Quotes About Authenticity

Right, pass the word along: no one is to look like a sock, understand?

To be fucking human, to not put too fine a point on it, and Daniel Boone can kiss my ass.

When it comes to words, rather than using our own voice, authentic and unpracticed, we steal someone else's to shield our fear.

Once you know that you have a voice," Louis said, "it's no longer the voice that matters, but what is behind the voice.

Today, everyone thinks we need to stay positive and hopeful and not be completely honest about what we are seeing, what we know to be true. Whether we're talking about climate change or what's occurring on the streets in Ferguson, we are so afraid of offending people...and then, we only talk to our own constituencies and its' the same rhetoric over and over again until the words become bloodless. (p. 325)

For far too long we have been seduced into walking a path that did not lead us to ourselves. For far too long we have said yes when we wanted to say no. And for far too long we have said no when we desperately wanted to say yes.

It is difficult to ever see yourself. I don't know how I've developed or grown as a writer. I hope I am continuing to take risks on the page. I hope I am continuing to ask the hard questions of myself. If we are attentive to the world and to those around us, I believe we will be attentive on the page. Writing is about presence. I want to be fully present wherever I am, alive to the pulse just beneath the skin.

I'm a dinosaur, he thought, lumbering through a world where truthtellers are despised.

There's nothing as boring as perfection

She was who she was, and either you accepted it or you could just go to hell.

Do not try to force yourself back into this old life. It is like trying to fit into a pair of old trousers once you have grown taller. It no longer suits you. It never will again. It is best to admit this, lest you force the fit and look ridiculous. Better for the pants, better for you, better for all who would see you wear them.

Your purpose is to be yourself. You don't have to run anywhere to become someone else. You are wonderful just as you are.

I take my time. I want to be myself. I don't deny myself in the here and now. This is our practice—we call it aimlessness. We don't put a goal in front of ourselves and run after it constantly. If we do, we'll be running all our life and never be happy. Happiness is possible only when you stop running and cherish the present moment and who you are. Who you are is already a wonder; you don't need to be someone else. You are a wonder of life.

Anywhere we go, we will have our self with us; we cannot escape ourselves.

All the wonders of life are already here. They're calling you. If you can listen to them, you will be able to stop running. What you need, what we all need, is silence. Stop the noise in your mind in order for the wondrous sounds of life to be heard. Then you can begin to live your life authentically and deeply.

Like a beautifully brightly colored flower without fragrance, is the well-spoken word without action.

Maybe we too are living like dead people. We move about life in our own corpse because we are not touching life in depth. We live a kind of artificial life, with lots of plans, lots of worries and anger. Never are we able to establish ourselves in the here and now and live our lives deeply. We have to wake up! We have to make it possible for the moment of awareness to manifest. This is the practice that will save us—this is the revolution.

When you touch someone who authentically represents a tradition, you not only touch his or her tradition, you also touch your own.

Someone may be able to speak beautifully about compassion, wisdom, or nonself, but this doesn't necessarily help others. And the speaker may still have a big self or treat others badly. His eloquent speech may be only empty words. We can get tired of all these words, even the word "Buddha.

We practice so that each moment of our life becomes real life. And, therefore, when we meditate, we sit for sitting; we don't sit for something else.

Let one embrace his own truth and devote himself to its fulfillment.

The deepest way in which we are right or wrong," he continued, "is in our way of being toward others. I can be right on the surface—in my behavior or positions—while being entirely mistaken beneath, in my way of being.

I can be on the lookout for signs of the various common boxes, for example—ways I'm feeling better-than, or entitled, or worse-than, or anxious to be seen-as. "Then when I feel stuck in the box and desire to get out, I can find an out-of-the-box place—some place within me that is unencumbered by these boxes.

Cause you know that its a fool, who plays it cool, by making his world a little colder... - The Beatles