Authenticity Quotes

To fight in another man's armour is something more than to be influenced by his style of fighting.

I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another.

Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.

We didn't discover our values in a poll taken a week before the convention.

I'm a pretty decent writer. It comes easy to me. I don't agonize over sentences. I write like I talk. I try to make them good books.

A man cannot wheedle nor overawe his Genius. It requires to be conciliated by nobler conduct than the world demands or can appreciate.

You can't give it to others if you don't have it in yourself.

I have no desire to desire, and people become like the uncarved wood by themselves.

Love is a mirror. In it you see nothing except your reflection. You see nothing except your real face.

All I can do is engage with complete sincerity. Then whatever happens, there is no regret.

She lives the poetry she cannot write.

The very strength that protects the heart from injury is the strength that prevents the heart from enlarging to its intended greatness within. The song of the voice is sweet, but the song of the heart is the pure voice of heaven.

Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.

It's really not hard to keep your dignity and sign to a major label... Most people don't have any dignity in the first place.

It was also her nature that caused her letters to avoid emotional pitfalls and confine themselves to relating the events of her daily life in the utilitarian style of a ship's log. In reality they were distracted letters, intended to keep the coals alive without putting her hand in the fire, while Florentino Ariza burned himself alive in every line.

Got to be who you are in this world, no matter what.

I would not have any one adopt my mode of living on any account.

Write about what really interests you, whether it is real things or imaginary things, and nothing else.

The deepest form of despair is to choose to be another than himself.

My music is straightforward because I want to give people me and let them know they're not alone in going through the things that they go through.

I think that it's okay to be mad at someone who hurt you. This isn't about, like, the pageantry of trying to seem like nothing affects you.

I don't like it when people who are young act like they're 40. That's taking too much on. Putting up a shield and trying to act like you're so mature or whatever - I don't try to act mature. Some people might say I'm mature for my age, but it's not something I'm trying to do, you know? I'm just me.

Truth allows you to live with integrity. Everything you do and say shows the world who you really are. Let it be the Truth.

If we took as much pains to be what we ought, as we do to deceive others by disguising what we are; we might appear as we are, without being at the trouble of any disguise.

...a genuine work of art, can never be false, nor can it be discredited through the lapse of time, for it does not present an opinion but the thing itself.

One who has accumulated virtue will certainly also possess eloquence; but he who has eloquence doe not necessarily possess virtue.

It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.

People who honestly mean to be true really contradict themselves much more rarely than those who try to be 'consistent'.

I never utter my real feelings about anything. My lighter, superficial side will always be too quick for the deeper side of me, and that's why it always wins.

I want girls to feel that they can be sassy and full and weird and geeky and smart and independent, and not so withered and shriveled. (The American Apparel ads) I'm over this weird, exhausted girl. I'm over the girl that's tired and freezing and hungry. I like bossy girls. I like people filled with life. I'm over this weird media thing with all this, like, hollow-eyed, empty, party crap.

Everybody has a calling. And your real job in life is to figure out as soon as possible what that is, who you were meant to be, and to begin to honor that in the best way possible for yourself.

An obligation to feel can freeze feelings.

Though the universe is delightfully complex, life, at its heart, is not particularly complicated. Live true to who you are and though it won't always be easy, you'll live well.

Busyness, keeping up with others, hustling hither and yon, makes it almost impossible for an individual to form a heart.

The world is full of people who have stopped listening to themselves or have listened only to their neighbors to learn what they ought to do, how they ought to behave, and what the values are they should be living for.

If there were already a path, it would have to be someone else's; the whole point is to find your own way.

In today's world, having money has allowed people who are extremely uncool to think that they're cool and carry it like that. People who really are cool and people who really are artists and have ideas have to literally turn in their cool card to society just to make it past the age of 28.

There's a rebel lying deep in my soul. Anytime anybody tells me the trend is such and such, I go the opposite direction. I hate the idea of trends. I hate imitation; I have a reverence for individuality.

Most men and women are forced to perform parts for which they have no qualification.

There are too many stars and too few actors.

We thought being offered the M.B.E. [Member of the Order of the British Empire] was as funny as everybody else thought it was. Why? What for? We didn't believe it. It was a part we didn't want. We all met and agreed it was daft.

What does your conscience say? — 'You should become the person you are'.

The incredible brand awareness and bottom-line profits achievable through social media marketing require hustle, heart, sincerity, constant engagement, long-term commitment, and most of all, artful and strategic storytelling.

Honesty has a beautiful and refreshing simplicity about it. No ulterior motives. No hidden meanings. An absence of hypocrisy, duplicity, political games, and verbal superficiality. As honesty and real integrity characterize our lives, there will be no need to manipulate others.

Who you are speaks so loudly I can't hear what you're saying.

The emotions in a song - the anger, aggression - have got to be legitimate.

Measure a man by his actions fully from the beginning to the end. Don’t take a piece out of my life or a song out of my music and say this is what I’m about because you know better than that.

Obviously I'm grayer, a few more wrinkles. One of the things I'm proud about is that I think my basic character and outlook actually have not changed much. And people who are closest to me will tell you that the guy who came here is the same guy who's leaving.

The real artist, who knew what he was imitating, would be interested in realities and not in imitations; and would desire to leave as memorials of himself works many and fair; and, instead of being the author of encomiums, he would prefer to be the theme of them.

I find it fascinating that a lot of business books that do well are from people who've never made any money in business.

There is none who does not lie hourly in the respect he pays to false appearance.

What comes out of you when you are squeezed is what is inside of you.

The head does not know how to play the part of the heart for long.

The escape from all false ties; courage to be what we are; and love of what is simple and beautiful; independence, and cheerful relation, these are the essentials.

There must be something wrong with those people who think Audrey Hepburn doesn’t perspire, hiccup or sneeze, because they know that’s not true. I n fact, I hiccup more than most.

So long as men praise you, you can only be sure that you are not yet on your own true path but on someone else's.

My boobs are fake, my hair's fake but what is real is my voice and my heart.

In order to control myself I must first accept myself by going with and not against my nature.

There is a fine line I have to walk throughout the writing process in a novel. It is this line between drama and melodrama, and it is this line between evoking genuine emotional power and being manipulative.

There comes a time as an artist, can't follow the crowd. You have to do YOU, and make the crowd follow you.