quotations about insincerity
You've always lived a life of pretense, not a real life-- a simulated existence, not a genuine existence. Everything about you, everything you are, has always been pretense, never genuine, never real.
THOMAS BERNHARD
Woodcutters
From what little was known about the subject, insincerity itself was regarded as another form of psychosis but one which was exceedingly rare.
RAYMOND SMULLYAN
Planet Without Laughter
It is better to have an open enemy than an insincere friend.
PYTHAGORAS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Moreover, there is this harm too, and one of vast extent, and touching men generally, that by insincerity and lying faith and truth are lost, which are the firmest bonds of human society, and, when they are lost, supreme confusion follows in life, so that men seem in nothing to differ from devils.
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
Apologia Pro Vita Sua
Sincerity is an openness of heart; we find it in very few people; what we usually see is only an artful dissimulation to win the confidence of others.
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Reflections
The insincere are more dangerous than an avowed rival or foe, because we cannot guard against them as we can against the latter; they will shake you by one hand, and stab you with the other.
ISAAC MILNER
attributed, Day's Collacon
Insincerity was taxing once you'd breathed the refreshing air of artless candor.
PENNY REID
The Player and the Pixie
That's what show business is--sincere insincerity.
BENNY HILL
The Observer, June 12, 1977
Insincerity soon wearies of its task.
ST. YVES
attributed, Day's Collacon
The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere. That is why so much of social life is exhausting; one is wearing a mask.
ANNE MORROW LINDBERGH
Gift from the Sea
The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend!
EDITH WHARTON
The Age of Innocence
There are many justifications of silence; there can be none of insincerity.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES
The Principles of Success in Literature
What people call insincerity is simply a method by which we can multiply our personalities.
OSCAR WILDE
The Critic as Artist
Insincerity is always weakness; sincerity even in error is strength.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES
The Principles of Success in Literature
Men were at first upright; then came an era of insincerity, which led to vice and misery.
LOO-TSZE
attributed, Day's Collacon
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.
GEORGE ORWELL
The Lion and the Unicorn
Insincerity leads on to falsehood.
JOSE FRANCISCO ISLA
attributed, Day's Collacon
I am always saying "Glad to've met you" to somebody I'm not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though.
J. D. SALINGER
The Catcher in the Rye
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
The Time of Indifference
Social intercourse, with its requirements and its indulgence, its hypocrisy to call it by its name, is highly productive of thought-hindering insincerity.
ERNEST DIMNET
The Art of Thinking