Sincerity Quotes

“If I'm sincere today, what does it matter if I regret it tomorrow?”
― José Saramago, Blindness

“Men are never convinced of your reasons, of your sincerity, of the seriousness of your sufferings, except by your death. So long as you are alive, your case is doubtful; you have a right only to their skepticism.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”
― John F. Kennedy

“Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles.”
― Confucius, The Analects

“I am an extremely sincere individual. I am sincere, to a fault. One of the many things that I have come to realize, to learn, is that sincerity must be reserved and given only to those who deserve it. And one must save one's emotions, channeling them only to the people who are worthy of it. One must not throw one's pearls to the pigs.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“Women are always true, even in the midst of their greatest falsities, because they are always influenced by some natural feeling.”
― Honoré de Balzac, Père Goriot

“When you fall in love, the natural thing to do is give yourself to it. That's what I think. It's just a form of sincerity.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“The motive behind criticism often determines its validity. Those who care criticize where necessary. Those who envy criticize the moment they think that they have found a weak spot.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“For there are two kinds of forgiveness in the world: the one you practice because everything really is all right, and what went before is mended. The other kind of forgiveness you practice because someone needs desperately to be forgiven, or because you need just as badly to forgive them, for a heart can grab hold of old wounds and go sour as milk over them.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There

“People die all the time. Life is a lot more fragile than we think. So you should treat others in a way that leaves no regrets. Fairly, and if possible, sincerely. It's too easy not to make the effort, then weep and wring your hands after the person dies.”
― Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance

“Friends ask you questions; enemies question you.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“What it means to be authentic:
- to be more concerned with truth than opinions
- to be sincere and not pretend
- to be free from hypocrisy: "walk your talk"
- to know who you are and to be that person
- to not fear others seeing your vulnerabilities
- being confident to walk away from situations where you can't be yourself
- being awake to your own feelings
- being free from others' opinions of you
- accepting and loving yourself”
― Sue Fitzmaurice

“An ad that pretends to be art is -- at absolute best -- like somebody who smiles warmly at you only because he wants something from you. This is dishonest, but what's sinister is the cumulative effect that such dishonesty has on us: since it offers a perfect facsimile or simulacrum of goodwill without goodwill's real spirit, it messes with our heads and eventually starts upping our defenses even in cases of genuine smiles and real art and true goodwill. It makes us feel confused and lonely and impotent and angry and scared. It causes despair.”
― David Foster Wallace

“The contemporary proliferation of bullshit also has deeper sources, in various forms of skepticism which deny that we can have any reliable access to an objective reality and which therefore reject the possibility of knowing how things truly are. These "anti-realist" doctrines undermine confidence in the value of disinterested efforts to determine what is true and what is false, and even in the intelligibility of the notion of objective inquiry. One response to this loss of confidence has been a retreat from the discipline required by dedication to the ideal of correctness to a quite different sort of discipline, which is imposed by pursuit of an alternative ideal of sincerity. Rather than seeking primarily to arrive at accurate representations of a common world, the individual turns toward trying to provide honest representations of himself. Convinced that reality has no inherent nature, which he might hope to identify as the truth about things, he devotes himself to being true to his own nature. It is as though he decides that since it makes no sense to try to be true to the facts, he must therefore try instead to be true to himself.

But it is preposterous to imagine that we ourselves are determinate, and hence susceptible both to correct and to incorrect descriptions, while supposing that the ascription of determinacy to anything else has been exposed as a mistake. As conscious beings, we exist only in response to other things, and we cannot know ourselves at all without knowing them. Moreover, there is nothing in theory, and certainly nothing in experience, to support the extraordinary judgment that it is the truth about himself that is the easiest for a person to know. Facts about ourselves are not peculiarly solid and resistant to skeptical dissolution. Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial -- notoriously less stable and less inherent than the natures of other things. And insofar as this is the case, sincerity itself is bullshit.”
― Harry G. Frankfurt, On Bullshit

“Sincerity - if you can fake that, you've got it made.”
― George Burns

“By being natural and sincere, one often can create revolutions without having sought them.”
― Christian Dior

“Be sincere, Be brief, Be seated.”
― Franklin Delano Roosevelt

“Being nice merely to be liked in return nullifies the point.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“When pure sincerity forms within, it is outwardly realized in other people's hearts.”
― Lao Tzu

“You have to lift a person up before you can really put them in their place.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Loving another person is a wonderful thing, and if that love is sincere, no one ends up tossed into a labyrinth. You have to have more faith in yourself.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“People shouldn't call for demons unless they really mean what they say.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

“You can't let the truth bring out the worst and let it get the best of you.”
― Criss Jami, Diotima, Battery, Electric Personality

“But I give best when I give from that deeper place; when I give simply, freely and generously, and sometimes for no particular reason. I give best when I give from my heart.”
― Steve Goodier

“The scientist only imposes two things, namely truth and sincerity, imposes them upon himself and upon other scientists.”
― Erwin Schrödinger, What Is Life? with Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches

“Who you are in public is a test of your conviction; who you are in private, integrity.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“I'm not always sincere. One can't be in this world, you know.”
― Greta Garbo

“Looking at you has been my favorite pastime from the moment you asked me to describe your face," he said solemnly, looking straight into her eyes.”
― Judith McNaught, Until You

“There is no greater power and support you can give someone than to look them in the eye, and with sincerity/conviction say, 'I believe in you.”
― Ken Poirot, Mentor Me: GA=T+E—A Formula to Fulfill Your Greatest Achievement

“Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial—notoriously less stable and less inherent than the nature of other things. And insofar as this is the case, sincerity itself is bullshit.”
― Harry G. Frankfurt, On Bullshit