#sincerity

An ad that pretends to be art is -- at absolute best -- like somebody who smiles warmly at you only because he wants something from you. This is dishonest, but what's sinister is the cumulative effect that such dishonesty has on us: since it offers a perfect facsimile or simulacrum of goodwill without goodwill's real spirit, it messes with our heads and eventually starts upping our defenses even in cases of genuine smiles and real art and true goodwill. It makes us feel confused and lonely and impotent and angry and scared. It causes despair. ↗

— David Foster Wallace

#loneliness #sincerity #art

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

— Edith Wharton

#family #friends #insincerity #kindness #loneliness

By being natural and sincere, one often can create revolutions without having sought them. ↗

— Christian Dior

#creation #expression #natural #revolution #sincerity

When it comes to world news, attitude is what marks the distinction between justice and vengeance. Justice is pure, but vengeance brings more ruin. ↗

— Criss Jami

#bitterness #correction #distinction #hatred #instigation

My great panacea for making society at once better and more enjoyable would be to cultivate greater sincerity. ↗

— Frances Power Cobbe

#social-change #change

However gross a man may be, the minute he expresses a strong and genuine affection, some inner secretion alters his features, animates his gestures, and colors his voice. The stupidest man will often, under the stress of passion, achieve heights of eloquence, in thought if not in language, and seem to move in some luminous sphere. Goriot's voice and gesture had at this moment the power of communication that characterizes the great actor. Are not our finer feelings the poems of the human will? ↗

— Honoré de Balzac

#description #emotion #observation #passion #people

I'm a straightforward guy. I give straight answers to unsolved mysteries, I wait to date hermaphrodites until after they get a sex change, and I never eat funnel cakes before untwisting them. ↗

— Bauvard

#humor #sincerity #change

Men are never convinced of your reasons, of your sincerity, of the seriousness of your sufferings, except by your death. So long as you are alive, your case is doubtful; you have a right only to their skepticism. ↗

— Albert Camus

#skepticism #suffering #death

Women are always true, even in the midst of their greatest falsities, because they are always influenced by some natural feeling. ↗

— Honoré de Balzac

#feeling #sincerity #women #nature

It's not unfortunate that people aren't genuine; what's unfortunate is that insincere people try to act sincere and in doing so, mislead and deceive the other. I would rather meet a person who is not amiable and who does not feel any burden to act amiable towards me, than to have the misfortune of knowing people who feel like they need to be gracious and compassionate so they will appear to be good people, whilst possessing none of those qualities within themselves! It's the latter that causes the pain in life. And that's another reason why I don't believe in religion; I have observed that religion tells people that it is highly prized a quality to act kind and compassionate and so on and so forth, but some people just do not have these innate qualities within them! We get deceived, and I'd rather not be deceived! I'd rather be able to see a person for who he/she is and not judge a brute for being a brute, but avoid the brute who carries the burden of acting like a wonderful one! ↗

— C. JoyBell C.

#being-real #being-sincere #deceptions #foresight #genuineness