116 Pretence Quotes
Following is our list of pretence quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about love pretence.
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Famous Pretence Quotes
You've always lived a life of pretense, not a real life-- a simulated existence, not a genuine existence. Everything about you, everything you are, has always been pretense, never genuine, never real. — Thomas Bernhard
Pretending is a very valuable life skill. — Meryl Streep
The only good in pretending is the fun we get out of fooling ourselves that we fool somebody. — Booth Tarkington
People pretend to be nice, people pretend to be smooth, and polite and everything, but this is only an appearance, because the way we're built as human beings is only in paradox and contradictions. — Vincent Cassel
Sincerity is impossible, unless it pervade the whole being, and the pretence of it saps the very foundation of character. — James Russell Lowell
What's terrible is to pretend that second-rate is first-rate. To pretend that you don't need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better. — Doris Lessing
Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast. — Jane Austen
Pretending that we live doesn't make us alive. — Serj Tankian
Sincerity is impossible, unless it pervades the whole being, and the pretence of it saps the very foundation of character. — James Russell Lowell
Modesty; the gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it. — Oliver Herford
Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing. — Edmund Burke
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success. — Christopher Lasch
Sincerity: if you can fake it, you've got it made. — Daniel Schorr
Coquetry is the art of successful deception. — Louise Colet
When we bluff our way through life, pretending to be who we are not, we end up looking worse than we truly are. — Jay Shetty
Short Pretence Quotes
- Jealousy, that dragon which slays love under the pretence of keeping it alive. — Havelock Ellis
- Live each day as if it were your last for some day it will be. — Billy Graham
- Most people love you for who you pretend to be. — Jim Morrison
- Malice can always find a mark to shoot at, and a pretence to fire. — Charles Simmons
- Some pretences daunt and discourage us, while others raise us to a brisk assurance. — Joseph Glanvill
- The job of an actor is disclosure, not pretence! — Max Reinhardt
- That's what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is. — Jim Morrison
- Our own distrust gives a fair pretence for the knavery of other people. — Francois de la Rochefoucauld
- Never destroy without thought your enemy's pretences; they are usually your best weapon against him. — Mary Renault
- All zeal for a reform, that gives offence To peace and charity, is mere pretence. — William Cowper
False Pretence Quotes
True glory takes root, and even spreads; all false pretences, like flowers, fall to the ground; nor can any counterfeit last long. — Marcus Tullius Cicero
You may charge me with murder--or want of sense-- (We are all of us weak at times): But the slightest approach to a false pretence Was never among my crimes! — Lewis Carroll
Must we, under the happy hope of a false tranquility, sacrifice to the people in power the public welfare, and under vain pretence of preserving the peace, abandon the empire to robbers who would plunder it — Claude Adrien Helvetius
The war on Iraq was a disaster, clearly carried out under false pretences. — Joe Wilson
PALMISTRY, n. The 947th method . . . of obtaining money by false pretences [by] "reading character" in the wrinkles [of] the hand. The pretence is not altogether false. . . for the wrinkles in every hand submitted plainly spell the word "dupe." — Ambrose Bierce
Mr False Pretence, you don't make sense I just don't know you But you make me cry, where's my kiss goodbye I think I love you — Amy Winehouse
I don't wish to inhabit the human world under false pretences. — Janet Frame
Assume Innocence Quotes
All technology should be assumed guilty until proven innocent — David R. Brower
You can call it innocence, or you can call it gullibility, but Celia made the most common mistake of the good-hearted: she assumed that everyone else was just like her. — Lionel Shriver
The presumption of innocence is not just a legal concept. In commonplace terms, it rests on that generosity of spirit which assumes the best, not the worst, of the stranger. — Kingman Brewster, Jr.
