INSINCERITY QUOTES

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


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

Tags: La Rochefoucauld


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


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


That's what show business is--sincere insincerity.

BENNY HILL

The Observer, June 12, 1977


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


There are many justifications of silence; there can be none of insincerity.

GEORGE HENRY LEWES

The Principles of Success in Literature

Tags: George Henry Lewes


Insincerity soon wearies of its task.

ST. YVES

attributed, Day's Collacon


Insincerity is always weakness; sincerity even in error is strength.

GEORGE HENRY LEWES

The Principles of Success in Literature

Tags: George Henry Lewes


What people call insincerity is simply a method by which we can multiply our personalities.

OSCAR WILDE

The Critic as Artist

Tags: Oscar Wilde


Insincerity was taxing once you'd breathed the refreshing air of artless candor.

PENNY REID

The Player and the Pixie


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

Tags: George Orwell


The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend!

EDITH WHARTON

The Age of Innocence

Tags: Edith Wharton


Men were at first upright; then came an era of insincerity, which led to vice and misery.

LOO-TSZE

attributed, Day's Collacon


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


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

Tags: J. D. Salinger


Insincerity leads on to falsehood.

JOSE FRANCISCO ISLA

attributed, Day's Collacon


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