Quotes About Authenticity

Be content to seem what you really are.

We should listen only to those whose lives conform to nature. And the others? He bears in mind what sort of people they are—both at home and abroad, by night as well as day—and who they spend their time with. And he cares nothing for their praise—men who can't even meet their own standards.

To praise without bombast; to display expertise without pretension.

Con la afectación del léxico no trates de decorar tu pensamiento.

Affect not to set out your thoughts with curious neat language. Be neither a great talker, nor a great undertaker; be one who for his word or actions needs neither an oath, nor any man to be a witness.

51. Take the shortest route, the one that nature planned—to speak and act in the healthiest way. Do that, and be free of pain and stress, free of all calculation and pretension.

Then hath a man attained to the estate of perfection in his life and conversation, when he so spends every day, as if it were his last day: never hot and vehement in his affections, nor yet so cold and stupid as one that had no sense; and free from all manner of dissimulation.

If then your eyes have really seen where the truth lies, do not care any more what men shall think of you, but be content if the rest of you life, whether long or short, be lived as your nature wills.

La perfección moral lleva consigo que se viva cada día como si fuere el ultimo, sin apresurarse ni amilanarse, ni obrar con ficción.

The most noble thing is to be yourself.

Die Aufgabe des Lebens besteht nicht darin, auf der Seite einer Mehrzahl zu stehen, sondern dem inneren Gesetz gemäß zu leben.

This is the mark of a perfect character, to pass through each day as if it were the last, without agitation, without torpor, without pretence.

To keep track of your effectiveness at this, every three months you may want to take a moment to write down your answer to this question: what percentage of your day do you experience a feeling of self-efficacy, that optimistic, positive, challenged-yet-confident, authentic feeling? Phrased more simply, what percentage of your day do you spend doing those things you really like to do?

People don't change that much. Don't waste time trying to put in what was left out. Try to draw out what was left in. That is hard enough.

Few are those who wish to be endowed with virtue rather than to seem so.

Esse quam videri - To be, rather than to seem (to be)

My conscience has more weight for me than the opinion of the whole world

Denn wirklich tugendhaft wollen nicht so Viele sein als scheinen.

Here's champagne for our real friends, and real pain for our sham friends.

What is it the I'll want from you? Not love: that would be too much to ask. Not forgiveness, which isn't yours to bestow. Only a listener, perhaps; only someone who will see me. Don't prettify me though, whatever else you do: I have no wish to be a decorated skull. But I leave myself in your hands. What choice do I have? By the time you read this last page, that- if anywhere- is the only place I will be.

I believe that everyone else my age is an adult whereas I am merely in disguise.

Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not cute. They are life sized.

I would like to be without shame. I would like to be shameless. I would like to be ignorant. Then I would not know how ignorant I was.

You know I love you. You're the only one. She isn't the first woman he's ever said that to. He shouldn't have used it up so much earlier in his life, he shouldn't have treated it like a tool, a wedge, a key to open women. By the time he got around to meaning it, the words sounded fraudulent to him and he'd been ashamed to pronounce them.