Quotes about fake page 3
“Better to be hated for being true than to be loved for being false.”
Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer
Original: Meglio essere odiati per essere veri che essere amati per essere falsi.
Source: prevale.net
Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist
The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
Source: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary
Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)
Richard Dawkins book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution
Source: The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution
“If I was bound for hell, let it be hell. No more false heavens. No more damned magic.”
Jean Rhys book Wide Sargasso Sea
Source: Wide Sargasso Sea
Edward Gibbon The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Volume 1, Chapter 2 "Of the Union and Internal Prosperity of the Roman Empire, in the Age of the Antonines" http://www.ccel.org/ccel/gibbon/decline/files/volume1/chap2.htm. The portion regarding the views of the religions of the time taken by various constituencies has been misreported as Gibbon's own assessment of religion generally. See Paul F. Boller, John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions (1990), pp. 34–35.<br>The bold text has been misattributed to Lucretius and Seneca the Younger. <br class="br">The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire (1776) <br class="br">Source: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire <br class="br">Context: The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord. <br class="br">Context: The policy of the emperors and the senate, as far as it concerned religion, was happily seconded by the reflections of the enlightened, and by the habits of the superstitious, part of their subjects. The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.<br>The superstition of the people was not embittered by any mixture of theological rancour; nor was it confined by the chains of any speculative system. The devout polytheist, though fondly attached to his national rites, admitted with implicit faith the different religions of the earth. Fear, gratitude, and curiosity, a dream or an omen, a singular disorder, or a distant journey, perpetually disposed him to multiply the articles of his belief, and to enlarge the list of his protectors. The thin texture of the Pagan mythology was interwoven with various but not discordant materials.
“what time is it? its is by every star
a different time, and each most falsely true…”
E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet
Source: Selected Poems
Sam Keen (1931) author, professor, and philosopher
Source: Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man
“We must kill the false woman who is preventing the live one from breathing.”
Hélène Cixous (1937) French philosopher and writer
H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer
369
Popular version of the first sentence: "The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-front for the urge to rule it."
1940s–present, Minority Report : H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)
Source: Minority Report
Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine
Samuel P. Huntington (1927–2008) American political scientist
Ch. 12 : The West, Civilizations, and Civilization, § 2 : The West In The World, p. 310
Source: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996), Ch. 12 : The West, Civilizations, and Civilization, § 2 : The West In The World, p. 308
Context: Normatively the Western universalist belief posits that people throughout the world should embrace Western values, institutions, and culture because they embody the highest, most enlightened, most liberal, most rational, most modern, and most civilized thinking of humankind.
In the emerging world of ethnic conflict and civilizational clash, Western belief in the universality of Western culture suffers three problems: it is false; it is immoral; and it is dangerous.
Context: Cultural and civilizational diversity challenges the Western and particularly American belief in the universal relevance of Western culture. This belief is expressed both descriptively and normatively. Descriptively it holds that peoples in all societies want to adopt Western values, institutions, and practices. If they seem not to have that desire and to be committed to their own traditional cultures, they are victims of a “false consciousness” comparable to that which Marxists found among proletarians who supported capitalism. Normatively the Western universalist belief posits that people throughout the world should embrace Western values, institutions, and culture because they embody the highest, most enlightened, most liberal, most rational, most modern, and most civilized thinking of humankind.
In the emerging world of ethnic conflict and civilizational clash, Western belief in the universality of Western culture suffers three problems: it is false; it is immoral; and it is dangerous. … The belief that non-Western peoples should adopt Western values, institutions, and culture is immoral because of what would be necessary to bring it about. The almost-universal reach of European power in the late nineteenth century and the global dominance of the United States in the late twentieth century spread much of Western civilization across the world. European globalism, however, is no more. American hegemony is receding if only because it is no longer needed to protect the United States against a Cold War-style Soviet military threat. Culture, as we have argued, follows power. If non-Western societies are once again to be shaped by Western culture, it will happen only as a result of the expansion, deployment, and impact of Western power. Imperialism is the necessary logical consequence of universalism. In addition, as a maturing civilization, the West no longer has the economic or demographic dynamism required to impose its will on other societies and any effort to do so is also contrary to the Western values of self-determination and democracy. As Asian and Muslim civilizations begin more and more to assert the universal relevance of their cultures, Westerners will come to appreciate more and more the connection between universalism and imperialism.
Context: A world in which cultural identities — ethnic, national, religious, civilizational — are central, and cultural affinities and differences shape the alliances, antagonisms, and policies of states has three broad implications for the West generally and for the United States in particular.
First, statesmen can constructively alter reality only if they recognize and understand it. The emerging politics of culture, the rising power of non-Western civilizations, and the increasing cultural assertiveness of these societies have been widely recognized in the non-Western world. European leaders have pointed to the cultural forces drawing people together and driving them apart. American elites, in contrast, have been slow to accept and to come to grips with these emerging realities.
Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist
Quote from Tiny Surrealism: Salvador Dalí and the Aesthetics of the Small, Roger Rothman, 2012 UNP-Nebraska.
Quotes of Salvador Dali, Miscellaneous
Victor Hugo book Les Misérables
Variant: What is said about men often has as much influence upon their lives, and especially upon their destinies, as what they do.
Source: Les Misérables
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851) English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer
Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XXXII : Comparisons: Information Rejected; Helen to Milicent
“An economic system which can only expand or expire must be false to all that is human.”
Edward Abbey book Desert Solitaire
Source: Desert Solitaire
Curtis Sittenfeld (1975) Novelist, short story writer
Source: American Wife
Thomas Ligotti (1953) American horror author
Description: from the The Dhammapada
Source: The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror (2010)
Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …
"A Cult of Ignorance", Newsweek (21 January 1980) http://media.aphelis.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ASIMOV_1980_Cult_of_Ignorance.pdf <br class="br">General sources <br class="br">Context: There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
“False humility is more insulting than open pride!”
Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer
Source: Rise of the Evening Star
Sigmund Freud book Civilization and Its Discontents
Man kann sich des Eindrucks nicht erwehren, daß die Menschen gemeinhin mit falschen Maßstäben messen, Macht, Erfolg und Reichtum für sich anstreben und bei anderen bewundern, die wahren Werte des Lebens aber unterschätzen.
Source: 1920s, Civilization and Its Discontents (1929), Ch. 1, as translated by James Strachey, p.25
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher
"Religion: A Dialogue."
Variant translation: To free a man from error does not mean to take something from him, but to give him something.
Essays
Source: Essays and Aphorisms
Context: To free a man from error is to give, not to take away. Knowledge that a thing is false is a truth. Error always does harm; sooner or later it will bring mischief to the man who harbors it. Then give up deceiving people; confess ignorance of what you don't know, and leave everyone to form his own articles of faith for himself. Perhaps they won't turn out so bad, especially as they'll rub one another's corners down, and mutually rectify mistakes. The existence of many views will at any rate lay a foundation of tolerance. Those who possess knowledge and capacity may betake themselves to the study of philosophy, or even in their own persons carry the history of philosophy a step further.
Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer
Source: A Thousand Mornings
“Everything is false, everything is possible, everything is doubtful.”
Guy De Maupassant (1850–1893) French writer
Source: Complete Works
Isaac Asimov book Foundation’s Edge
Source: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Foundation’s Edge (1982), Chapter 11 “Sayshell” section 3, p. 205
Source: Foundation's Edge
Context: Pelorat sighed. “I will never understand people.”
“There’s nothing to it. All you have to do is take a close look at yourself and you will understand everyone else. We’re in no way different ourselves... You show me someone who can’t understand people and I’ll show you someone who has built up a false image of himself.”
“Cheap booze is a false economy.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist
Source: Hitch-22: A Memoir
“… how false the most profound book turns out to be when applied to life.”
William Faulkner book Light in August
Source: Light in August
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (1960) Lebanese-American essayist, scholar, statistician, former trader and risk analyst
“Better to know the quick pain of truth than the ongoing pain of a long-held false hope.”
Trudi Canavan (1969) Australian writer
Source: Voice of the Gods
Guy Debord (1931–1994) French Marxist theorist, writer, filmmaker and founding member of the Situationist International (SI)
Source: Society of the Spectacle (1967), Ch. 8, sct. 207 (confer Comte de Lautréamont, Poésies II, 1870).
Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author
When asked how the world had changed following the September 11, 2001 attacks <br class="br"> Has the world changed? http://books.guardian.co.uk/writersreflections/story/0,1367,567546,00.html, The Guardian (October 11, 2001)
“Today will never happen again. Don't waste it with a false start or no start at all.”
Og Mandino (1923–1996) American author
“It's hard to explain and best thing to do is not be false.”
Jack Kerouac book Big Sur
Source: Big Sur
John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher
Source: Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet
Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)
“All generalizations are false, including this one.”
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
“I don't want to inhabit the human world under false pretenses.”
Janet Frame (1924–2004) New Zealand author
Source: Towards Another Summer
“The ego is the false self-born out of fear and defensiveness.”
John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher
Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
“My bullshit meter is reading that as 'false'.”
Charlaine Harris book Dead as a Doornail
Source: Dead as a Doornail
Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist
“Bye-bye, Elan. P. S., Next time you implicate someone falsely, try to pick a pacifist.”
Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist
Source: Lover at Last
Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist
Song lyrics, John Wesley Harding (1967), All Along the Watchtower
Context: "No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke
"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late"
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher
25 May 1830
Table Talk (1821–1834)
Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America
Book Three, Chapter XXI.
Democracy in America, Volume II (1840), Book Three
Ada Lovelace (1815–1852) English mathematician, considered the first computer programmer
In a letter to Andrew Crosse, as quoted in Eugen Kölbing's Englische Studien, Volume 19 https://archive.org/stream/englischestudien19leipuoft#page/158/mode/1up (1894), Leipzig; O.R. Reisland, "Byron's Daughter", p. 158.
Pope John Paul II (1920–2005) 264th Pope of the Catholic Church, saint
Letter to the Rev. George V. Coyne, S.J., Director of the Vatican Observatory, 1 June 1988
Source: [Russell, Robert J., Stoeger, William R., Pope John Paul II, Coyne, George V., 1990, John Paul II on science and religion: reflections on the new view from Rome, Vatican Observatory Publications]
Reginald Heber (1783–1826) English clergyman
"On Heavenly Hope and Earthly Hope".
need further publication dates
David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
2010s, 2015, Speech on (20 July 2015)
L. David Mech (1937) American Biologist , Ecologist
Wolves: Behavior, Ecology and Conservation (2003)
Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937) Bengali polymath, physicist, biologist, botanist and archaeologist
In page=106
Science and National Consciousness in Bengal: 1870-1930
Dwight Hopkins (1953) American academic
"A Black Theology of Liberation," Black Theology, v. 3, n. 1, January 2005
Patrick Fitzgerald (1960) American lawyer
Cheney Adviser Resigns After Indictment on ABCnews.com (October 28, 2005) http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1260229
Isaac Barrow (1630–1677) English Christian theologian, and mathematician
p, 125
Geometrical Lectures (1735)
Arthur Jensen (1923–2012) professor of educational psychology
Arthur Jensen, "The Debunking of Scientific Fossils and Straw Persons" http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/jensen-gould-fossils Contemporary Education Review 1:2, 1982