Pretense Quotes

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. — A.W. Tozer

His wife is washed up against him, clinging lifelessly to his arm like seaweed, with no pretense of listening to the priest's small talk. — Paul Murray

I don't make any pretense about being normal. I'm not. — Val Kilmer

Or maybe the ugliness is in us.
That's just the way we are.
Underneath the pretense of civilization. — Bethany Griffin

You cannot force someone to believe something they do not believe; you can only manage to force them to speak or act as if they do. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

I believe 100% when your heart & mind are in the right place and there is no pretense, great things will come. It's that simple! — Jimmy Wayne

Culture is a symbolic veil with which we hide our animal nature from ourselves ... and other animals. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

How much self-love comes in the guise of selfless devotion! — Susan Sontag

Perfection of character: to live your last day, every day, without frenzy, or sloth, or pretense. — Marcus Aurelius

as well. Any pretense I had that I was prepared was quickly replaced with the pain I'd become — George Hincapie

Let me think
Thinking is all I have
If wisdom is a pretense
Then let me pretend to be wise — Walter Dean Myers

If no one else, the dying must notice how unreal, how full of pretense, is all that we accomplish here, where nothing is allowed to be itself. — Rainer Maria Rilke

When you aren't sincere you need to pretend, and by pretending you end up believing yourself; that's the basic principle of every faith. — Alberto Moravia

Or perhaps this hostility of yours is the pretense. Love does make liars out of your kind. — Cassandra Clare

(Sarah Palin's) greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman. — Wendy Doniger

Certainly the best times were when I was alone with mathematics, free of ambition and pretense, and indifferent to the world. — Robert Langlands

When devils do the worst sins, they first put on the pretense of goodness and innocence, as I am doing now. — William Shakespeare

Cruelty must be whitewashed by a moral excuse, and pretense of reluctance. — George Bernard Shaw

Self respect is something that can't be killed. The worst thing is to kill a man's pretense at it. — Ayn Rand

One of the easiest forms of pretense to break down is the pretense of enthusiasm for exotic foods. Just bring on the exotic foods. — Robert Benchley

There are pretenses which are very sincere, and marriage is their school. — Miguel De Unamuno

Philosophizing is simply one way of being afraid, a cowardly pretense that doesn't get you anywhere. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

I make no pretense to accuracy. I shall be quite content if the sensibilities of no one are wounded by anything I may reduce to type. — Thomas R. Marshall

Piety is the tinfoil of pretense. — Elbert Hubbard

Nobody knows what they're doing here, so why do so many pretend they do? — Marty Rubin

He who has a mind to do mischief will always find a pretense. — Publilius Syrus

Security, the chief pretense of civilization, cannot exist where the worst of dangers, the danger of poverty, hangs over everyone's head. — George Bernard Shaw

When wisdom and knowledge appear, great pretense arises. — Laozi

There's a difference between playing and playing games. The former is an act of joy, the latter - an act. — Vera Nazarian

Pretense is the oil that lubricates society. — Mary Roberts Rinehart

Fraud includes the pretense of knowledge when knowledge there is none. — Benjamin Cardozo

No pretense stop wasting my time. A virtuous woman is really hard to find. — Buju Banton

I would act, pretend, and the pretense would become real. — Susan Hill

What condemnation could possibly be more harsh than one's own, when self-pretense is no longer possible? — Richard Matheson

It's a dangerous thing, pretense. A man ought to know who he is, even if he isn't proud to be it. — Daniel Polansky

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

There is no worse sickness for the soul, o you who are proud, than this pretense of perfection. — Rumi

Home is the place where you are most thoroughly yourself, with no pretenses. — Victoria Moran

The thing I like about the band [Dead Child] is that there's no pretense. We aren't even trying to be artists or poets. — David Pajo

No one can long hide behind a mask; the pretense soon lapses into the true character. — Seneca The Younger

Those that don't got it, can't show it. Those that got it, can't hide it. — Zora Neale Hurston

If we get separated there's not much hope of us ever meeting anywhere, but I need to keep up the pretense of hope because that may be all we have. — Susan Ee

Men make this great pretense of not wanting to be caught, but in the end they usually beg for a lady's hand. — Elizabeth Boyle

To copy beauty forfeits all pretense to fame; to copy faults is want of sense. — Charles Churchill

So much of my life has been about self-effacement, pretense, masquerading, concealment, and indirection. — Marlon Riggs

Darcy's got the tempestuous masculinity and brooding looks, but Knightley is a kinder, softer man with no pretense or dissimilation. — Katherine Reay

Hahaha!!!...I wish this veil of pretense could hide my habit of dodging quotes but dissapointingly,it doesn't,which is why,I know none yet. — Ayesha Harruna Attah

