Quotes about fake
page 3

Eckhart Tolle photo
Prevale photo

“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 photo

“Scriptures, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.”

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 photo

“If we judge ourselves only by our aspirations and everyone else only their conduct we shall soon reach a very false conclusion.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)
Jon Krakauer photo
Richard Dawkins photo
Aleister Crowley photo
Jean Rhys photo
Ayn Rand photo
Edward Gibbon photo

“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.”

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.
The bold text has been misattributed to Lucretius and Seneca the Younger.
The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire (1776)
Source: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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.
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.
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.

E.E. Cummings photo

“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

Scott Lynch photo
Robin Hobb photo
H.L. Mencken photo

“The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it. Power is what all messiahs really seek: not the chance to serve. This is true even of the pious brethren who carry the gospel to foreign parts.”

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

Samuel P. Huntington photo

“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.”

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.

Neil Strauss photo
Nathaniel Hawthorne photo
Christopher Hitchens photo
Elizabeth Wurtzel photo
Salvador Dalí photo

“The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant.”

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 photo

“True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do.”

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 photo
Anne Brontë photo

“Look at your body—
A painted puppet, a poor toy
Of jointed parts ready to collapse,
A diseased and suffering thing
With a head full of false imaginings.”

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 photo

“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."”

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
General sources
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."

Brandon Mull photo

“False humility is more insulting than open pride!”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Source: Rise of the Evening Star

Brandon Sanderson photo
Sigmund Freud photo

“It is impossible to escape the impression that people commonly use false standards of measurement — that they seek power, success and wealth for themselves and admire them in others, and that they underestimate what is of true value in life.”

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 photo

“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.”

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.

“And now you'll be telling stories
of my coming back
and they won't be false, and they won't be true
but they'll be real”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Source: A Thousand Mornings

Alan Paton photo
Robert Musil photo
Guy De Maupassant photo

“Everything is false, everything is possible, everything is doubtful.”

Guy De Maupassant (1850–1893) French writer

Source: Complete Works

D.H. Lawrence photo
Jean Genet photo

“It's a true image, born of a false spectacle.”

Source: The Balcony

Joe Haldeman photo
Isaac Asimov photo

“You show me someone who can’t understand people and I’ll show you someone who has built up a false image of himself.”

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.”

Christopher Hitchens photo

“Cheap booze is a false economy.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Source: Hitch-22: A Memoir

William Faulkner photo
Nassim Nicholas Taleb photo
Swami Vivekananda photo
Trudi Canavan photo

“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 photo

“Ideas improve. The meaning of words participates in the improvement. Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It embraces an author’s phrase, makes use of his expressions, erases a false idea, and replaces it with the right idea.”

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 photo
Christina Rossetti photo
John Milton photo
Jane Austen photo
Adrienne Rich photo
Orson Scott Card photo
Mario Puzo photo
Adolf Hitler photo
Dorothy Canfield Fisher photo
Jack Kerouac photo

“It's hard to explain and best thing to do is not be false.”

Source: Big Sur

Christopher Hitchens photo
Victor Hugo photo
D.H. Lawrence photo
Arthur Schopenhauer photo
Kabir photo
Victor Hugo photo

“Consumerism is the worship of the god of quantity; advertising is its liturgy. Advertising is schooling in false longing.”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong

Milan Kundera photo
Nisargadatta Maharaj photo
Jonathan Swift photo

“The latter part of a wise man’s life is taken up in curing the follies, prejudices, and false opinions he had contracted in the former.”

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet

Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)

Albert Einstein photo

“All generalizations are false, including this one.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
Martin Buber photo

“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

Harold Pinter photo
Rick Riordan photo
Joe Haldeman photo
Ambrose Bierce photo
Libba Bray photo

“I’m not interested in being polite. It’s false.”

Source: The Diviners

“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

Thomas Aquinas photo
Anne McCaffrey photo
Bob Dylan photo

“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.”

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"

Charles Bukowski photo
Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo
Alexis De Tocqueville photo
Ada Lovelace photo
Park Benjamin, Sr. photo
Pope John Paul II photo
John Milton photo
Reginald Heber photo

“Thus heavenly hope is all serene,
But earthly hope, how bright soe’er,
Still fluctuates o’er this changing scene,
As false and fleeting as ’t is fair.”

Reginald Heber (1783–1826) English clergyman

"On Heavenly Hope and Earthly Hope".
need further publication dates

David Cameron photo
L. David Mech photo
Jagadish Chandra Bose photo
Patrick Fitzgerald photo
Isaac Barrow photo
Arthur Jensen photo