Quotes About Authenticity

Truth is terrific, reality is even better, but believability is the best of all

Truth is terrific, reality is even better, but believability is best of all. Because without it, truth and reality go right out the window….

The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.

To be honest is to be real, genuine, authentic, and bona fide. To be dishonest is to be partly feigned, forged, fake, or fictitious. Honesty expresses both self-respect and respect for others. Dishonesty fully respects neither oneself nor others. Honesty imbues lives with openness, reliability, and candor; it expresses a disposition to live in the light. Dishonesty seeks shade, cover

Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person hypocrisy begins. We parry and fend the approach of our fellow man by compliments, by gossip, by amusements, by affairs. We cover up our thought from him under a hundred folds. I knew a man who, under a certain religious frenzy, cast off this drapery, and, omitting all compliments and commonplace, spoke to the conscience of every person he encountered, and that with great insight and beauty.

To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them ratified.

A truly great man never puts away the simplicity of a child.*

Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.

The man who comes with a tale about others has himself an ax to grind.

A successful life is one that is lived through understanding and pursuing one's own path, not chasing after the dreams of others.

Why did everyone become so obsessed with being 'perky', upbeat, and happy all the time? In our happiness-obsessive culture, even a lack of smile might cause people to think there is something wrong with you. What's worse is when we buy into it ourselves.

The singer should sing well even if it is merely to himself, rather than dance badly for the whole world.

Beware the soul-sucking force of reasonableness

The style is not important. What's important is authenticity: being personal not programmatic. And frequency: closer to weekly than yearly. And of course what's most important is the message: "I saw what you did and I appreciate it.

Another variety of close-up involves going to the genba, a Japanese term meaning "the real place" or, more loosely, the place where the action happens. Japanese detectives, for instance, call the crime scene the genba. In a manufacturing firm, the genba would be the factory floor, and for a retailing company it would be the store. Practitioners of Total Quality Management encourage leaders to "go to the genba" to understand problems.

At work and in life, we often pretend that we want truth when we're really seeking reassurance: "Do these jeans make me look fat?" "What did you think of my poem?" These questions do not crave honest answers.

The lesson for the rest of us is that if we want to make people care, we've got to tap into the things they care about. When everybody taps into the same thing, an arms race emerges. To avoid it, we've either got to shift onto new turf, as Thompson did, or find associations that are distinctive for our ideas.

Never let your mouth write a check that your ass can't cash.

Beauty is not everything!

In life, it's best not to take anything for free - unless it's from someone who wishes you well.

But truth, when it's being lived, is less glamorous than our imaginings.

The truth is less glamorous than our imagination.

Remain true to yourself—and to your heart. Be courageous and remember, even the blackest night must end in dawn.

It's like you always have to put on a happy face, be the phony baloney, and I'm so not that. I never was that I'll never be that. That is part of the business that I don't like. Maybe that will always keep me an outsider, I don't know. But that's fine.