Quotes about Authenticity

Seek out that particular mental attitude which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, "This is the real me," and when you have found that attitude, follow it.

We had as lief not be, as not be ourselves.

Misfortunes occur only when a man is false.... Events, circumstances, etc., have their origin in ourselves. They spring from seeds which we have sown.

To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying "Amen" to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to keep your soul alive.

Outside, among your fellows, among strangers, you must preserve appearances, a hundred things you cannot do; but inside, the terrible freedom!

Do not wish to be anything but what you are.

We live in an atmosphere of shame. We are ashamed of everything that is real about us; ashamed of ourselves, of our relatives, of our incomes, of our accents, of our opinion, of our experience, just as we are ashamed of our naked skins.

We like that a sentence should read as if its author, had he held a plough instead of a pen, could have drawn a furrow deep and straight to the end.

And unless one decorates one's house for oneself alone, best leave it bare, for other people are all wall-eyed.

Besides, who is to say that the feelings he writes in his diary are his true feelings? Who is to say that at each moment while the pen moves he is truly himself? At one moment he might truly be himself, at another he might simply be making things up. How can one know for sure? Why should he even want to know for sure?

Truth is not spoken in anger.Truth is spoken, if it ever comes to be spoken, in love.

The filth of village; honestly acquired.