation, and if Ader or Bleriot started flying it is because all men have dreamed of flight). There is nothing truer than myth... Reality does not have to be: it is simply what is.
Interpretation
Imaginative truths hold deeper significance than mundane realities, as dreams and myths shape our desires and perceptions.
In this quote, Eugene Ionesco suggests that the truths found in our imagination and dreams are more impactful and significant than the realities we encounter in daily life. He emphasizes that myths, like the story of Icarus, express deep human desires and aspirations, and that these imaginative concepts often precede and inspire actual achievements, such as flight. Essentially, Ionesco argues that reality is not the only truth; rather, it is shaped by our dreams and the myths we hold dear.
In practice
This quote can be used in a motivational speech about the importance of creativity in achieving one's goals.
Since the death instinct exists in the heart of everything that lives, since we suffer from trying to repress it, since everything that lives longs for rest, let us unfasten the ties that bind us to life, let us cultivate our death wish, let us develop it, water it like a plant, let it grow unhindered. Suffering and fear are born from the repression of the death wish.
Childhood is the world of miracle and wonder; as if creation rose, bathed in the light, out of the darkness, utterly new and fresh and astonishing. The end of childhood is when things cease to astonish us.
No society has been able to abolish human sadness, no political system can deliver us from the pain of living, from our fear of death, our thirst for the absolute. It is the human condition that directs the social condition, not vice versa.
Drama lies in extreme exaggeration of the feelings, an exaggeration that dislocates flat everyday reality.
Language should almost break up or explode in its fruitless effort to contain so many meanings.
The brightest light, the light of Italy, the purest sky of Scandinavia in the month of June is only a half-light when one compares it to the light of childhood. Even the nights were blue.
I too saw the wooden horse blocking the stars.
If we take the poor away from the Gospel, we won't be able to understand the whole message of Jesus Christ.
By whomsoever no evil is done in deed, or word, or thought, him I call a Brahmin (holy man) who is guarded in these three.
A cap of good acid costs $5, and for that you can hear the Universal Symphony, with God singing solo and the Holy Ghost on drums.
Recognize that whether you are worthy or not is all a made-up 'story'...Nothing has meaning except for the meaning we give it...There's no one who comes around and stamps you 'worthy' or 'unworthy'. You do that. You make it up. You decide it...If you say you're worthy, you are. If you say you're not worthy, you're not. Either way you will live into your story.
We must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day had been.
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