Quotes About Authenticity

the real is coherent and probable because it is real, and not real because it is coherent...

What one too deliberately seeks, he does not find; and he who on the contrary has in his meditative life known how to tap its spontaneous source never lacks for ideas and values.

Does it not occur to people that I might be artificial by nature?

I said anything I wanted because I don't believe in children I don't believe in childhood. I don't believe that there's a demarcation. 'Oh you mustn't tell them that. You mustn't tell them that.' You tell them anything you want. Just tell them if it's true. If it's true you tell them.

Kids don't know about best sellers. They go for what they enjoy. They aren't star chasers and they don't suck up. It's why I like them.

Stop believing what you want to believe. It's unbecoming

You will think me lamentably crude: my experience of life has been drawn from life itself.

All fantasy should have a solid base in reality.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.

Ich bin nicht Stiller!

Die beste und sicherste Tarnung ist immer noch die blanke und nackte Wahrheit. Komischerweise die glaubt niemand.

A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.

The true human being doesn't lie in the future, an object of longing, but rather it lies in the present, existing and actual. However and whoever I may be, joyful and sorrowful, a child or an old man, in confidence or doubt, asleep or awake, I am it. I am the true human being.

Parfümierte, wortreiche, handlungsarme Ideenromane, die deshalb von den Deutschen geliebt werden, weil dieser Mann [Thomas Mann] genauso ein Heuchler war wie sie selbst.

This modern craze for biographical information leaves me cold for many reasons. For one thing, it's always inaccurate; for another, it's so bound up with publicity and other varieties of idiocy that it gags a person of any sensibility. For another, to be heralded is to become a candidate for the newest list of "the busted geniuses of yester-year" of whom I hope never to be one.

I don't like these cold, precise, perfect people, who, in order not to speak wrong, never speak at all, and in order not to do wrong, never do anything," said Henry Ward Beecher.

Stop measuring yourself against "their" standards. You are not "them" and can never measure up. Neither can "they" measure up to yours—nor should they. Once you see this simple, rather self-evident truth, accept it, and believe it, your inferior feelings will vanish.

You are not "inferior." You are not "superior." You are simply "You.

Beauty Is More Than Skin Deep

You" as a personality are not in competition with any other personality simply because there is not another person on the face of the earth like you, or in your particular class. You are an individual. You are unique. You are not "like" any other person and can never become "like" any other person. You are not "supposed" to be like any other person and no other person is "supposed" to be like you.

When your self-image is adequate and one that you can be wholesomely proud of, you feel self-confident. You feel free to "be yourself" and to express yourself. You function at your optimum.

Self-respect is nothing to hide behind. When you need it most it isn't there.

We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.

At some point I believe one has to stop holding back for fear of alienating some imaginary reader or real relative or friend, and come out with personal truth.