#pretense

I was utterly convinced that an intellectual could never be anything but an intellectual, was simply not capable of being anything else, that his intellectuality would, sooner or later, erode his faith or erode whatever he'd masked it with . . . For example, intellectuals like to dress themselves up as peasants . . . but it never works. The intellectual's constitution is impervious to such things - it permits only one object of worship - oneself. Generally speaking, an intellectual in the contemporary version is an exceptionally resourceful and, essentially, pitiful being. ↗

— Leonid Borodin

#intellectualism #intellectuals #posturing #pretense #faith

We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be. ↗

— Patrick Rothfuss

#pretending #pretense #danger

You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it. ↗

— Alan Moore

#pretense #truthfulness #honesty

You must not under any pretense allow your mind to dwell on any thought that is not positive, constructive, optimistic, kind. ↗

— Emmet Fox

#allow #any #constructive #dwell #kind

It seems to me that socialists today can preserve their position in academic economics merely by the pretense that the differences are entirely moral questions about which science cannot decide. ↗

— Friedrich August von Hayek

#academic #cannot #decide #differences #economics

Pretense cannot sustain blind power. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#dejan-stojanovic #literature #literature-quotes #poetry #poetry-quotes

If our countries had war the one with the other, that was no cause that he should put us to death; with which they were out of heart that their cruel pretense failed them. For which God be forever-more praised. ↗

— William Adams

#countries #cruel #death #failed #god

After we passed a few more houses, the street ceased to mantain any pretense of urbanity, like a man returning to his little village who, piece by piece, strips off his Sunday best, slowly changing back into a peasant as he gets closer to his home. ↗

— Bruno Schulz

#pretense #urbanity #change

Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense of wonder and awe. Theophrastus was right. Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#knowledge #learning #mystery #nature #pretense

[E]verywhere I'm looking at kids, adults mostly don't seem to like them, not even the parents do. They call the kids gorgeous and so cute, they make the kids do the thing all over again so they can take a photo, but they don't want to actually play with them, they'd rather drink coffee talking to other adults. Sometimes there's a small kid crying and the Ma of it doesn't even hear. ↗

— Emma Donoghue

#caring #children #cuteness #hypocrisy #kids