Disguise Quotes - Page 22

• A poem needs disguises. It needs secrets. It thrives on the tension between what is said and not said; it prefers the oblique, the implied, the ironic, the suggestive; when it speaks, it wants you to lean forward a little to overhear; it wants you to understand things only years later.

  J. D. McClatchy

  Years, Secret, Ironic

  J. D. McClatchy (2013). “Twenty Questions”, p.30, Columbia University Press

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The weak are not a noble breed. Their sublime deeds of faith, daring, and self-sacrifice usually spring from questionable motives. The weak hate not wickedness but weakness; and one instance of their hatred of weakness is hatred of self. All the passionate pursuits of the weak are in some degree a striving to escape, blur, or disguise an unwanted self. It is a striving shot through with malice, envy, self-deception, and a host of petty impulses; yet it often culminates in superb achievements.

  Eric Hoffer

  Hate, Spring, Sacrifice

  Eric Hoffer (1963). “The Ordeal of Change”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• For every man's nature is concealed with many folds of disguise, and covered as it were with various veils. His brows, his eyes, and very often his countenance, are deceitful, and his speech is most commonly a lie.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Lying, Eye, Men

  Marcus Tullius Cicero (1850). “Cicero's Three Books of Offices, or Moral Duties; also his Cato Major, an essay on Old Age; Lælius, an essay on Friendship; Paradoxes; Scipio's Dream; and Letter to Quintus on the duties of a magistrate. Literally translated, with notes ... by Cyrus R. Ed”, p.313

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• The tendency of party spirit has ever been to disguise and propagate and support error.

  Richard Whately

  Party, Errors, Support

  Richard Whately (1856). “Thoughts and Apophthegms: From the Writings of Archbishop Whateley”, p.95

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I believe that obstinacy, or the dread of control and discipline, arises not so much from self-willedness as from a conscious defect of voluntary power; as foolhardiness is not seldom the disguise of conscious timidity.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Believe, Self, Discipline

  7 Copy quote

• Though lust do masque in ne'er so strange disguise she's oft found witty, but is never wise.

  John Webster

  Wise, Witty, Lust

  John Webster (1989). “The Duchess of Malfi”

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is great and manly to disdain disguise; it shows our spirit and proves our strength.

  Edward Young

  Strength, Spirit, Shows

  4 Copy quote

• Most of what you encounter when you meet a man is a facade, an elaborate fig leaf, a brilliant disguise.

  John Eldredge

  Men, Encounters, Brilliant

  John Eldredge (2011). “Wild at Heart Revised and Updated: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul”, p.52, Thomas Nelson Inc

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nearly always, so as to live at peace with ourselves, we disguise our own impotence and weakness as calculation and policy; it is our way of placating that half of our being which is in a sense a spectator of the other.

  Benjamin Constant

  Weakness, Half, Way

  Benjamin Constant (2006). “Adolphe”, p.49, Penguin UK

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Every problem is an opportunity in disguise.

  John Adams

  Opportunity, Problem

  43 Copy quote

• If you treat people with dignity, respect and friendliness, you can turn enemies into friends. An enemy is nothing but a friend in disguise.

  Ted Turner

  People, Enemy, Dignity

  43 Copy quote

• I confess that my stomach does not take to this style of cooking. I cannot accept calves sweetbreads swimming in a salty sauce, nor can I eat mince consisting of turkey, hare, and rabbit, which they try to persuade me comes from a single animal... As for the cooks, I really cannot be expected to put up with this ham essence, nor the excessive quantity of morels and other mushrooms, pepper, and nutmeg with which they disguise perfectly good food.

  Voltaire

  Swimming, Animal, Perfectly Good

  7 Copy quote

• Good housewives all the winter's rage despise, Defended by the riding-hood's disguise; Or, underneath the umbrella's oily shade, Safe through the wet on clinking pattens tread, Let Persian dames the unbrella's ribs display, To guard their beauties from the sunny ray; Or sweating slaves support the shady load, When eastern monarchs show their state abroad; Britain in winter only knows its aid, To guard from chilling showers the walking maid.

  John Gay

  Winter, Support, Maids

  John Gay (1826). “Gay's Fables and Other Poems: Cotton's Visions in Verse ; Moore's Fables for the Female Sex ; with Sketches of the Authors' Lives”, p.197

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Do proper homage to thine idol's eyes; But no too humbly, or she will despise Thee and thy suit, though told in moving tropes: Disguise even tenderness if thou art wise.

  Lord Byron

  Wise, Art, Moving

  Lord Byron (1854). “Childe Harold's pilgrimage”, p.84

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The artist and the multitude are natural enemies. They always will be, both ways. The artist is an enemy of the multitude, and the multitude is the enemy of the artist. And when the disguise comes off and they're both standing facing one another, they're just there at odds end.

  Robert Altman

  Art, Odds, Enemy

  Robert Altman, David Sterritt (2000). “Robert Altman: Interviews”, p.71, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Words don't tell you what people are thinking. Rarely do we use words to really tell. We use words to sell people or to convince people or to make them admire us. It's all disguise. It's all hidden -- a secret language.

  Robert Altman

  Thinking, People, Secret

  "Robert Altman: What I've Learned" by Scott Raab, www.esquire.com. January 29, 2007.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Zeal is that pure and heavenly flame,The fire of love supplies ;While that which often bears the name,Is self in a disguise.True zeal is merciful and mild,Can pity and forbear ;The false is headstrong, fierce and wild,And breathes revenge and war.

  John Newton

  Revenge, War, Fire

  John Newton (1877). “Olney hymns: in three books”, p.423

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Remember that pride is the worst viper that is in the heart, the greatest disturber of the soul's peace and sweet communion with Christ; it was the first sin that ever was, and lies lowest in the foundation of Satan's whole building, and is the most difficultly rooted out, and is the most hidden, secret and deceitful of all lusts, and often creeps in, insensibly, into the midst of religion and sometimes under the disguise of humility.

  Jonathan Edwards

  Sweet, Lying, Heart

  Jonathan Edwards, George S. Claghorn, Perry Miller, John Edwin Smith, Norman Pettit (1998). “The Works of Jonathan Edwards: Letters and personal writings”

  293 Copy quote

  Show source

• They remain dead, the people I try to resuscitate by straining to hear what they say. But the illusion is not pointless, or not quite, even if the reader knows all this better than I do. One thing a book tries to do, beneath the disguise of words and causes and clothes and grief, is show the skeleton and the skeleton dust to come. The author too, like those of whom he speaks, is dead.

  Jean Genet

  Grief, Book, Dust

  Jean Genet (2003). “Prisoner of Love”, New York Review of Books

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• I do disguises for different reasons. I like to study people - be like the fly on the wall. Even if it's two old ladies sitting on a bench or some kids on a swing. Because I don't know what it's like to fit in an everyday life situation.

  Michael Jackson

  Wall, Kids, Swings

  10 Copy quote

• America .. the international Jekyll and Hyde ... the land of a thousand disguises, sneaks up on you but rarely surprises

  Gil Scott-Heron

  America, Land, Hyde

  103 Copy quote

• We're all in full-time Christian service. We have different disguises, but the same vocation; to be out and out lovers and servants of the Lord Jesus Christ... no dichotomy exists between ministry and lifestyle.

  Dwight Edwards

  Christian, Jesus, Different

  6 Copy quote

• The life of Dumas is not only a monument of endeavour and success, it is a sort of labyrinth as well. It abounds in pseudonyms and disguises, in sudden and unexpected appearances and retreats as unexpected and sudden, in scandals and in rumours, in mysteries and traps and ambuscades of every kind.

  William Ernest Henley

  Labyrinth, Retreat, Pseudonyms

  William Ernest Henley (1921). “Views and reviews”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• My staged work looks so real that people actually take it for documentary. But, in fact, that is my intention, to disguise the manufacturedness of it. Half of my work, or probably more than that, is staged.

  Wolfgang Tillmans

  Real, People, Looks

  Interview with Peter Halley and Bob Nickas, www.indexmagazine.com. 1997.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• We all long for heaven where God is, but we have it our power to be in heaven with him right now-to be happy with him at this very moment. But this means being: Loving as he loves, helping as he helps, giving as he gives, serving as he serves, rescuing as he rescues, being with him all 24 hours of the day, touching him in his distressing disguise.

  Mother Teresa

  Mean, Long, Giving

  6 Copy quote