Quotes About Authenticity

I took new pleasure in the thought that in a piece of wild pasture land like this one may get closest to Nature, and subsist upon what she gives of her own free will. There have been no drudging, heavy-shod ploughmen to overturn the soil, and vex it into yielding artificial crops. Here one has to take just what Nature is pleased to give, whether one is a yellow-bird or a human being.

There, don't you think I'm always a-fault-finding! When I get hold of the real thing in folks, I stick to 'em,—but there's an awful sight of poor material walking about that ain't worth the ground it steps on.

Find your quiet center of life and write from that to the world.

Conformity is the inspiration of much second-rate virtue.

Our culture values perfect pictures of ourselves, mirage, over and above authentic connection. But we meet one another through the imperfect particular of our bodies. Imperfection calls out for affinity—for the beloved to say, I too am broken, but may I join you?

Nowadays you have to pay a very high price to become a bohemian.

They were both deciding not to be what others wanted them to be but to brand themselves for the world to see. To do their own packaging, so to speak, and to direct their powers to their specific target audiences.

This was the kind of girl who gestured big and talked big and showed her emotions big, but she wasn't really showing anything. All her actions turned out to be one big flirt. But, if you paid attention, as I did, it became obvious that she was flirting with no one. She was keeping all her real passion on reserve. That's how I knew she was a lesbian.

This was the feeling that Ms. Hempel couldn't shake: a conviction that she spent her days among people at the age when they are most purely themselves. How could she not be depleted when she came home, having been exposed for hours, without protection, to all those thrumming radiant selves? Here they were, just old enough to have discovered their souls, but not yet dulled by the ordinary act of survival, not yet practiced in dissembling.

So all you can do is be your own beautiful self and let love win.

Because high school only comes around once, and I would hate to look back and think I didn't make the most of every moment because I was scared of what other people thought. Other people never think that much about you anyway. Eleanor Roosevelt said that.

clad not exactly as a boy but, rather confusingly, as the boy I would have been, had I been more of a girl

The rest of us become narrow and mean when we live falsely. I'm sick to death of living falsely. I've been doing it for years.

She was at her truest, it seemed to her, in these tingling moments—these moments when, paradoxically, she was also at her most anonymous.

She said, 'It's real, isn't it?' Lilian answered after a pause, with a bowed head, in a murmur. 'Yes, it's real. It's the only real thing.

Everyone's so narrow and mean and --' 'No. Only a few people are. But the rest of us -- don't you see? The rest of us become narrow and mean when we live falsely....

But the words came from me, I seemed to feel the shape and taste of them as they left my mouth. I might have sat there and been sick upon the table—they could not have silenced me.

and at last, like a portly matron letting out the laces of her stays, she was herself again.

I suppose I really seemed mad, then; but it was only through the awfulness of having said nothing but the truth, and being thought to be deluded.

When we ask, "How are you?" we are generally met with the equally flat "Not too bad." The whole thing becomes a go-nowhere "connection-lite" interaction. If I reached out and asked you right now, "How is the state of your heart, in this breath?" I'm already connected to you.

It can be a good thing, too, to learn to sit in your own weirdness.

Hiking connects us to ourselves. A University of Michigan study found that because our senses evolved in nature, by getting back to it we connect more honestly with our sensory reactions. Which connects us with our true selves, and enhances a feeling of "oneness." Or perhaps we could say, a Something Else.

It is easy to touch up your outward appearance, to look as if you have it all together. Your attempts to look good can fool most people. But I see straight through you, into the depths of your being. There is no place for pretense in your relationship with Me. Rejoice in the relief of being fully understood. Talk with Me about your struggles and feelings of inadequacy.

When you are with someone you trust completely, you feel free to be yourself. This is one of the joys of true friendship.