562 Authenticity Quotes

There is no formula for generating the authentic warmth of love. It cannot be copied. You cannot talk yourself into it or rouse it by straining at the emotions or by dedicating yourself solemnly to the service of mankind. Everyone has love, but it can only come out when he is convinced of the impossibility and the frustration of trying to love himself. This conviction will not come through condemnations, through hating oneself, through calling self love bad names in the universe. It comes only in the awareness that one has no self to love.

Acting is not pretending or lying. It's finding a side of yourself that's the character and ignoring your other sides. And there's a side of me that wonders what's wrong with being completely honest.

I never think of myself as an icon. What is in other people's minds is not in my mind. I just do my thing.

Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.

The appropriation of radical thinking by lazy, self-obsessed hippies is a public relations disaster that could cost the earth.

I get more out of life just being myself, by just being a human being. Not by being a rock star, not by being whatever. Sometimes I act like a jerk, but I think people respect me for being myself. That's the ultimate thing about the Smashing Pumpkins.

The man who is really serious, with the urge to find out what truth is, has no style at all. He lives only in what is.

Concepts vs. self-actualization. - Instead of dedicating your life to actualize a concept of what you should be like, ACTUALIZE YOURSELF. The process of maturing does not mean to become a captive of conceptualization. It is to come to the realization of what lies in our innermost selves.

There are lots of guys around the world that are lazy. They have big fat guts. They talk about chi power and things they can do, but don't believe it.

I'm probably one of the most dangerous men in the world if I want to be. But I never wanted to be anything but me.

Thou wouldst be loved? - then let thy heart From its present pathway part not! Being everything which now thou art, Be nothing which thou art not. So with the world thy gentle ways, Thy grace, thy more than beauty, Shall be an endless theme of praise, And love - a simple duty.

I'm not the man to baulk at a low smell, I'm not the man to insist on asphodel. This sounds like a He-fellow, don't you think? It sounds like that. I belch, I bawl, I drink.

Values are not trendy items that are casually traded in.

The image is one thing and the human being is another...it's very hard to live up to an image.

Commitment becomes hysterical when those who have nothing to give advocate generosity, and those who have nothing to give up preach renunciation.

Never follow a dog act. You know you're on the skids when you play yourself in the movie version of your life.

My peers, lately, have found companionship through means of intoxication - it makes them sociable. I, however, cannot force myself to use drugs to cheat on my loneliness - it is all that I have - and when the drugs and alcohol dissipate, will be all that my peers have as well.

Sincerity is the key which will open the door through which you will see your separate parts, and you will see something quite new. You must go on trying to be sincere. Each day you put on a mask, and you must take it off little by little.

The books I write because I want to read them, the games because I want to play them, and stories I tell because I find them exciting personally.

Perfect simplicity is unconsciously audacious.

My intent is to tell the truth as I know it, realizing that what is true for me may be blasphemy for others.

When I sleep I sleep and do not dream because it is as well that I am what I seem when I am in my bed and dream.

I am writing for myself and strangers. This is the only way that I can do it. Everybody is a real one to me, everybody is like some one else too to me. No one of them that I know can want to know it and so I write for myself and strangers.

This is not a showman's job. I will not step out of character.

Lifting whole passages from someone else's speeches is not change you can believe in. It's change you can Xerox.

I think that's what distinguishes Schmidt, really. In the movies now, so much of what is appealing to an audience is the dramatic or has to do with science fiction, and Schmidt is simply human. There's no melodrama; there's no device, It's just about a human being.

To pretend, I actually do the thing: I have therefore only pretended to pretend.

It may be glorious to write Thoughts that shall glad the two or three High souls, like those far stars that come in sight Once in a century.

The real me is a southern girl with her Levis on and an open heart. Wish I could save the world, like I was super girl.

The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask.

The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on and individual level. It's got to happen inside first. You can take away a man's political freedom and you won't hurt him- unless you take away his freedom to feel. That can destroy him. That kind of freedom can't be granted. Nobody can win it for you.

When you hear an instrumental song someone is singing over, you know right away it's wrong.

People feel they have to cover up who they are to be loved. But success comes from being real.

Do you dare deny my potency my kindness or forgiveness?

I think I was just fed up with the image that had been created around me, which I sometimes consciously, most of the time unconsciously cooperated with. It just got too much for me to really stomach and so I put an end to it one glorious evening.

I don't believe the answer for us is to invoke the Lord's name 55 times in a speech. It looks political.

(after playing 'Sanctuary' by Vex) - That's Vex and on the back of the sleeve it says 'four individuals with no set ideals making music to provoke thought' - and the thought which most immediately comes to me is that it's almost time that we've had enough records like that.

That's Stump and that's another track in the forthcoming Peel Sessions EP series, if you see what I mean. It's not quite that but I'm not gonna try and reconstruct the sentence in front of you.

A set of phrases learnt by rote; A passion for a scarlet coat; When at a play to laugh, or cry, Yet cannot tell the reason why: Never to hold her tongue a minute; While all she prates has nothing in it.

