Pretence Quotes

You should never leave your "house of bread", under any pretence, whether it is oppression, troubles or hardships.

Millions upon millions will attain your ceremony, but don't think all of them are in a ceremonius mood.

So I slap on that smile and pretend everything’s okay even though it’s not.

It is the unspeakable misery of a life so false as his, that it steals the pith and substance out of whatever realities there are around us, and which were meant by Heaven to be the spirit’s joy and nutriment. To the untrue man, the whole universe is false—it is impalpable—it shrinks to nothing within his grasp. And he himself in so far as he shows himself in a false light, becomes a shadow, or, indeed, ceases to exist.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

We wrap up our violent and mysterious world in a pretence of understanding. We paper over the voids in our comprehension with science or religion, and make believe that order has been imposed. And, for the most of it, the fiction works. We skim across surfaces, heedless of the depths below. Dragonflies flitting over a lake, miles deep, pursuing erratic paths to pointless ends. Until that moment when something from the cold unknown reaches up to take us.The biggest lies we save for ourselves. We play a game in which we are gods, in which we make choices, and the current follows in our wake. We pretend a separation from the wild. Pretend that a man's control runs deep, that civilization is more than a veneer, that reason will be our companion in dark places.

Mark Lawrence

Incessant smiling is one of the deadly tools used by someone whose intent is to make others cry.

Michael Bassey Johnson

The game never changes, you must be in the secret before you are shown to the public.

Michael Bassey Johnson

THE MYTH OF THE GOOD OL BOY AND THE NICE GAL The good of boy myth and the nice gal are a kind of social conformity myth. They create a real paradox when put together with the "rugged individual" part of the Success Myth. How can I be a rugged individual, be my own man and conform at the same time? Conforming means "Don't make a wave", "Don't rock the boat". Be a nice gal or a good ol' boy. This means that we have to pretend a lot. "We are taught to be nice and polite. We are taught that these behaviors (most often lies) are better than telling the truth. Our churches, schools, and politics are rampant with teaching dishonesty (saying things we don't mean and pretending to feel ways we don't feel). We smile when we feel sad; laugh nervously when dealing with grief; laugh at jokes we don't think are funny; tell people things to be polite that we surely don't mean." - Bradshaw On: The Family

John Bradshaw

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

Vera Nazarian

Don't pretend to be what you're not, instead, pretend to what you want to be, it is not pretence, it is a journey to self realization.

Michael Bassey Johnson

JAY: Why is a story more upfront than life?LENORE: It just seems more honest, somehow.JAY: Honest meaning closer to the truth?LENORE: I smell trap.JAY: I smell breakthrough. The truth is that there's no difference between a life and a story? But a life pretends to be something more? But it really isn't more?LENORE: I would kill for a shower.

David Foster Wallace

Heroes are hero no matter if everybody is watching them or nobody watching them.

Amit Kalantri

Those who pretend as if they don't love you, are the ones who would hate to see you love another person.

Michael Bassey Johnson

Deception is the natural defence of the weak against the strong, and the South used it for many years against its conquerors; to-day it must be prepared to see its black proletariat turn that same two-edged weapon against itself. And how natural this is! The death of Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner proved long since to the Negro the present hopelessness of physical defence. Political defence is becoming less and less available, and economic defence is still only partially effective. But there is a patent defence at hand,—the defence of deception and flattery, of cajoling and lying. It is the same defence which peasants of the Middle Age used and which left its stamp on their character for centuries. To-day the young Negro of the South who would succeed cannot be frank and outspoken, honest and self-assertive, but rather he is daily tempted to be silent and wary, politic and sly; he must flatter and be pleasant, endure petty insults with a smile, shut his eyes to wrong; in too many cases he sees positive personal advantage in deception and lying. His real thoughts, his real aspirations, must be guarded in whispers; he must not criticise, he must not complain. Patience, humility, and adroitness must, in these growing black youth, replace impulse, manliness, and courage. With this sacrifice there is an economic opening, and perhaps peace and some prosperity. Without this there is riot, migration, or crime. Nor is this situation peculiar to the Southern United States, is it not rather the only method by which undeveloped races have gained the right to share modern culture? The price of culture is a Lie.

W.E.B. Du Bois

The only known technique to an imitator is to steal and rephrase, then with a mischievous smile, he said, "i did it", without any confidence and prove.

Michael Bassey Johnson

In a world of selfie-addiction smile usually is the brand name for an essential drug called pretense

Munia Khan

Someone who smiles too much with you can sometime frown too much with you at your back.

Michael Bassey Johnson

Some friends are like sunny days, with false flames, oozing from afar, coming near without a dime.

Michael Bassey Johnson

I don't see anything other than pretensions and low mentality in women who make a man run after a hole that would soon be inhabited by termites and worms.

Michael Bassey Johnson

Pretend to be poor in reality and you'll notice a decrease in your friends list and request.

Michael Bassey Johnson

Life is for those that deserve it. Those kings amongst men who can climb out of barrels and will dare to break through glass walls and to transcend all of this whatever it is, these eyes to the ground, this pretence, acting only as is expected and never as is intended. We have been told what is acceptable in what situation and so we take heed. This is not living. In the real world, in nature, there is no need to pretend. There is no place for it.

Oli Anderson

Courage?" I gave a very soft laugh. "I find courage is just another of life's illusions. In the end, we all do what we must.

Anthony Ryan

Is it your implication that no good will come of this expedition?’‘Oh it will, sir; there’s no denying that.’ Captain Chillingworth’s words emerged very slowly, as if they had been pulled up from a deep well of bitterness. ‘I am sure it will do a great deal of good for some of us. But I doubt I’ll be of that number, or that many Chinamen will. The truth is, sir, that men do what their power permits them to do. We are no different from the Pharaohs or the Mongols: the difference is only that when we kill people we feel compelled to pretend that it is for some higher cause. It is this pretence of virtue, I promise you, that will never be forgiven by history.

Amitav Ghosh

A stupid is one who thinks that those in power today had clandestine means of getting there, yet wants to get there without thinking of the clandestine route they would be taking.

Michael Bassey Johnson

Watch out for those who celebrate your success with bitterness in their hearts! surely, they'll hail you for what you are, and hate you for what you have become.

Michael Bassey Johnson

There are people one knows and people one doesn't. One shouldn't cheapen the former by feigning intimacy with the latter.

Tony Horwitz

Power comes at a price, love," Veliss replied through bared teeth, maintaining the smile she offered to the townsfolk lining the square."What power?""All power. The power to rule, to kill, or, in your case this fine morning, the power to incite the lust of the old goat you're about to meet.""Lust? I have no desire to incite lust in anyone."Veliss turned to her with a quizzical expression, her smile suddenly genuine. "Then I'm afraid you're in for a lifetime of disappointment.

Anthony Ryan

Nothing is expensive when you promise.

Ljupka Cvetanova

Nobility is a lie. A pretence that high standing comes from anything more than money or martial prowess. Any dolt can play the noble, and as you'll discover in time, daughter, it's mostly dolts who do.

Anthony Ryan

How initially 'to get her in the sack' and subsequently to avoid 'her giving you the sack' are not identical dilemmas faced by the male species, but they sure have a bizarre habit of being bedfellows

Alex Morritt

Buy a gift for a dog, and you'll be amazed at the way it will dance and swerve its tail, but if don't have anything to offer to it, it won't even recognize your arrival; such are the attributes of fake friends.

Michael Bassey Johnson

Church was doing what he often did when dropped - lying on his back with all four legs in the air, pretending to be dead in order to induce guilt in his owners.

Cassandra Clare

Pretence Quotes

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