When you stop feeling

When Mark Twain said,

"Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist but you have ceased to live,"

he meant that our cherished beliefs, dreams, hopes, and even self-deceptions (illusions) are essential for a vibrant, meaningful life, providing purpose, inspiration, and imagination, because a world stripped bare of these 'false' notions leaves only a cold, logical existence, devoid of the passion and drive that make life worth living.

Twain believed thus that these illusions, often formed in youth, fuel creativity and sustain us, even if they aren't strictly 'true'.

In essence, he suggests that a life without illusions is a life without spirit, where you are merely a functioning biological entity, not a truly living person. Gustave Le Bon, a leading French polymath went one further when he stated,

“The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error... Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim."