Pretense Quotes

• You must not under any pretense allow your mind to dwell on any thought that is not positive, constructive, optimistic, kind.

  Emmet Fox

  Positive, Niece, Optimistic

  Emmet Fox (1940). “Power Through Constructive Thinking”

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• Be not intimidated... nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice.

  John Adams

  Names, Hypocrisy, Suffering

  "A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law" by John Adams, teachingamericanhistory.org. 1765.

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• Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there.

  Eric Hoffer

  Trust, Beauty, Math

  Eric Hoffer (1955). “The passionate state of mind, and other aphorisms”

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• People defend nothing more violently than the pretenses they live by.

  Allen Drury

  People, Live By

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• A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretense. No truth seems true. A simple morning's greeting and response appear loaded with innuendo and fraught with implications. Each nicety becomes more sterile and each withdrawal more permanent.

  Maya Angelou

  Love, Morning, Truth

  Maya Angelou (2012). “The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou”, p.423, Modern Library

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• No one can long hide behind a mask; the pretense soon lapses into the true character.

  Seneca the Younger

  Character, Long, Lapses

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• Do we really know anybody? Who does not wear one face to hide another?

  Francis Marion

  Doe, Faces, Knows

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• When all lies, deceit, pretense is stripped away, what remains? The truth of a painting, or a book or a man.

  William S. Burroughs

  Lying, Book, Men

  William S. Burroughs, James Grauerholz (2001). “Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs”, p.53, Grove Press

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• To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.

  Timothy Keller

  Relationship, Marriage, Commitment

  Timothy Keller (2011). “The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God”, p.62, Penguin

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• When wisdom and knowledge appear, great pretense arises.

  Laozi

  Knowledge, Taoism, Arise

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• It seems to me that socialists today can preserve their position in academic economics merely by the pretense that the differences are entirely moral questions about which science cannot decide.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Differences, Today, Moral

  "A Conversation with Friedrich A. Von Hayek: Science and Socialism". Talk at American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Washington, D.C., 1979.

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• As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Country, Freedom, Taken

  Letter to Joshua F. Speed, 24 Aug. 1855

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• A Woman in harmony with her spirit is like a river flowing. She goes where she will without pretense and arrives at her destination prepared to be herself and only herself

  Maya Angelou

  Women, Rivers, Spirit

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• The world is full of people who are very clever at seeming much smarter than they really are.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Clever, People, World

  Kurt Vonnegut (2010). “Slapstick or Lonesome No More”, p.69, Random House

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• There is no worse sickness for the soul, o you who are proud, than this pretense of perfection.

  Rumi

  Perfection, Soul, Proud

  "Rumi Daylight: A Daybook of Spiritual Guidance". Book by Rumi, translated by Camille Adams Helminsk and Kabir Helminski, 1990.

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• It is not poverty so much as pretense that harasses a ruined man.

  Washington Irving

  Men, Poverty, Ruined

  Washington Irving (2006). “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories From the Sketch Book”, p.33, Penguin

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• To copy beauty forfeits all pretense to fame; to copy faults is want of sense

  Charles Churchill

  Want, Faults, Fame

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• He who has a mind to do mischief will always find a pretense.

  Publilius Syrus

  Mind, Mischief

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• The pious pretense that evil does not exist only makes it vague, enormous and menacing.

  Aleister Crowley

  Evil, Vagueness, Doe

  "The Confessions of Aleister Crowley". Book by Aleister Crowley. Chapter 33, 1969.

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• The heart of the world is breaking under this load of pride and pretense. There is no release from our burden apart from the meekness of Christ.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Heart, Pride, World

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• As a nation we began by declaring that all me are created equal. We now practically read it, all men are created equal except Negroes.

  Abraham Lincoln

  War, Men, Despotism

  Letter to Joshua F. Speed, 24 Aug. 1855

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• Having spent time around "sinners" and also around purported saints, I have a hunch why Jesus spent so much time with the former group: I think he preferred their company. Because the sinners were honest about themselves and had no pretense, Jesus could deal with them. In contrast, the saints put on airs, judged him, and sought to catch him in a moral trap. In the end it was the saints, not the sinners, who arrested Jesus.

  Philip Yancey

  Jesus, Thinking, Air

  FaceBook post by Philip Yancey from Nov 12, 2013

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• Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie; and the workers want no lying.

  Mikhail Bakunin

  Lying, Equality, Hype

  "The Red Association" by Mikhail Bakunin, www.marxists.org. 1870.

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• Pretending can be a bold form of experimentation and inventiveness. In pretending joy or happiness, we may discover or enhance our capacity for it.

  Harriet Lerner

  Joy, May, Pretending

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• Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States.

  Noah Webster

  Army, Gun, Power

  Noah Webster (1787). “An Examination Into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution Proposed by the Late Convention Held at Philadelphia: With Answers to the Principal Objections that Have Been Raised Against the System”, p.43

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