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Adams, John • Aristotle • Bacon, Francis • Bible • Bierce, Ambrose • Billings, Josh • Butcher, Jim • Chesterfield (Lord) • Chesterton, Gilbert Keith • Churchill, Winston • Cicero, Marcus Tullius • Einstein, Albert • Eisenhower, Dwight David • Emerson, Ralph Waldo • Franklin, Benjamin • Fuller, Thomas (1654) • Gaiman, Neil • Galbraith, John Kenneth • Gandhi, Mohandas • Hazlitt, William • Heinlein, Robert A. • Hoffer, Eric • Homer • Huxley, Aldous • Ingersoll, Robert Green • Jefferson, Thomas • Johnson, Lyndon • Johnson, Samuel • Kennedy, John F. • King, Martin Luther • La Rochefoucauld, Francois • Lewis, C.S. • Lincoln, Abraham • Mencken, H.L. • Orwell, George • Pratchett, Terry • Roosevelt, Eleanor • Roosevelt, Theodore • Russell, Bertrand • Seneca the Younger • Shakespeare, William • Shaw, George Bernard • Sophocles • Stevenson, Robert Louis • Twain, Mark- Only the 45 most quoted authors are shown above. Full author list.
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action age America beauty belief change character death democracy education ego error evil faith fear freedom future God government happiness history human nature humanity integrity leadership liberty life love morality perspective politics power pride progress reality religion science society success truth virtue war wealth wisdom writing- I've been adding topics since 2014, so not all quotes have been given one. Full topic list.
Popular Quotables
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- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (5,501)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,940)
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Quotations about pretense
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
Unlike a human smile, purring cannot be, as far as anyone knows, faked.
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (b. 1941) American author
The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats, ch. 3 (2002)
(Source)
I don’t have much truck with the “religion is the cause of most of our wars” school of thought because that is manifestly done by mad, manipulative and power-hungry men who cloak their ambition in God.
Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
“I create gods all the time — now I think one might exist,” Daily Mail (21 Jun 2008)
(Source)
Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.
We do what we must, and call it by the best names we can, and would fain have the praise of having intended the result which ensues.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Experience,” Essays: Second Series (1844)
(Source)
It had snowed in the night, and the world looked very clean, which I knew it not to be. But illusion is nice sometimes.
It is just those books which a man possesses, but does not read, which constitute the most suspicious evidence against him.
Victor Hugo (1802-1885) French writer
Toilers of the Sea, Book 1, ch. 4 (1866)
Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile.
William Ashley "Billy" Sunday (1862-1935) American athlete, evangelist, preacher
In William T. Ellis, “Billy” Sunday, The Man and his Message, ch. 12 (1914)
A cheerful, easy countenance and behavior are very useful: they make fools think you a good-natured man, and they make designing men think you an undesigning one.
Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son (15 Jan 1753)
(Source)
All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.
H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
A Little Book in C Major (1916)
To act with common sense according to the moment, is the best wisdom I know; and the best philosophy, to do one’s duties, take the world as it comes, submit respectfully to one’s lot; bless the Goodness that has given so much happiness with it, whatever it is; and despise affectation.
Horace Walpole (1717-1797) English novelist, letter writer
Letter to Horace Mann (27 May 1776)
It must be a good thing to be good or ivrybody wudden’t be pretendin’ he was.
[It must be a good thing to be good, or everybody wouldn’t be pretending he was.]
Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936) American humorist and journalist
Observations by Mr. Dooley, “Hypocrisy” (1902)
Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.
C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer and scholar [Clive Staples Lewis]
The Magician’s Nephew (1955)
Pedantry is properly the over-rating of any kind of knowledge we pretend to.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
A Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding (1754)
Man is the only animal that learns by being hypocritical. He pretends to be polite and then, eventually, he becomes polite.
Jean Kerr (1922-2003) American author and playwright [b. Bridget Jean Collins]
Finishing Touches, Act 1 (1973)
Many talk like Philosophers, and live like Fools.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English writer, physician
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #3358 (1732)
(Source)
If I try to be like him, who will be like me?
(Other Authors and Sources)
Yiddish proverb
When capable, feign incapacity; when active, inactivity.
Sun-Tzu (fl. 6th C. AD) Chinese general and philosopher [a.k.a. Sun Wu]
The Art of War, “Estimates” (18) [tr. Griffith (1963)]
Thousands upon thousands are yearly brought into a state of real poverty by their great anxiety not to be thought poor.
William Cobbett (1763-1835) English politician, agriculturist, journalist, pamphleteer
Advice to Young Men and (Incidentally) to Young Women, Letter 2, #58 (1829)
(Source)
Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldome extinguished. Force maketh nature more violent in the return.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
“Of Nature in Men,” Essays, No. 38 (1625)
Do not keep on with a mockery of friendship after the substance is gone — but part, while you can part friends. Bury the carcass of friendship: it is not worth embalming.
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 pretences.
H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
Minority Report: H.L. Mencken’s Notebooks, #397 (1956)
A man always has two reasons for what he does — a good one, and the real one.
John Pierpont "J. P." Morgan (1837-1913) American banker and financier
(Attributed)
Quoted in Owen Wister, Roosevelt: The Story of a Friendship, p. 280 (1930). There's no record in Morgan's writings, and versions of the quote from others can be found in the early 1800s. See here for more details.
Sometimes given as "A man generally has two reasons for doing a thing: one that sounds good, and a real one."
A candor affected is a dagger concealed.
Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) Roman emperor (161-180), Stoic philosopher
Meditations, Book 11, #15 [tr. Staniforth (1964)]
(Source)
Alternate translations:
- "But the affectation of simplicity is nowise laudable." [tr. Casaubon (1634), #14]
- "An affectation of being real, is an untoward pretence." [tr. Collier (1701)]
- "But the affectation of simplicity is like a crooked stick." [tr. Long (1862)]
- "An affectation of sincerity is a very dagger." [tr. Zimmern (1887)]
- "But the affectation of simplicity is like a razor." [tr. Farquharson (1944)]
- "But false straightforwardness is like a knife in the back." [tr. Hays (2003)]
Book lovers are thought by unbookish people to be gentle and unworldly, and perhaps a few of them are so. But there are others who will lie and scheme and steal to get books as wildly and unconscionably as the dope-taker in pursuit of his drug. They may not want the books to read immediately, or at all; they want them to possess, to range on their shelves, to have at command. They want books as a Turk is thought to want concubines — not to be hastily deflowered, but to be kept at their master’s call, and enjoyed more often in thought than in reality.
Robertson Davies (1913-1995) Canadian author, editor, publisher
Tempest-Tost, ch. 6 (1951)
