Pretense Quotes - Page 3

• 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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• ‎We must make our choice between economy and liberty or confusion and servitude...If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labor and in our amusements...if we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Running, Caring, Government

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• Excuse me, there's no pretense here. I happen to be genuinely self-absorbed and deeply shallow.

  Stephen Schwartz

  Self, Wicked, Excuse

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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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• There are pretenses which are very sincere, and marriage is their school.

  Miguel de Unamuno

  School, Sincere

  "Three Exemplary Novels and a Prologue". Book by Miguel de Unamuno, 1920.

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• Anything created with fake intention or pretense cannot last long.

  Henry Chang

  Honesty, Long, Fake

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• Once you can fake sincerity, you can fake anything.

  Mary Jo Putney

  Fake, Sincerity, Best House

  Mary Jo Putney (2002). “The Spiral Path”, Center Point Pub

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• The world is not looking for Stepford-type Christians. People are tired of pretense. We struggle with failures; we long for intimacy. So why are we feigning perfection before God and one another.

  Sheila Walsh

  Christian, Struggle, Tired

  Sheila Walsh (1999). “Life is Tough, But God is Faithful: How to See God's Love in Difficult Times”, p.1990, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• The insolent civility of a proud man is, if possible, more shocking than his rudeness could be; because he shows you, by his manner, that he thinks it mere condescension in him; and that his goodness alone bestows upon you what you have no pretense to claim.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Men, Thinking, Proud

  Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope Earl of Chesterfield (1855). “The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author”, p.312

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• Sometimes I pose, but sometimes I pose as posing.

  Stella Benson

  Sometimes, Posing

  Stella Benson (1916). “I Pose”

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• 

  Sex is full of lies. The body tries to tell the truth. But, it's usually too battered with rules to be heard, and bound with pretenses so it can hardly move. We cripple ourselves with lies.

  Jim Morrison

  Sex, Truth, Honesty

  "Into This House We're Born". Book by James Hunt, p. 262, July 1, 2006.

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• The protection of the masses has in all times been the pretense of tyranny - the plea of monarchy, of aristocracy, of special privilege of every kind. The slave owners justified slavery as protecting the slaves.

  Henry George

  Slave Owners, Special, Aristocracy

  Henry George (2006). “Protection Or Free Trade”, p.21, Cosimo, Inc.

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• To be patriotic, hate all nations but your own; to be religious, all sects but your own; to be moral, all pretenses but your own.

  Lionel Strachey

  Religious, Fear, Hate

  Lionel Strachey (1912). “The world's wit and humor: an encyclopedia of the classic wit and humor of all ages and nations...”

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• There are things about some professional athletes that I cannot stand-the pretense, the egos, the pomposity, the greed.

  Ted Simmons

  Success, Sports, Athlete

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• We labored under the pretense that nothing had changed when everything had, and I understood him, but i no longer knew him.

  Megan Hart

  Changed, Understood

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• When other people first became aware of the cow, they expressed concern and anxiety. They suggested strategies for getting the animal out of Molly's parlor: remedies and doctors and procedures, some mainstream and some New Age. They related anecdotes of friends who had removed their own cows in one way or another. But after a while they had exhausted their suggestions. Then they usually began to pretend that the cow wasn't there, and they preferred for Molly to go along with the pretense.

  Alison Lurie

  Animal, Doctors, People

  Alison Lurie (2010). “The Last Resort”, p.48, Random House

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• High finance isn't burglary or obtaining money by false pretenses, but rather a judicious selection from the best features of those fine arts.

  Finley Peter Dunne

  Art, Finance, Burglary

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• I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks - who had the genius, so to speak, for sauntering: which word is beautifully derived "from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked for charity, under the pretense of going à la Sainte Terre," to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a Sainte-Terrer," a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Art, Children

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• The chief difference between free capitalism and State socialism seems to be this: that under the former a man pursues his own advantage openly, frankly and honestly, whereas under the latter he does so hypocritically and under false pretenses.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Differences, Doe

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.397, Knopf

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• Our senior officers knew the war was going badly. Yet they bowed to groupthink pressure and kept up pretenses. ...Many of my generation, the career captains, majors, and lieutenant colonels seasoned in that war, vowed that when our turn came to call the shots, we would not quietly acquiesce in halfhearted warfare for half-baked reasons that the American people could not understand.

  Colin Powell

  Senior, War, Government

  Colin L. Powell, Joseph E. Persico (2010). “My American Journey”, p.149, Ballantine Books

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• Prudishness is pretense of innocence without innocence. Women have to remain prudish as long as men are sentimental, dense, and evil enough to demand of them eternal innocence and lack of education. For innocence is the only thing which can ennoble lack of education.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Men, Long, Evil

  "Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms (Selected Aphorisms from the Athenaeum (1798) #31)". Book by Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel translated by Ernst Behler and Roman Struc, 1968.

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• The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is the pretense of intelligent ignorance. The former is teachable; the latter is not.

  Criss Jami

  Ignorance, Intelligent, Latter

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.34, Criss Jami

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• No one can genuinely love the world, which is too large to love entire. To love all the world at once is pretense or dangerous self-delusion. Loving the world is like loving the idea of love, which is perilous because, feeling virtuous about this grand affection, you are freed from the struggles and the duties that come with loving people as individuals.

  Dean Koontz

  Love, Struggle, Ideas

  Dean Koontz (2016). “The Complete Odd Thomas 8-Book Bundle: Odd Thomas, Forever Odd, Brother Odd, Odd Hours, Odd Apocalypse, Odd Interlude, Deeply Odd, Saint Odd”, p.912, Bantam

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• It has long been observed, that an atheist has no just reason for endeavouring conversions; and yet none harass those minds which they can influence, with more importunity of solicitation to adopt their opinions. In proportion as they doubt the truth of their own doctrines, they are desirous to gain the attestation of another understanding: and industriously labour to win a proselyte, and eagerly catch at the slightest pretense to dignify their sect with a distinguished name.

  Samuel Johnson

  Atheist, Winning, Names

  Samuel Johnson (1819). “The Beauties of Samuel Johnson: Consisting of Maxims and Observations, Moral, Critical, and Miscellaneous”, p.40

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• The most comprehensive formulation of therapeutic goals is the striving for wholeheartedness: to be without pretense, to be emotionally sincere, to be able to put the whole of oneself into one's feelings, one's work, one's beliefs.

  Karen Horney

  Inspirational, Self, Goal

  Karen Horney (2013). “Our Inner Conflicts: A CONSTRUCTIVE THEORY OF NEUROSIS”, p.242, Routledge

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