The innocent one is he who does not explain, for whom life is both a mystery and a total light, one who does not complain... For innocence admits of neither regret nor dispute. The innocent one assumes all responsibility. — Jean Giraudoux
The quality of artistry is the capacity to assume innocence at will, the quality of experiencing innocence as if for the first time. — Robert Fripp
The advocates of abortion on demand falsely assume two things: that women must suffer if the lives of unborn children are legally protected; and that women can only attain equality by having the legal option of destroying their innocent offspring in the womb. — Robert Casey
Pleasure, no matter how desirable, is never innocent: it's always presupposing and assuming a certain kind of social order, one usually shot through structures of domination. — Cornel West
The dictator is also the scapegoat; in assuming absolute authority, he assumes absolute guilt; and the oppressed masses, groaning under the yoke, know themselves to be innocent as lambs, while they pray hypocritically for deliverance. — Mary McCarthy
To literary critics a book is assumed to be guilty until it proves itself innocent. — Nelson Algren
Pure Innocence Quotes
In the inner place where true artists create there exists a pure child. — Lawren Harris
... pure and intelligent women can be deceived and misled by the baser sort, their very innocence and experience making them credulous and the helpless tools of the guilty and bold. — Catharine Beecher
The silence often of pure innocence persuades when speaking fails. — William Shakespeare
The best work of artists in any age is the work of innocence liberated by technical knowledge. The laboratory experiments that led to the theory of pure color equipped the impressionists to paint nature as if it had only just been created. — Nancy Hale
Innocence is not pure so much as pleased, Always expectant, bright-eyed, self-enclosed — May Sarton
I remembered my little brother, Allyn, had appeared so innocent and angelic when he slept--similar to Kerrick. It must be a survival tactic. If Allyn hadn't looked so sweet, we would have killed him while he slept. He had been pure evil when he was awake--similar to Kerrick. — Maria V. Snyder
Something of the child's pure delight in creation survives in every true work of art. — Roger Scruton
The truth in you remains as radiant as a star, as pure as light, as innocent as love itself. — James Lane Allen
An image that is unseen can't sell anything. It is pure, therefore true, beautiful, in one word: innocent. As long as no eye contaminates it, it is in perfect unison with the world. If it is not seen, the image and the object it represents belong together. — Wim Wenders
If a man offend a harmless, pure, and innocent person, the evil falls back upon that fool, like light dust thrown up against the wind. — Buddha
Pretend Quotes
Crocodiles are easy. They try to kill and eat you. People are harder. Sometimes they pretend to be your friend first. — Steve Irwin
Live without pretending, love without depending, listen without defending, speak without offending. — Drake
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. — Kurt Vonnegut
Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love. — Claude Monet
The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. — Soren Kierkegaard
I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men, they are far superior and always have been. — William Golding
Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, 'Make me feel important.' Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life. — Mary Kay Ash
Truth cannot be sacrificed at the altar of pretended tolerance. Real tolerance is deference to all ideas, not indifference to the truth. — Ravi Zacharias
You can't just pretend that the things you watch, and the things you hear, and the places you go will not have an impact on your character. They will. — Nouman Ali Khan
To pretend angels do not exist because they are invisible is to believe we never sleep because we don't see ourselves sleeping. — Thomas Aquinas
Pretension Quotes
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
You must not under any pretense allow your mind to dwell on any thought that is not positive, constructive, optimistic, kind. — Emmet Fox
Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike. — Margot Fonteyn
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
Sometimes I pose, but sometimes I pose as posing. — Stella Benson
Elegance must be the right combination of distinction, naturalness, care and simplicity. Outside this, believe me, there is no elegance. Only pretension. — Christian Dior
I wondered why people consider escapism so bad, even the escapism on display right then. At first it might appear unseemly, but in the end its lack of pretension gives it its own sort of beauty. — Saadat Hasan Manto
The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform. — Ada Lovelace
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
Man — despite his artistic pretensions, his sophistication, and his many accomplishments — owes his existence to a six inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains. — Paul Harvey
People Writing About Pretence
More Pretence Quotes
If shaytan has entered into your heart - evil will look beautiful to you and good will seem tiring and exhausting. — Nouman Ali Khan
In the land of "I know," there is always competitiveness, jealousy, pretence, pride and arrogance. It is an aggressive realm - the realm of the ego. I say refuse citizenship. In the land of "I dont know," the inhabitants move without conflict and are naturally quiet, happy and peaceful. The wise stay here. — Mooji