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

Humanity's favorite pasttime: pretending to know what it doesn't know. — Marty Rubin

The world is full of cravens who pretended to be heroes. — George R R Martin

To put an arrogant 'famous' writer in his place: pretend to be illiterate. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

People pretend to be other people because they have never thought of their true selves — Sunday Adelaja

We seldom look like the way we look like when people we like are looking. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

The vice president (Nixon) seems like a man who is acting like a nice man rather than being one. — Ann Whitman

Pretension, dear love, does not buy truth into lies, nor alter its course. — Sreesha Divakaran

Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie; and the workers want no lying. — Mikhail Bakunin

Expectations are illusions;
Pretense they hang on thin threads. — Kristian Goldmund Aumann

There are two kinds of love: the love that is and the love that isn't. — Marty Rubin

Can we drop the pretense of Presidents Day and just call it I needed a long weekend because Valentines Day is garbage — Anna Kendrick

Censorship of anything, at any time, in any place, on whatever pretense, has always been and always will be the last resort of the boob and the bigot. — Eugene O'Neill

Not receiving a request through the entitled route is no excuse for not serving it. — Pawan Mishra

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

Be niggards of advice on no pretense; For the worst avarice is that of sense. — Alexander Pope

There is more hope in honest brokenness than in the pretense of false wholeness. — Jamie Arpin-Ricci

Secrets find a way out in sleep ... It is the place where there is no pretense. — Bell Hooks

The habit of arguing in support of atheism, whether it be done from conviction or in pretense, is a wicked and impious practice. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

By the by, who ever knew a man who never read or wrote neither who hadn't got some small back parlour which he would call a study! — Charles Dickens

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

Pretense cannot sustain blind power. — Dejan Stojanovic

I have a lot of friends who I really feel like I can kick back with and let all pretense go and be very comfortable with. — Olivia Wilde

I think making a pretense of civility toward Eric Alterman is like making a pretense of civility to a scorpion. — John Podhoretz

When all lies, deceit, pretense is stripped away, what remains? The truth of a painting, or a book or a man. — William S. Burroughs

One may wonder indeed whether the pretense of superior health is not itself rapidly becoming a mental aberration. — Rene Dubos

For this was a kiss of definition. A kiss of understanding. For a marriage absent pretense. And a love without design. — Renee Ahdieh

I don't like bullshit and pretense.
I can't enjoy the joy at church ...
without some cash in my wallet. — Toba Beta

Give your heart to everybody you meet. The rest is pretense. — Ethan Hawke

Sometimes I pose, but sometimes I pose as posing. — Stella Benson

The natural impulses of every thoroughbred include his sense of honor; his love of fair play and courage; his dislike of pretense and of cheapness. — Emily Post

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

What is leadership, after all, but the blind choice of one route over another and the confident pretense that the decision was based on reason — Robert Harris

I kept the coffee pot in my office on the pretense of monitoring Cookie's caffeine intake. Actually, it was my answer to potpourri. — Darynda Jones

Employment is an employee's kissing of an employer's ass. A salary is the employer's pretense to be cleaning his ass. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

In that moment there was no pretense between them, no lingering vestige of reserve or attempt to escape, no denial. It was final and complete. — Anne Perry

Love of another is merely empty flattery and self-deception for one who cannot accept himself without pretense. — L.E. Modesitt Jr.

I don't impressed if you're a religious person.
I just wanna know about soul behind that mask. — Toba Beta

We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be. — Patrick Rothfuss

The pious pretense that evil does not exist only makes it vague, enormous and menacing. — Aleister Crowley

The best way of successfully acting a part is to be it. — Arthur Conan Doyle

I don't damsel well. Distress, I can do. Damseling? Not so much. — James Patterson

The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend! — Edith Wharton

The worst thing about being a writer is having to pretend you know what you're talking about. — Marty Rubin

Please help me explain to the people that I have not yet learned how to be a heartless murderer and a sweet prince at the same time.- Prince Ikan — Ray Anyasi

No pretense or wearing masks. No cliques. No hidden agendas, backroom deals, betrayals, secret ambitions, plots, or schemes. — Randy Alcorn

It is better to lack the semblance of honor but possess it than to possess the semblance and lack the honor. — Lynn Flewelling

we can't be filled with the power of God until we let go of the false pretense that we can get by on our own. — Lee Strobel

You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it. — Alan Moore

How wide is all this long pretense!
There is in love a sweetness ready penned,
Copy out only that, and save expense. — George Herbert

To put an arrogant 'famous' singer in her place: pretend to be deaf. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Whenever A annoys or injures B on the pretense of saving or improving X, A is a scoundrel. — H.L. Mencken

First one tells a lie; then one believes it; then one becomes it. — Marty Rubin