--- title: "Meaning & Key Takeaway of: Our unconscious ideals cause us to…" description: "\"“Our unconscious ideals cause us to sacrifice our true lives to a beautiful chimera, a haunting dream, a compelling illusion.”\" — Stephen Cope" image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/239/stephen-cope-39822_chimera_our-unconscious-ideals-cause-us-to-sacri_3002968.jpg" --- # Our unconscious ideals cause us to sacrifice our true… ![“Our unconscious ideals cause us to sacrifice our true lives to a beautiful chimera, a haunting dream, a compelling illusion.” quote by Stephen Cope](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/239/stephen-cope-39822_chimera_our-unconscious-ideals-cause-us-to-sacri_3002968.jpg) [Download](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/239/stephen-cope-39822_chimera_our-unconscious-ideals-cause-us-to-sacri_3002968.jpg) [Open image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/239/stephen-cope-39822_chimera_our-unconscious-ideals-cause-us-to-sacri_3002968.jpg) > ““Our unconscious ideals cause us to sacrifice our true lives to a beautiful chimera, a haunting dream, a compelling illusion.”” [Stephen Cope](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-cope/) ## About This Quote This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation. Unconscious ideals lead us to sacrifice authentic life for an alluring but illusory dream or illusion. **In simple terms:** Unconscious goals cause self‑sacrifice. Key Takeaway Become aware of true desires. Themes illusion self‑sacrifice unconscious goals Mood introspective calm Type philosophical motivational When to use this quote - self‑help - philosophy - personal development Key Concepts psychology spiritual growth mindfulness Questions to Reflect On - What unconscious ideal drives you? - How can you distinguish illusion from reality? 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Let men learn to serve language.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/karl-kraus/language-is-the-only-chimera-whose-illusory-power-is-endless-the/) [Karl Kraus](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/karl-kraus/) > [“Good Samaritans: Truth, justice and the American way–for them it wasn't only a comic book code; it was a way of life. it was…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rob-thurman/good-samaritans-truth-justice-and-the-american-way-for-them-it-wasn-t/) [Rob Thurman](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rob-thurman/) > [Everyone knows that (1) happiness is the goal of life, and (2) happiness is a chimera.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mason-cooley/everyone-knows-that-1-happiness-is-the-goal-of-life-and-2-happiness/) [Mason Cooley](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mason-cooley/) > [For the first rate poet, nothing short of a Queen or a Chimera is adequate for the powers of his praise.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wyndham-lewis/for-the-first-rate-poet-nothing-short-of-a-queen-or-a-chimera-is/) [Wyndham Lewis](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wyndham-lewis/) > [The soul languishing in obscurity contracts a kind of rust, or abandons itself to the chimera of presumption; for it is natural for it…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/quintilian/the-soul-languishing-in-obscurity-contracts-a-kind-of-rust-or/) [Quintilian](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/quintilian/) > [The Void is not being, but not being cannot be, ergo the Void cannot be. The reasoning was sound, because it denied the Void…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/umberto-eco/the-void-is-not-being-but-not-being-cannot-be-ergo-the-void-cannot-be/) [Umberto Eco](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/umberto-eco/) > [It's not a matter of emancipating truth from every system of power (which would be a chimera, for truth is already power) but of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/michel-foucault/it-s-not-a-matter-of-emancipating-truth-from-every-system-of-power/) [Michel Foucault](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/michel-foucault/) > [In whatever system where the weight attached to the wheel should be the cause of motion of the wheel, without any doubt the center…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/leonardo-da-vinci/in-whatever-system-where-the-weight-attached-to-the-wheel-should-be/) [Leonardo da Vinci](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/leonardo-da-vinci/) > [I believed that I was approaching the end of my days without having tasted to the full any of the pleasures for which my…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jean-jacques-rousseau/i-believed-that-i-was-approaching-the-end-of-my-days-without-having/) [Jean-Jacques Rousseau](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jean-jacques-rousseau/) > [Just as the blurring between childhood and adulthood has produced the kidult, so the stretching of middle into old age has fostered another peculiar…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/will-self/just-as-the-blurring-between-childhood-and-adulthood-has-produced-the/) [Will Self](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/will-self/) > [Conservatives have long argued, correctly, that 'fine-tuning' the economy is a chimera, but that argument seems to have disappeared from the conservative handbook.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/alex-tabarrok/conservatives-have-long-argued-correctly-that-fine-tuning-the-economy/) [Alex Tabarrok](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/alex-tabarrok/) [Browse all 59 Chimera quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/chimera/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“Our unconscious ideals cause us to sacrifice our true lives to a beautiful chimera, a haunting dream, a compelling illusion.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Stephen Cope" }, "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-cope/our-unconscious-ideals-cause-us-to-sacrifice-our-true-lives-to-a/", "about": { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Chimera" }, "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-cope/our-unconscious-ideals-cause-us-to-sacrifice-our-true-lives-to-a/#quotation", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/239/stephen-cope-39822_chimera_our-unconscious-ideals-cause-us-to-sacri_3002968.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/239/stephen-cope-39822_chimera_our-unconscious-ideals-cause-us-to-sacri_3002968.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/239/stephen-cope-39822_chimera_our-unconscious-ideals-cause-us-to-sacri_3002968.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Our unconscious ideals cause us to sacrifice our true lives to a beautiful chimera, a haunting dream, a…” — Stephen Cope", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } }, { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://sms4smile.com/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Quotes", "item": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Stephen Cope", "item": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-cope/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "“Our unconscious ideals cause us to...", "item": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-cope/our-unconscious-ideals-cause-us-to-sacrifice-our-true-lives-to-a/" } ], "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-cope/our-unconscious-ideals-cause-us-to-sacrifice-our-true-lives-to-a/#breadcrumb" }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website", "name": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/", "publisher": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } }, { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization", "name": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/themes/sq/assets/icons/icon-512.png", "width": 512, "height": 512 } } ] } ```