Quotes About Authenticity

There is always dishonesty at the heart of unhappiness.

Never, ever try to impress somebody. Be exactly the person you would be if you were alone or with somebody it was safe to fart around.

So if you think the job really suits you, be you.

This is what happens when you go against the grain of truth: you get splinters later on.

And that was my first clue that Dennis was of superior mental health. He had no reason to try and mask his awkwardness with a stoic face, no need to pretend to be blasé.

I absolutely hate being strapped down and buckled to my own words.

If you're different you always know it, and you can't fix it even if you want to

If one's actions are honest, one does not need the predated confidence of others.

Only a man of integrity can possess the virtue of honesty, since only the faking of one's consciousness can permit the faking of existence.

A house can have integrity, just like a person,' said Roark, 'and just as seldom.

A Conformist is a man who declares, It's true because others believe it - but an Individualist is NOT a man who declares, It's true because I believe it. An Individual declares, I believe it because I see in reason that it is true.

I've always thought that a feeling which changes never existed in the first place.

Not selfishness, but precisely the absence of a self. Look at them. The man who cheats and lies, but preserves a respectable front. He knows himself to be dishonest, but others think he's honest and he derives his self-respect from that, second-hand. The man who takes credit for an achievement which is not his own. He knows himself to be mediocre, but he's great in the eyes of others.

I don't like people who speak or think in terms of gaining anybody's confidence. If one's actions are honest, one does not need the predated confidence of others, only their rational perception. The person who craves a moral blank check of that kind, has dishonest intentions, whether he admits it to himself or not.

Integrity is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake your consciousness, just as honesty is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake existence.

Did it ever occur to you, asked Kira, that I may be here for the very unusual, unnatural reason of wanting to learn a work I like only because I like it?

People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I've learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one's reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one's master, comdemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person's view requires to be faked.

You can fake virtue for an audience. You can't fake it in your own eyes.

A man doesn't borrow pieces of his body. A building doesn't borrow hunks of its soul. Its maker gives it the soul and every wall, window and stairway to express it.

A building has integrity, just as a man and just as seldom! It must be true to its own idea, have its own form, and serve its own purpose!.

We have lied to ourselves. We have not built this box for the good of our brothers. We built it for its own sake. It is above all our brothers to us, and its truth above their truth.

Why is it so important - what others have done? Why does it become sacred by the mere fact of not being your own? Why is anyone and everyone right - so long as it's not yourself? Why does the number of those others take the place of truth? Why is truth made a mere matter of arithmetic - and only of addition at that? Why is everything twisted out of all sense to fit everything else?

You never wanted me to be real. You never wanted anyone to be. But you didn't want me to show it. You wanted an act to help your act...

I can do nothing halfway. Those who can, have a fissure somewhere inside. Most people have many. They lie to themselves—not to know that. I've never lied to myself.