You see, there’s a fundamental connection between seeming and being. Every Fae child knows this, but you mortals never seem to see. We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be.
Patrick Rothfuss (b. 1973) American author
The Name of the Wind, ch. 92 “The Music That Plays” [Bast] (2007)
(Source)
Quotations about:
outer self
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
I was ashamed of myself when I realized life was a costume party, and I attended with my real face.
Franz Kafka (1883-1924) Czech-Austrian Jewish writer
(Attributed)
Widely attributed to Kafka, but a search has found no actual sourcing for the quotation. I consider it dubious.
Every man has three characters — that which he exhibits, that which he has, and that which he thinks he has.
Alphonse Karr (1808-1890) French journalist and novelist
A Tour Round My Garden [Voyage autour de mon jardin] (1851)
(Source)
We know so little about each other. We lie mostly submerged, like ice floes, with our visible social selves projecting only cool and white.
Ian McEwan (b. 1948) English novelist and screenwriter
Amsterdam (1998)
It is a great piece of folly to sacrifice the inner for the outer man, to give the whole or the greater part of one’s quiet, leisure, and independence for splendor, rank, pomp, titles and honor.
[Es ist eine große Thorheit, um nach Außen zu gewinnen, nach Innen zu verlieren, d. h. für Glanz, Rang, Prunk, Titel und Ehre, seine Ruhe, Muße und Unabhängingkeit ganz oder großen Theils hinzurgeben.]
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) German philosopher
Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. 1, “Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life [Aphorismen zur Lebensweisheit],” ch. 2 “Personality, or What Man Is [Von dem, was einer ist]” (1851) [tr. Saunders (1890)]
(Source)
(Source (German)). Alternate translation:
It is a great folly to lose the inner man in order to gain the outer, that is, to give up the whole or the greater part of one's quiet, leisure, and independence for splendor, rank, pomp, titles and honors.
[tr. Payne (1974)]
