Top 223 Pretense Quotes & Sayings

I look for a girl without pretense who is sweet and intelligent - preferably brunette, but that's not completely important.

The name and pretense of virtue is as serviceable to self-interest as are real vices.

It is not poverty so much as pretense that harasses a ruined man.

Self respect is something that can't be killed. The worst thing is to kill a man's pretense at it.

Secrets find a way out in sleep . . . It is the place where there is no pretense.

I think making a pretense of civility toward Eric Alterman is like making a pretense of civility to a scorpion.

We are tired of the pretense that we have special privileges and the reality that we have none; of the fiction that we are queens, and the fact that we are subjects.

I don't make any pretense about being normal. I'm not.

What condemnation could possibly be more harsh than one’s own, when self-pretense is no longer possible?

I have a lot of friends who I really feel like I can kick back with and let all pretense go and be very comfortable with.

When all lies, deceit, pretense is stripped away, what remains? The truth of a painting, or a book or a man.

pretense is the oil that lubricates society.

One of the most repellent spectacles at election times is the pretense of piety on the part of people running for office.

And this is what has taken place. The delusion of the day is to enrich all classes at the expense of each other; it is to generalize plunder under pretense of organizing it.

There are things about some professional athletes that I cannot stand-the pretense, the egos, the pomposity, the greed.

Whenever A annoys or injures B on the pretense of saving or improving X, A is a scoundrel.

Certainly the best times were when I was alone with mathematics, free of ambition and pretense, and indifferent to the world.

The habit of arguing in support of atheism, whether it be done from conviction or in pretense, is a wicked and impious practice.

Giving advice is many times only the privilege of saying a foolish thing one's self, under the pretense of hindering another from doing one.

Be niggards of advice on no pretense; For the worst avarice is that of sense.

So much of my life has been about self-effacement, pretense, masquerading, concealment, and indirection.

The older generation grew up on blow-dried anchors, plastic politicians, and an ocean of pretense. Realness seems unvarnished and unpolished to them.

Style equals pretense.

I do think that Republicans are flirting with their tax cut, which has always been the narcotic of Republicans, that they in fact have to at some point, with any remote pretense of candor, abandon any pretense of a balanced budget.I mean, they talk about - because they are going to finance the tax cut by tax cuts. That's how they're going to do it. And I do think that the will is there right now in the Congress to act. I think they will be as close to unity as you will see on Capitol Hill this year.

Piety is the tinfoil of pretense.

One of the easiest forms of pretense to break down is the pretense of enthusiasm for exotic foods. Just bring on the exotic foods.

Most of the confidence which I appear to feel, especially when influenced by noon wine, is only a pretense.

Cruelty must be whitewashed by a moral excuse, and pretense of reluctance.

There is no worse sickness for the soul, o you who are proud, than this pretense of perfection.

Security, the chief pretense of civilization, cannot exist where the worst of dangers, the danger of poverty, hangs over everyone's head.

Give your heart to everybody you meet. The rest is pretense.

(Sarah Palin's) greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman.

Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie; and the workers want no lying.

Philosophizing is simply one way of being afraid, a cowardly pretense that doesn't get you anywhere.

Anything created with fake intention or pretense cannot last long.

All actions and attitudes of children are graceful because they are the luxuriant and immediate offspring of the moment - divested of affectation and free from all pretense.

The pious pretense that evil does not exist only makes it vague, enormous and menacing.

The thing I like about the band [Dead Child] is that there's no pretense. We aren't even trying to be artists or poets.

I make no pretense to accuracy. I shall be quite content if the sensibilities of no one are wounded by anything I may reduce to type.

When I passed forty I dropped pretense, 'cause men like women who got some sense.

I believe 100% when your heart & mind are in the right place and there is no pretense, great things will come. It's that simple!

Stereotypes abound when there is distance. They are an invention, a pretense that one knows when the steps that would make real knowing possible cannot be taken or are not allowed.

How wide is all this long pretense! There is in love a sweetness ready penned, Copy out only that, and save expense.

We talked, she and I. She asked about my work and it was a pretense, she was not interested in my work. And when I answered, it was a pretense. I was not interested in my work either. There was only one thing that interested us, and she knew it. She had made it plain by her coming.

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.

There's this American pretense, which is the pretense of the journalist with the view from nowhere - which has somehow morphed into the journalist who was born this morning. So, he doesn't know that Donald Trump lied yesterday, and the day before. So, he concludes that he doesn't know whether Trump lied accidentally or on purpose. You can only pretend not to know that if you don't know that he lied yesterday, and the day before. So, to my mind when NPR says they don't know if he's intentionally lying, they're lying. We have to be smarter about it.

No one can long hide behind a mask; the pretense soon lapses into the true character.

of the world and drudgery of business , seeks a pretense of reason to give itself a full and uncontrolled indulgence.

Love of another is merely empty flattery and self-deception for one who cannot accept himself without pretense.

He who has a mind to do mischief will always find a pretense.

I've never been a fan of pretense or procrastination. After all, our state is defined by its independent, outspoken spirit.

Or perhaps this hostility of yours is the pretense. Love does make liars out of your kind.

Excuse me, there's no pretense here. I happen to be genuinely self-absorbed and deeply shallow.

No pretense stop wasting my time. A virtuous woman is really hard to find.

The heart of the world is breaking under this load of pride and pretense. There is no release from our burden apart from the meekness of Christ.

Perhaps there is no other knowing than the mere competence of the act. If at the heart of one's being, there is no self to which one ought to be true, then sincerity is simply nerve; it lies in the unabashed vigor of the pretense. But pretense is only pretense when it is assumed that the act is not true to the agent. Find the agent.

When wisdom and knowledge appear, great pretense arises.

What is leadership, after all, but the blind choice of one route over another and the confident pretense that the decision was based on reason

A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretense. No truth seems true.

One may wonder indeed whether the pretense of superior health is not itself rapidly becoming a mental aberration.