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
Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It's seeing through the facade of pretence. It's the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true. — Adyashanti
Abortion is the only event that modern liberals think too violent and obscene to portray on TV. This is not because they are squeamish or prudish. It is because if people knew what Abortion really looked like, it would destroy their pretence that it is a civilized answer to the problem of what to do about unwanted babies. — Peter Hitchens
And hast thou sworn on every slight pretence, Till perjuries are common as bad pence, While thousands, careless of the damning sin, Kiss the book's outside, who ne'er look'd within? — William Cowper
If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy. — Thomas Jefferson
All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself. Surely a curious thing. That I should innocently take a bad half-crown of somebody else's manufacture, is reasonable enough; but that I should knowingly reckon the spurious coin of my own make, as good money! — Charles Dickens
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
Babies who have not yet been taught to speak any language are the only race of the earth, the race of man: all the rest is pretence, what we call civilization, hatred, fear, desire for strength. — William Saroyan
Peace, which costs nothing, is attended with infinitely more advantage than any victory with all its expence. — Thomas Paine
It is not poverty so much as pretence that harasses a ruined man--the struggle between a proud mind and an empty purse--the keeping up a hollow show that must soon come to an end. Have the courage to appear poor, and you disarm poverty of its sharpest sting. — Anna Brownell Jameson
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
Vanity plays lurid tricks with our memory, and the truth of every passion wants some pretence to make it live. — Joseph Conrad
Friends make pretence of following to the grave but before one is in it, their minds are turned and making the best of their way back to life and living people and things they understand. — Robert Frost
After Mengistu consolidated his power in 1978, his personality gradually began to change. His ability to listen and his patience faded away. We could now see these qualities were pretences only; he had been putting on his best behavior in his bid for support. — Mengistu Haile Mariam
Old men and comets have been reverenced for the same reason: their long beards, and pretences to foretell events. — Jonathan Swift
Let no man turn aside, ever so slightly, from the broad path of honour, on the plausible pretence that he is justified by the goodness of his end. All good ends can be worked out by good means. — Charles Dickens
Civilization is a conspiracy. Modern life is the silent compact of comfortable folk to keep up pretences. — John Buchan
In all highly civilised communities Pretence is prominent, and sooner or later invades the regions of Literature. — James Payn
The Relation we bear to the Wisdom of the Father, the Son of His Love, gives us indeed a dignity which otherwise we have no pretence to. It makes us something, something considerable even in God's Eyes. — Mary Astell
All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself. — Charles Dickens
Others indeed may talk, and write, and fight about liberty, and make an outward pretence to it; but the free-thinker alone is truly free. — George Berkeley
. . . Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind. — John Adams
The conquest of the earth... is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only... not a sentimental pretence but an idea. — Joseph Conrad
Fish is held out to be one of the greatest luxuries of the table and not only necessary, but even indispensable at all dinners where there is any pretence of excellence or fashion. — Isabella Beeton
We may not commit a lesser Sin under pretence to avoid a greater, but we may, nay we ought to endure the greatest Pain and Grief rather than commit the least Sin. — Mary Astell
The mere leader of fashion has no genuine claim to supremacy; at least, no abiding assurance of it. He has embroidered his title upon his waistcoat, and carries his worth in his watch chain; and, if he is allowed any real precedence for this it is almost a moral swindle,--a way of obtaining goods under false pretences. — Edwin Hubbel Chapin
... the Apostle says, 'he that says he abides in Christ ought himself also to walk as He walked' (I Jn. 2:6). Otherwise we make a vain pretence and show, if we follow not His steps, Whose name we glory in, and assuredly they would not be irksome to us, but would free us from all dangers, if we loved nothing but what He commanded us to love. — Pope Leo I
And then he danced,-all foreigners excel the serious Angels in the eloquence of pantomime;-he danced, I say, right well, with emphasis, and a'so with good sense-a thing in footing indispensable: he danced without theatrical pretence, not like a ballet-master in the van of his drill'd nymphs, but like a gentleman. — Lord Byron
Nothing is more deceptive or more dangerous than the pretence of a desire to simplify government. The simplest governments are despotisms; the next simplest, limited monarchies; but all republics, all governments of law, must impose numerous limitations and qualifications of authority, and give many positive and many qualified rights. — Daniel Webster
He would be the finer gentleman that should leave the world without having tasted of lying or pretence of any sort, or of wantonness or conceit. — Marcus Aurelius
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