Quotes About Authenticity

Widespread cultural acceptance of lying is a primary reason many of us will never know love.

there is not a day of my life that I am not critiquing myself to see if my politics are borne out in the way that I live and the way that I talk and present myself.

When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as an escape.

Trusting that another person always intends your good, having a core foundation of loving practice, cannot exist within a context of deception.

When we reveal ourselves to our partner and find that this brings healing rather than harm, we make an important discovery—that intimate relationship can provide a sanctuary from the world of facades, a sacred space where we can be ourselves, as we are. . . . This kind of unmasking—speaking our truth, sharing our inner struggles, and revealing our raw edges—is sacred activity, which allows two souls to meet and touch more deeply.

When men lie to women, presenting a false self, the terrible price they pay to maintain power over us is the loss of their capacity to give and receive love.

The heart of justice is truth telling, seeing ourselves and the world the way it is rather than the way we want to be.

If we were constantly remembering that love is as love does, we would not use the word in a manner that devalues and degrades it's meaning.

Individuals who speak languages other than English, who speak patois as well as standard English, find it a necessary aspect of self-affirmation not to feel compelled to chose one voice over another, not to claim one as more authentic but rather to construct social realities that celebrate, acknowledge and affirm differences, variety.

Commitment to truth telling lays the groundwork for the openness and honesty that is the heartbeat of love. When we see ourselves as we truly are and accept ourselves, we build the necessary foundation for self-love.

Widespread cultural acceptance of lying is a primary reason many of us will never know love. It is impossible to nurture one's own or another's spiritual growth when the core of one's being and identity is shrouded in secrecy and lies. Trusting that another person always intends your good, having a core foundation of loving practice, cannot exist within a context of deception.

From the moment little boys are taught they should not cry or express hurt, feelings of loneliness, or pain, that they must be tough, they are learning how to mask true feelings. In worst-case scenarios they are learning how to not feel anything ever.

Lies may make people feel better, but they do not help them to know love.

When we can see ourselves as we truly are and accept ourselves, we build on the necessary foundation for self-love.

Choosing to be honest is the first step in the process of love.

The heart of justice is truth telling, seeing ourselves and the world the way it is rather than the way we want it to be.

The message given males is that to be honest is to be "soft." The ability to be dishonest and indifferent to the consequences makes a male hard, separates the men from the boys.

to holding on, to knowing again that moment of rapture, of recognition where we can face one another as we really are, stripped of artifice and pretense, naked and not ashamed

When we reveal ourselves to our partner and find that this brings healing rather than harm, we make an important discovery—that intimate relationship can provide a sanctuary from the world of facades, a sacred space where we can be ourselves, as we are. . . . This kind of unmasking—speaking our truth, sharing our inner struggles, and revealing our raw edges—is sacred activity, which allows two souls to meet and touch more deeply. —JOHN WELWOOD

To know love we have to tell the truth to ourselves and to others. Creating a false self to mask fears and insecurities has become so common that many of us forget who are and what we feel underneath the pretense.

Living in the Kentucky hills was where I first learned the importance of being wild.

The wounded child inside many males is a boy who, when he first spoke his truths, was silenced by paternal sadism, by a patriarchal world that did not want him to claim his true feelings. The wounded child inside many females is a girl who was taught from early childhood on that she must become something other than herself, deny her true feelings, in order to attract and please others. When men and women punish each other for truth telling we reinforce the notion that lies are better.

He had always been emotionally unavailable and not at all interested in love either as a topic for discussion or a daily life practice, but he was absolutely confident that he had something meaningful to say on the subject.

To be loving we willingly hear each other's truth and, most important, we affirm the value of truth telling. Lies may make people feel better, but they do not help them to know love.