Quotes about Authenticity

Lie life through its fullest

Write the truest sentence you know. Then write another. -- Hemingway's advice to other young writers in A Moveable Feast.

There was a time, not so long ago, when the stupid and uneducated aspired to be thought intelligent and cultured people doing their best to feign stupidity.

The hardest thing in the world to do is to write straight honest prose on human beings.

All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened.

Become simple and live simply, not only within yourself but also in your everyday dealings. Don't make ripples all around you, don't try to be interesting, keep your distance, be honest, fight the desire to be thought fascinating by the outside world.

Every word born of an inner necessity - writing must never be anything else.

Truth is truth. If a thousand people believe something foolish, it is still foolish! Truth is never dependent upon consensus of opinion. I have found that it is better to be alone and acting upon the truth in my heart than to follow a gaggle of silly geese doomed to mediocrity.

you will never please everyone, nor should pleasing everyone be your goal. For example, to seek the approval of someone who is lazy or jealous is to cast your pearls before swine. You will find that God rarely uses a person whose main concern is what others are thinking.

How we treat, talk about, respond to, and care for one another is the identifying mark of a genuine Jesus follower. Not what we believe.

A leader is someone who has the courage to say publicly what everybody else is whispering privately.

Because of the pressure to fit in and to please, we can find ourselves making decisions that don't align with our highest good. When we make decisions from the fear of being judged and/or rejected, we doom ourselves to this people-pleasing brand of decision-making.