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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• 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 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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• 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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• When wisdom and knowledge appear, great pretense arises.

  Laozi

  Knowledge, Taoism, Arise

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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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• 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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• A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretense. No truth seems true.

  Maya Angelou

  Bizarre, Innuendo, Niceties

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

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• It would be futile to attempt to fit women into a masculine pattern of attitudes, skills and abilities . . .

  Arianna Huffington

  Attitude, Skills, Would Be

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• Man is always inclined to regard the small circle in which he lives as the center of the world and to make his particular, private life the standard of the universe and to make his particular, private life the standard of the universe. But he must give up this vain pretense, this petty provincial way of thinking and judging.

  Ernst Cassirer

  Giving Up, Men, Thinking

  Ernst Cassirer, Yale University. Louis Stern Memorial Fund (1944). “An Essay on Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture”, New Haven : Yale University Press ; London : H. Milford, Oxford University Press

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• Now hell and heaven grapple on our backs and all our old pretense is ripped away. Aye, and God's icy wind will blow.

  Arthur Miller

  Blow, Wind, Heaven

  "The Crucible". Play by Arthur Miller, 1953.

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• Frankly - and believe me, I say this without any pretense - when I see the road I've taken, I have to say that thanks to good luck, because without good luck one can do nothing, I've come out pretty well.

  James MacArthur

  Believe, Taken, Good Luck

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• It would be futile to attempt to fit women into a masculine pattern of attitudes, skills and abilities and disastrous to force them to suppress their specifically female characteristics and abilities by keeping up the pretense that there are no differences between the sexes.

  Arianna Huffington

  Sex, Attitude, Skills

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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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