Quotes About Authenticity

There are people who will try to make you choose between who you are and who they want you to be. You have to watch out for those people.

Anyway,' Sherm said quietly, 'people fake stuff all the time.

Sometimes your body feels like a cage for all the stuff inside. You paint your nails, braid your hair, and buy the right kind of jeans, but none of it is really about you.

Sheila made it sound simple, like everyone had one real self. But what if I didn't? Or what if my real self was no good? I kept imagining Angelica's face, half like usual, half not working right. Sometimes I felt like that on the inside, like I knew how I wanted to be, but it didn't match up with how I really was.

It's about the kind of love that doesn't ask you to be anyone but who you are.

Sometimes the truth is dramatic.

This is a cardinal Ya-Ya rule: you must meet each person's eyes while clinking glasses in a toast. Otherwise, the ritual has no meaning, it's just pure show. And that is something the Ya-Yas are not.

Any authentic work of art must start an argument between the artist and his audience.

Villagers saw me as a person when I played with them, as opposed to when I talked with them.

The only correct actions are those that demand no explanation and no apology.

When you finally accept that you're a complete dork, your life gets easier. No sense in trying to be cool.

When we lead small we simply make a choice to invest strategically in the lives of a few over time so we can help them build an authentic faith.

The first priority of the family should be to establish a quality of relationship with each other that is a reflection of an authentic relationship with God. That may have been what Paul was aiming at when he wrote to the church in Ephesians 5 and 6 about the family.

Part of the success of every program should be linked to how well it elevates the idea of finding authentic community.

No matter what you say you believe, people can tell what's important by the way you act. And your behavior will affect what they believe.

People consider me a success because I'm a good football player and make lots of money. But if my heart's not right, if I'm not living a life pleasing to God, I'm a failure.

So what is love? It's an unbuttoning of the self. Not an unbuttoning of the clothing covering your sexy self, but the reassurance that, without any camouflage, cover-ups or compromise, you're safe. You're in the presence of another person who would rather be with you than with anyone else.

What would God think of her, sitting in this chapel, pretending to be holy? He knew the truth. He knew she was no friend of His.

I am convinced none of us shows the world a true face. We keep that safely tucked away.

For something to be beautiful it doesn't have to be pretty.

I never set out to make myself unpopular; I just say what I think, so I sometimes rub people up the wrong way, particularly people who parade their ideals before them like a banner and use them to hide behind. And I will keep on saying what I think. I am not prepared to abandon my self-determined existence for an ideology or an ideal.

The highest type of leadership maintains itself by its intrinsic worth, sans panoply, pomp and power. Of course, there are never enough real leaders to go around. Wherefore it becomes necessary to dress some men up and by other artificial means to give them a prestige and a power which they could not win by their own resources.

It is just as valuable to be censured by friends as it is splendid to be praised by enemies. We desire praise from those who do not know us, but from friends we want the truth.

To know what people really think, pay regard to what they do, rather than what they say.