Gibbon observes that in the Arabian book par excellence, in the Koran, there are no camels; I believe if there were any doubt as to the authenticity of the Koran, this absence of camels would be sufficient to prove it is an Arabian work.

'Humans without shadow are unpresentable.'

'First and foremost, I'd like to continue taking risks with my music. Everything I've done so far has been a gut reaction, honest and real. And that's who I am. That's what I want my music to always be -- honest and real.'

'When I make an album I take a lot of risks. I ignore the trends of the moment and one of the things I have to think of when making an album like this is the honesty of it. To connect. It goes against the grain. It's nice to know I can go against the grain.'

'I just have to feel it first. It can't be cerebral at all. I'm big on lyrics, a big lyric person, especially the kind of singing I do. It's hard to sound not cheesy sometimes with the voice I have with English songs.'

I read Hemingway's posthumous Paris memoirs, rumoured to have been written by his wife (`Out of the question,' Toni assured me, `they're so badly written they must be authentic').

Ooh, yeah, you're amazing! We think you are really cool. We'd give you a part, my love, But you'd have to play the fool.

Do I look for those millionaires Like a Machiavellian girl would When I could wear the sunset?

I know this may give her a mystique and make the press all the more curious about her, but that's not the intention; it's not a ploy to get her more attention. She genuinely doesn't see why people should be interested in her personal life and she certainly doesn't like going out to clubs or trendy restaurants. It's just not her.

I simply think she is one of the greatest figures in British music over the last 30 years. There are an awful lot of people in the business wandering around claiming to be artists, but she is one of the few who can genuinely make that claim... I don't think there is any competition, she's on a different level and quite outside them all.

I want to be a Mrs. Kenny Rogers kind of woman. You know... the kind of lady he sings about: 'Oh Lady, I was just scum in the sewer until you came along and made me a man.' With hair that's light, but not really blonde, that would be too cheap. Instead, sort of a wheat-and-sunstreaked affair with not a lot of hairspray. A ninety-five dollar cut that looks like your hair just naturally grows out of your head like that. The kind of woman who always, no matter what, has that I-understand-and-am-knowing-without-being-threatening kind of always smile.

I don't like goody-goodies.

This script, it seems to me, is the work of professionals who yearned to be as charming as inspired amateurs can sometimes be.

I hope I'm not getting so famous that I can't think out load [sic] anymore.

'I don't need Channel 4 to tell me how rock and roll I am; I'm in fucking Motorhead!' - After taking Channel 4's 'How Rock And Roll Are You?' test and barely scoring 2/3 of the marks.

'All the technique in the world don't mean shit if it don't sound right.'

The point is that, like Richard Hell says, rock 'n' roll is an arena in which you recreate yourself, and all this blathering about authenticity is just a bunch of crap. The Clash are authentic because their music carries such brutal conviction, not because they're Noble Savages.

Always looking at himself in mirrors to make sure he was sufficiently outrageous.

I'm very inappropriate, which makes me a problem dinner guest, because at some point during the evening someone inevitably says, 'Okay, heh heh heh, okay, too much information! Heh heh heh. Don't go there!' I live there. I bought a house there.

Tous nous serions transformes si nous avions le courage d'etre ce que nous sommes.

Michael's a natural. He's a very hard worker and a super performer. But most of all he's a real human being.

Everyone's thinking they're the new W. Axl Rose, just running their mouths and living in this world where nothing is real. Like, it's really easy to write a couple of songs, but that doesn't mean you get to run your mouth. The only guy who can do that is Michael Jackson. He wrote Thriller, so he can say whatever the fuck he wants.

I thought it was ludicrous to take one of those gongs from the establishment... it's not what the Stones is about, is it? I don't want to step out on stage with someone wearing a fucking coronet and sporting the old ermine. I told Mick, 'It's a fucking paltry honour.'

'Man, that's my style!' -- When asked by the producer of 'Tears Are Not Enough' (the Canadian counterpart to 'We Are The World') to sing his line again because it sounded 'a little flat'.

It's not meant to be flirtatious. Listen, I don't have a presenting style, I'm just me. I don't have the talent to adopt a different persona. It's intimate, not flirtatious.

I will not accept boundaries; appearances cannot contain me; I choke! To bleed in this agony, and to live it profoundly, is the second duty. The mind is patient and adjusts itself, it likes to play; but the heart grows savage and will not condescend to play; it stifles and rushes to tear apart the nets of necessity.

The more poetic, the more real. This is the core of my philosophy.

She had passed his test. She had listened to him the way no one else did - without impatience, without finishing his sentences, without letting her gaze waver from his face. He had spoken to her, not with careful precision, but with great emotion... He could talk to this woman as naturally as he had ever talked to anyone before... Yes, she was opinionated, headstrong, bossy, and quick to reach conclusions. But she could also listen to an opposing view, change her mind when she needed to. She could listen, and so he could speak. Perhaps with her he could still be [himself].

