authenticity quotes

There’s no point in saying anything but the truth.

Swearing is industry language. For as long as we’re alive it’s not going to change. You’ve got to be boisterous to get results.

An unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling lie.

Yeah, I’m an open book.

I just want to be myself.

The only thing I know is I ain’t changing my brand. I know what I believe. I’m confident in what I know. And I’m gonna say it. And if folks like it, wonderful. If they don’t like it, I understand.

It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.

Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.

I’ve never been one to sit back and go, ‚I’d better do what the audience wants me to do, because I don’t want to lose them.‘

I want to grow old without facelifts. I want to have the courage to be loyal to the face I have made.

If the writing is honest it cannot be separated from the man who wrote it.

I’m not frightened of appearing vulnerable.

I’ve definitely seen bands before they made money kind of change their thing on the next tour, and I prefer it when it’s a little more raw.

Only the ideas that we really live have any value.

The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.

I’m giving all that I have in this life. I’m opening up my notebook, and I’m saying everything in there out loud.

Secretly we’re all a little more absurd than we make ourselves out to be.

My life is not to be somebody else’s impact – you know what I mean?

The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity.

Everything deep is also simple and can be reproduced simply as long as its reference to the whole truth is maintained. But what matters is not what is witty but what is true.

Platitudes? Yes, there are platitudes. Platitudes are there because they are true.

If I’m inspired to make a certain kind of song, I’m going to make that kind of song, no matter if it’s what they know me as or think I am.

Hard times arouse an instinctive desire for authenticity.

Life is not living in the suburbs with a white picket fence. That’s not life. Somehow our American culture has made it out that that’s what life needs to be – and that if it’s not that, it’s all screwed up. It’s not.

I love that I can talk to my fans through Twitter, to cut out the middle man. Because I’ve done interviews where my words have gotten twisted, so it’s nice to be able to have things coming straight from me.

Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.

I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.

People who say they don’t care what people think are usually desperate to have people think they don’t care what people think.

Beauty and femininity are ageless and can’t be contrived, and glamour, although the manufacturers won’t like this, cannot be manufactured. Not real glamour; it’s based on femininity.

There are many sham diamonds in this life which pass for real, and vice versa.

If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.

Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them.

My writing is jagged and harsh, I want it to remain that way; I don’t want it smoothed out.

In my research, I’ve interviewed a lot of people who never fit in, who are what you might call ‚different‘: scientists, artists, thinkers. And if you drop down deep into their work and who they are, there is a tremendous amount of self-acceptance.

I looked the people of Louisiana in the eye and told them exactly what I thought in terms that normal people use.

It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.

At Sarah Lawrence, I realized that everybody was already what they were going to be. The painters were painting, the writers writing, the dancers dancing. And nobody wore any makeup. The art was uppermost.

I think that I do feel that my nature is to express what this self, this particular self at this time, experiences in the world. And that is so organic – I use this metaphor a lot but I’ll use it again – it’s like a pine tree producing pine cones, or a blackberry bush producing blackberries – it’s just what happens with this being, now.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

Be content to seem what you really are.

Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

A ‚No‘ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‚Yes‘ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.

If you think dealing with issues like worthiness and authenticity and vulnerability are not worthwhile because there are more pressing issues, like the bottom line or attendance or standardized test scores, you are sadly, sadly mistaken. It underpins everything.

The image is one thing and the human being is another. It’s very hard to live up to an image, put it that way.

The truth is, I’ve never fooled anyone. I’ve let men sometimes fool themselves.

Anger cannot be dishonest.

I want you to be everything that’s you, deep at the center of your being.

Friends accept you the way you are.

If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?

Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is.

I don’t know who I touch and who I don’t. I work hard trying to make people laugh. I try to do the kind of stuff that made me laugh growing up. I don’t have any secrets. I don’t know the reasons I’ve been so well received.

The fact is that when you do something from your heart, you leave a heart print.

I would impress upon your minds the fact that if you want to do a man justice, you should believe what a man says himself rather than what people say he says.

Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.

Creation is a sustained period of bliss, even though the subject can still be very sad. Because there’s the triumph of coming through and understanding that you have, and that you did it the way only you could do it. You didn’t do it the way somebody told you to do it.

Avoid popularity if you would have peace.