Quotes About Authenticity

Mother, I don't dream of marrying a prince and riding off into the sunset. That's a good thing, my darling, because there are no princes - only men and animals who pretend to be men.

A liar sees lies," said Taleswapper. "Even when they aren't there. Just as a hypocrite sees hypocrites whenever he runs across good people. Can't stand to think that anyone might really be what you only pretend to be.

Pinocchio was such a dolt to try to become a real boy. He was much better off with a wooden head.

Truth did not care much about such credentials. It refused to give up and reveal itself just because it realized you were bound to find it eventually. Bean

I don't know a soul who doesn't maintain two separate lists of doctrines—the ones that they believe that they believe; and the ones that they actually try to live by.

Puede que sea imposible disfrazarse con una identidad sin convertirse en lo que se finge ser.

You can tell a lie now and then, but what happens to you when you try to live your whole life inside a lie?

A person is what he says and does; that's how you learn whether his reputation was earned or manufactured.

Wherever their laughter came from, Ender couldn't find such a place in himself.

You're just Ender in drag, doing his Valentine bit. You come off the stage and there's nothing there, it comes off like makeup and a costume.

That's the truth—what is, what was, what will be—not what could be, what should have been, what never can be.

Sometimes people with the least that is worth stealing are the most concerned with giving the appearance of having great treasures hidden away.

A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.

I love acting. It is so much more real than life.

I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.

I won't tell you that the world matters nothing, or the world's voice, or the voice of society. They matter a good deal. They matter far too much. But there are moments when one has to choose between living one's own life, fully, entirely, completely—or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands. You have that moment now. Choose!

It is perfectly monstrous,' he said, at last, 'the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true.

To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up.

One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead.

I hate vulgar realism in literature. The man who would call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one.

Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know.

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling. To be natural is to be obvious, and to be obvious is to be inartistic.

Give a man a mask and he'll tell you the truth.

I don't want to earn my living, I want to live.