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
Grateful Pretense quotations
You must not under any pretense allow your mind to dwell on any thought that is not positive, constructive, optimistic, kind.
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.
It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties.
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.
Sometimes I pose, but sometimes I pose as posing.
Elegance must be the right combination of distinction, naturalness, care and simplicity. Outside this, believe me, there is no elegance. Only pretension.
No, I make no pretension to patriotism.
So long as my voice can be heard on this or the other side of the Atlantic, I will hold up America to the lightning scorn of moral indignation. In doing this, I shall feel myself discharging the duty of a true patriot; for he is a lover of his country who rebukes and does not excuse its sins.
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.
The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything.
It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform.
Basic anxiety can be roughly described as a feeling of being small, insignificant, helpless, deserted or endangered in a world that is out to abuse, cheat, humiliate, betray, envy... . And special in this is the child's feeling that the parents' love, their Christian charity, honesty, generosity ... may be only a pretense.
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.
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.
General Otis is proclaimed American Military Governor of the Philippines and I protest a thousand times and with all the force in my soul against such pretension.
Psychoanalysis will fade away just as mesmerism and phrenology did, and for the same reason - its exploded pretensions will deprive it of recruits
We still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry and grasping at the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised to furnish new pretenses for revenue and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without a tribute.
Do we really know anybody? Who does not wear one face to hide another?
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.
Our society is not a community, but merely a collection of isolated family units.
Let's not be naive, we're not talking about a simple political battle;
it is a destructive pretension against the plan of God. We are not talking about a mere bill, but rather a machination of the Father of Lies that seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God.
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
On the other hand, hope is subversive, for it limits the grandiose pretension of the present, daring to announce that the present to which we have all made commitments is now called into question.
Media manipulation in the U.S. today is more efficient than it was in Nazi Germany, because here we have the pretense that we are getting all the information we want. That misconception prevents people from even looking for the truth.
I have no pretensions whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man.
No pretense stop wasting my time. A virtuous woman is really hard to find.
Once you can fake sincerity, you can fake anything.
Most good writing is clear, vigorous, honest, alive, sensuous, appropriate, unsentimental, rhythmic, without pretension, fresh, metaphorical, evocative in sound, economical, authoritative, surprising, memorable, and light.
I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don't know that abortion is killing. So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we cannot say yes, it kills a fetus.
Music, unleashed, can uplift and create and destroy, stripping away pretenses and leaving raw, exposed vulnerability behind.
You have yearned to have my affection cloak your delicate spirit, accept the pretense of my craving to consume your soul as a symptom of a greater obsession that can only be extinguished by your merciful hand.
Be thorough in all you do; and remember that although ignorance often may be innocent, pretension is always despicable.
It is no disgrace not to be able to do everything;
but to undertake, or pretend to do, what you are not made for, is not only shameful, but extremely troublesome and vexatious.
When we are aware of our inner-growth potential yet have no pretensions about ourselves, when we are vulnerable, then we can change.
There is an Italian proverb which saith, From my enemy let me defend myself;
but from a pretensed friend Lord deliver me
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.