Quotes About Authenticity

The very things that separated me and distinguished me from other people were what mattered; the very things no one else would or could say, these were the things I had to say.

It is better to be hated for what you are than be loved for something you are not.

Jette mon livre; dis-toi bien que ce n'est là qu'une des mille postures possibles en face de la vie. Cherche la tienne. Ce qu'un autre aurait aussi bien fait que toi, ne le fais pas. Ce qu'un autre aurait aussi bien dit que toi, ne le dis pas, -- aussi bien écrit que toi, ne l'écris pas. Ne t'attache en toi qu'à ce que tu sens qui n'est nulle part ailleurs qu'en toi-même, et crée de toi, impatiemment ou patiemment, ah! le plus irremplaçable des êtres.

The things one feels are different about oneself are the things that are rare, that give each person their value - and these are the things they try to repress. The imitate and make out they love life!

The part in each of us that we feel is different from other people is just the part that is rare, the part that makes our special value - and that is the very thing people try to suppress. They go on imitating. And yet they think they love life

C'est dans l'extraordinaire que je me sens le plus naturel.

On ne peut être à la fois sincère et le paraître.

People don't want to be like themselves. They all choose a model to imitate, or if they don't choose a model themselves, they accept one ready-made.

In a world in which everyone cheats, it's the honest man who passes for a charlatan.

Ayn? zamanda hem içten olmak, hem de öyle görünmek olas? deÄŸil.

Mieux vaut être haï pour ce que l'on est, qu'aimé pour ce que l'on n'est pas.

Solo las almas muy banales alcanzan fácilmente la expresión sincera de su personalidad. Pues una personalidad nueva solo se expresa sinceramente en una forma nueva. La frase que nos es personal ha de ser tan particularmente difícil de tensar como el arco de Ulises

Tik per savo meil? jai suvokiau es?s ir prad?jau iš tikr?j? gyventi.

The only drama that really interests me and that I should always be willing to depict anew, is the debate of the individual with whatever keeps him from being authentic, with whatever is opposed to his integrity, to his integration. Most often the obstacle is within him. And all the rest is merely accidental.

If, as I say, I did not love my betrothed, at any rate, I had never loved any other woman.

Do not pose in your own presence. Id est: do not affect the qualities and virtues you would like to have but have not.

One wants to deceive people, and one is so much occupied with seeming, that one ends by not knowing what one really is.…

What seems different in yourself: that's the one rare thing you possess, the one thing which gives each of us his worth; and that's just what we try to suppress. We imitate. And we claim to love life.

In the domain of feeling, what is real is indistinguishable from what is imaginary.

Ne crois pas que ta vérité puisse être trouvé par quelque autre; plus que de tout, aie honte de cela.

Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.

La vérité d'un homme c'est d'abord ce qu'il cache.

Few of us are granted the grace to know ourselves, and until we do, maybe the best we can do is be consistent.

I felt more like me than I ever had, as if the years I'd lived so far had formed layers of skin and muscle over myself that others saw as me when the real one had been underneath all along, and writing—even writing badly—had peeled away those layers, and I knew then that if I wanted to stay this awake and alive, if I wanted to stay me, I would have to keep writing.