Quotes About Authenticity

Grow wild according to thy nature.

Say what you have to say, not what you ought.

Any truth is better than make-believe. Tom Hyde, the tinker, standing on the gallows, was asked if he had any thing to say. "Tell the tailors," said he, "to remember to make a knot in their thread before they take the first stitch." His companion's prayer is forgotten.

No man ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his clothes; yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience.

Cuán vano es sentarse a escribir cuando aún no te has parado para vivir.

The life which society proposes to me to live is so artificial and complex—bolstered up on many weak supports, and sure to topple down at last—that no man surely can ever be inspired to live it.

No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth.

I sometimes try my acquaintances by such tests as this;— who could wear a patch, or two extra seams only, over the knee? Most behave as if they believed that their prospects for life would be ruined if they should do it. It would be easier for them to hobble to town with a broken leg than with a broken pantaloon.

I desire that there may be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one, be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father's or his mother's or his neighbor's instead.

Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me.

Se uma planta não pode viver de acordo com sua natureza, ela morre. O mesmo ocorre com um homem.

Noi non veneriamo né le Grazie né le Parche, ma la Moda.

Be true to your work, your word, and you're friend.

Si una planta no puede vivir de acuerdo con su naturaleza muere, y lo mismo le ocurre al hombre.

Innan vi kan pryda våra hus med vackra föremål måste väggarna plockas rena, våra liv rensas ut, därefter kan vi börja med ett gott hushåll och ett vackert liv från grunden; som det är nu odlas smaken för det sköna bäst utomhus, där det varken finns hus eller hushåll

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well. <...> Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe.

Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me.

I occasionally observed that he was thinking for himself and expressing his own opinion - a phenomenon so rare that I would walk any day ten miles to observe it.

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. If there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit? If you have any enterprise before you, try it in your own clothes.

all good things are wild and free

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes

simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives;

beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.