#pretence

The Chinese art world does not exist. In a society that restricts individual freedoms and violates human rights, anything that calls itself creative or independent is a pretence. It is impossible for a totalitarian society to create anything with passion and imagination. ↗

— Ai Weiwei

#art #art world #calls #chinese #create

Give immediate instruction to all your posts in said territory, under your direction, at no time and on no pretence to hoist, or suffer be hoisted, the English flag. ↗

— Zebulon Pike

#english #flag #give #hoist #immediate

If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy. ↗

— Thomas Jefferson

#care #government #happy #labours #must

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

— Tony Horwitz

#intimacy #pretence #shelby-foote #friendship

We may not commit a lesser Sin under pretence to avoid a greater, but we may, nay we ought to endure the greatest Pain and Grief rather than commit the least Sin. ↗

— Mary Astell

#commit #endure #greater #greatest #grief

True glory takes root, and even spreads; all false pretences, like flowers, fall to the ground; nor can any counterfeit last long. ↗

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

#counterfeit #even #fall #false #flowers

The war on Iraq was a disaster, clearly carried out under false pretences. ↗

— Joe Wilson

#clearly #disaster #false #iraq #out

I love the idea of spies in love. How would it work between two people who were so programmed to lie and be suspicious, who have a whole life based on pretence? ↗

— Tony Gilroy

#between #how #i #i love #idea