I think you were always pretending. Maybe you even fooled yourself. But one thing is certain. You were never an ordinary girl, and you could never had lead an ordinary life.

Please stop reassuring me of how respectful you are whenever you're about to tell me that I'm an idiot.

Has life left you so hungry that you'll swallow even the poor imitation of love?

Brash. Uncompromising. Brilliant. Hilarious. Pat Condell has found a simple formula for success: stating the obvious without restraining himself with the conventions of unwarranted piety. Pat flenses sacred cows, and after slicing away the fat and gristle of tired apologetics and mindless tradition, he exposes the hollow carcass of a culture's hypocrisy...and we laugh.

Gauguin interests me very much as a man - very much. For a long time now it has seemed to me that in our nasty profession of painting we are most sorely in need of men with the hands and the stomachs of workmen. More natural tastes - more loving and more charitable temperaments - than the decadent dandies of the Parisian boulevards have. Well, here we are without the slightest doubt in the presence of a virgin creature with savage instincts. With Gauguin blood and sex prevail over ambition.

I made up that story to change your mind. I could have been somebody else but now I'm me this time. 'Intro (Day I Forgot Album)'

Basically there's a gulf between truth and untruth, I don't want to be too mathematical about it, because I'm not very good at maths. But it's a divide between, I dunno, a film and a cartoon. I've just become this cartoon character. I try not to follow it, but when you see pictures of yourself that have been photo-shopped to show you doing something you didn't:. that's wrong. It's my worst nightmare - and being misquoted, too, especially as I'm so precious about words.

I realise it's proved to people that I don't love them. It's dawning on me now that if I say I love someone: it's like lying, really. As long as I'm taking it, the lie continues. I've got a lot of proving myself to do.

Fox the fox Rat on the the rat You can ape the ape I know about that There is one thing you must be sure of I can't take any more Darling, don't you monkey with the monkey.

All my instincts, they return and the grand facade, so soon will burn without a noise, without my pride I reach out from the inside.

Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already done singly will justify you now. Greatness appeals to the future. If I can be firm enough to-day to do right, and scorn eyes, I must have done so much right before as to defend me now. Be it how it will, do right now. Always scorn appearances, and you always may. The force of character is cumulative.

But these young scholars who invade our hills, Bold as the engineer who fells the wood, And travelling often in the cut he makes, Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not, And all their botany is Latin names.

'My fans know I love my cheese grits with shrimp, and I'm not giving them up to be a size 2. They know I wear a weave to make my hair look right and I don't always look glamorous all the time. I don't even worry about that type of stuff that much. You're not going to see me with clothes that just let everything hang out. And it's not because of my size, but because it's just not me.'

'I love to sing. With this album, I'm just trying to be who I really am. This is my time.'

Music has taken a bad turn; these young people have no idea how to write a melody, they just give us shavings, which they dress up to look like a lion's mane and shake at us... It's as if they avoid melodies, for fear of having perhaps stolen them from someone else.

It wasn't that [my management or the label] told me what to do, It was more of what I couldn't do. I couldn't wear red lipstick. I couldn't wear my hair in a ponytail; all kinds of stupid things. Being 'Rihanna' wasn't natural. So I rebelled. I'm doing me. Now, Robyn (Rihanna's first name) and Rihanna are much more similar.

I'm terrified of going under the knife. Because of the pain, the complications - not to mention the fact that it's utterly unauthentic. 'If my t*ts aren't feeling big one day, too bad. I'll get a good bra. 'I like my body and I work out as hard as I can to make it as perfect as possible. But at the end of the day there's always people who criticise your weight, your hairstyle and what you're wearing. I just get on with it.'

I do question the motives of a deskbound President who assumes the garb of a warrior for the purposes of a speech.

I don't do art to address other people but to address myself. I've never done art with a thought of being a professional artist who makes a living by selling his art. I've never had a commercial show in a gallery. I suppose I'm like those who write poetry or songs without seeking publication. I make art in and for the experience itself - to satisfy a need to express myself in a creative, colorful, non-verbal way.

Rush Limbaugh makes more serious points while clowning around than a whole page full of New York Times columnists make while being solemn and pompous.

The time is past when music was written for a handful of aesthetes. Today vast crowds of people have come face to face with serious music and are waiting with eager impatience. Composers, take heed of this:But this does not mean that you must pander to this audience. Pandering always has an element of insincerity about it and nothing good ever came of that.

Memory is like an orgasm. It's a lot better if you don't have to fake it.

Sharon was the type of a girl who had no defenses, no pretenses, she was just herself all the time... She was so trusting, so eager to accept people as they were, so generous... Sharon never shut her door to anyone.

Victor: White people won't respect you if you don't look mean. You have to look like a warrior, like you just got back from killing a buffalo. Thomas: But our tribe never hunted buffalo. We were fishermen. Victor: What, you want to look like you just caught a fish? This isn't Dances with Salmon, you know!

'The decay of giving is morrored in the distressing invention of gift-article, based on the assumption that one does not know what to give because one really does not want to.'