Pretense Quotes - Page 2

• Most of the confidence which I appear to feel, especially when influenced by noon wine, is only a pretense.

  Tennessee Williams

  Confidence, Fake People, Wine

  "New Selected Essays: Where I Live". Book edited by John S. Bak and John Lahr, New Directions Publishing, "I am widely regarded as the ghost of a writer," (1977), 2009.

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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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• It is not poverty so much as pretense that harasses a ruined man - the struggle between a proud mind and an empty purse - the keeping up of a hollow show that must soon come to an end.

  Washington Irving

  Struggle, Men, Mind

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

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• I ask every Communist individually to set an example, by deeds and without pretense, a real example worthy of a man and a Communist, in restoring order, starting normal life, in resuming work and production, and in laying the foundations of an ordered life.

  Janos Kadar

  Teamwork, Real, Men

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• We assume that others are receiving the kind of appreciation we want for ourselves, and we proceed on the assumption that since we are not loveable as we are, we must become lovable under false pretenses, as if we were something better than we are.

  Thomas Merton

  Appreciation, Receiving, Want

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• Comics, at least in periodical form, exist almost entirely free of any pretense; the critical world of art hardly touches them, and they're 100% personal.

  Chris Ware

  Art, World, Transformation

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• The name and pretense of virtue is as serviceable to self-interest as are real vices.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Real, Self, Names

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• The basic fault lines today are not between people with different beliefs but between people who hold these beliefs with an element of uncertainty and people who hold these beliefs with a pretense of certitude

  Peter L. Berger

  People, Lines, Today

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• I think making a pretense of civility toward Eric Alterman is like making a pretense of civility to a scorpion.

  John Podhoretz

  Thinking, Scorpions, Eric

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• Without an unfettered press, without liberty of speech, all of the outward forms and structures of free institutions are a sham, a pretense - the sheerest mockery. If the press is not free; if speech is not independent and untrammeled; if the mind is shackled or made impotent through fear, it makes no difference under what form of government you live, you are a subject and not a citizen.

  William Borah

  Independent, Government, Differences

  William Edgar Borah (1936). “Bedrock: Views on Basic National Problems”

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• Most people love you for who you pretend to be.

  Jim Morrison

  Love You, Self Worth, People

  "Jim Morrison: Ten Years Gone". "Creem Magazine" Interview with Lizzie James, 1981.

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• That’s what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is....Most people love you for who you pretend to be....To keep their love, you keep pretending - performing. You get to love your pretense...It’s true, we’re locked in an image, an act - and the sad thing is, people get so used to their image - they grow attached to their masks. They love their chains. They forget all about who they really are. And if you try to remind them, they hate you for it - they feel like you’re trying to steal their most precious possession.

  Jim Morrison

  Love, Self Esteem, Hate

  "Jim Morrison: Ten Years Gone". "Creem Magazine" Interview with Lizzie James, 1981.

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• When I passed forty I dropped pretense, 'cause men like women who got some sense.

  Maya Angelou

  Birthday, Men, Age

  Maya Angelou (2015). “The Complete Poetry”, p.266, Random House

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• The divide of race has been America's constant curse. Each new wave of immigrants gives new targets to old prejudices. Prejudice and contempt, cloaked in the pretense of religious or political conviction, are no different. They have nearly destroyed us in the past. They plague us still. They fuel the fanaticism of terror. They torment the lives of millions in fractured nations around the world. These obsessions cripple both those who are hated and, of course, those who hate, robbing both of what they might become.

  William J. Clinton

  Religious, Hate, Past

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• If there is not Hell, a good many preachers are obtaining money under false pretenses.

  Billy Sunday

  Good Man, Hell, Preacher

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• That’s what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is....Most people love you for who you pretend to be....To keep their love, you keep pretending - performing. You get to love your pretense...It’s true, we’re locked in an image, an act...

  Jim Morrison

  Real, Love You, Self Worth

  "Jim Morrison: Ten Years Gone". "Creem Magazine" Interview with Lizzie James, 1981.

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• Our society is not a community, but merely a collection of isolated family units.

  Valerie Solanas

  Community, Society, Units

  Manifesto by Valerie Solanas, 1967.

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• That's what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is.

  Jim Morrison

  Famous Love, Being Yourself, True Friend

  "Jim Morrison: Ten Years Gone". "Creem Magazine" Interview with Lizzie James, 1981.

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• I am apparently gentle, unstable, and full of pretenses.  I will die a poet killed by the nonpoets, will renounce no dream, resign myself to no ugliness, accept nothing of the world but the one I made myself.  I wrote, lived, loved like Don Quixote, and on the day of my death I will say: ‘Excuse me, it was all a dream,’ and by that time I may have found one who will say: ‘Not at all, it was true, absolutely true.’

  Anais Nin

  Dream, World, May

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• Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe.

  Noah Webster

  Country, Army, Gun

  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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• You've been somebody long enough. You spent the first half of your life becoming somebody. Now you can work on becoming nobody, which is really somebody. For when you become nobody there is no tension, no pretense, no one trying to be anyone or anything. The natural state of the mind shines through unobstructed - and the natural state of the mind is pure love.

  This is quotes copyright © By Pumpkin Limited

  Ram Dass

  Long, Shining, Mind

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• Let me apologize for all the faces I've worn, none of them my own.

  Ruth Whitman

  Faces, Apologizing, Worn

  Ruth Whitman (1990). “Laughing Gas: Poems, New and Selected, 1963-1990”, p.66, Wayne State University Press

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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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• 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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• 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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