cherish illusions

I'm too old to cherish illusions; I don't generally trust people so much as that.

This chapter will be devoted to smearing a few cherished illusions.

Each encounter pushes the main characters to a confrontation with self-image and cherished illusions that probably would not have happened at home.

The novel also deals with the cherished illusions people hold and how they react when these illusions are threatened.

It had dispelled some cherished illusions, and had forced her to look at the world around her with a high degree of skepticism.

By the time spring arrives, the two women are caught in a conflict of ideals that threatens to strip them of their most cherished illusions."

The joyful slave girl, obedient to her master's wishes, is an affront and, more frighteningly, an unanswerable and dreadful threat to their most cherished illusions.

The German occupying power and the DZN were constantly cherishing illusions about the influence of the paper on the Dutch public.

The effect may not be quite as convincing, but the combination of traditional fireplace and coal-effect fires, without any of the fuss of making real ones, preserves our cherished illusions.

But like the ground ape scuttling to escape the leap of the great cat, his instant, instinctive response to the threat to his most cherished illusions was to go to earth.

Thou hast known his Uncle, sharp-sighted thorough-going Cornelius de Pauw, who mercilessly cuts down cherished illusions; and of the finest antique Spartans, will make mere modern cutthroat Mainots.

For in the fantasies they acted out with whores they toft displayed their cherished illusions about women whether it be as mocking tormentors armed with whips and high heels, or as cringing victims.

The fact that her eyes, described by her husband as "violet", were in fact blue with a fleck of green shows Ghote that her husband, Robert Dawkins, held many cherished illusions about his wife.

In any case, you see what is upsetting about this picture: it nudges you to reassess cherished illusions that the vows you make cannot be broken, that the principles you adopt cannot be compromised, that you cannot be bought for a million dollars.

The streak of hardness which was so evident in Crassus also lay in the smoother, utterly charming Caesar; neither man cherished illusions about his noble world; both had burrowed deeply into mines of common sense and neither cared very much about personal luxuries.

The denouement of "Speed-the-Plow" is as shocking as those of "M. Butterfly" and "Joe Turner," because Mr. Mamet also forces people, on stage and by empathic extension in the audience, to question their most cherished illusions about themselves and confront who they really are.