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Masks Quotes

Browse 124 quotes about Masks.

Masks Quotes

“When it came time for me to go to bed, my mother beckoned me to her, and kissed me, and whispered, "I know I'll never have another anxious moment with my own dear laddie." I pondered these words before I went to sleep. How could I reconcile this motherliness with the screeching fury who had pursued me around the kitchen with a whip, flogging me until she was gorged with — what? Vengeance? What was it? Once, when I was in my thirties and reading Freud for the first time, I thought I knew. I am not so sure I know now. But what I knew then was that nobody— not even my mother— was to be trusted in a strange world that showed very little of itself on the surface.”

“Like a Columbus of the heart, mind and soul I have hurled myself off the shores of my own fears and limiting beliefs to venture far out into the uncharted territories of my inner truth, in search of what it means to be genuine and at peace with who I really am. I have abandoned the masquerade of living up to the expectations of others and explored the new horizons of what it means to be truly and completely me, in all my amazing imperfection and most splendid insecurity.”

“Boys will be boys, that's what people say. No one ever mentions how girls have to be something other than themselves altogether. We are to stifle the same feelings that boys are encouraged to display. We are to use gossip as a means of policing ourselves -- this way those who do succumb to sex but are not damaged by it are damaged instead by peer malice. Girls demand a covenant because if one gives in, others will be expected to do the same. We are to remain united in cruelty, ignorance, and aversion. Or we are to starve the flesh from our bones, penalizing the body for its nature, castigating ourselves for advances we are powerless to prevent. We are to make false promises then resist the attentions solicited. Basically we are to become expert liars.”

“It's good to see the snakes revealing themselves. They weren't actually hidden at all. People hide behind the masks, but eventually you see them for who they truly are.”

“I always am in a role, lovely – for you, for them – even for myself. Yeah... Even when I’m alone, I am still in a role – and I myself am the most exacting audience I have ever had.”

“The whole of history is the history of murderers. If you become a murderer, fame will be very easy. You can become a prime minister, you can become a president—but these are all masks. Behind them you will find very violent people, terribly violent people hiding, smiling. Those smiles are political, diplomatic. If the mask slips, you will always see Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Nadir Shah, Napoleon, Alexander, Hitler, hiding behind.”

“Even I don’t know myself... In fact, I don’t know if I really have a self at all, as I’m constantly playing different roles and pretending – not so much on stage as in real life...”

“And I wasn’t playing a role – I was trying to be myself. But the harder I was striving, the more I was realizing that I had probably lost that ‘myself’ somewhere between two perfectly performed roles...”

“There’s no such thing as a good or bad person: there are just people who have each been or seem to have been good or bad to you, someone, or some people, thus far.”

“He needed her so badly, to reassure himself of his own existence, that he never comprehended the desperation in her dazzling, permanent smile, the terror in the brightness with which she faced the world, or the reasons why she hid when she couldn't manage to beam... every moment she spent in the world was full of panic, so she smiled and smiled and maybe once a week she locked the door and shook and felt like a husk, like an empty peanut-shell, a monkey without a nut.”

“...despite the mask we are all so good at wearing, we somehow manage to wake up every day hoping there's still a chance. That maybe, somehow, we can balance the debt ledger we carry in our hearts. That maybe God is offering a special that week and one good equals two bad. But then there are the lies that the memories whisper.' Her tears were flowing freely now. She asked, 'What do they say?' 'They say we are alone. That bad choices and mistakes have drained the value out of us. And that we are not worth the cost of getting to us.”

“There are a great number of ego defenses, and the combinations and circumstances in which we use them reflect on our personality. Indeed, one could go so far as to argue that the self is nothing but the sum of its ego defenses, which are constantly shaping, upholding, protecting, and repairing it. The self is like a cracked mask that is in constant need of being pieced together. But behind the mask there is nobody at home.”

“Observer: “In our being, where the tangible meets the intangible, there lies a duality as ancient as time itself - the ego and the essence. These twin forces, ever-present and perpetually intertwined, are the sun and moon of our inner universe, each holding sway over the landscape of our spirit in a dance as old as the stars.” Sun: “I am the essence, the unwavering light within. A constant, unfiltered sun, burning at the core of our being. Untouched by the transient world, I am the eternal truth in your heart, the perpetual whisper of your authentic self.” Moon: “And I, the ego, mirror the silver luminescence of experience. Shaped by the ebb and flow of life’s tides, I reflect the lessons, beliefs, and identities formed through your journey. In me, the tales of your identity are woven through societal norms and cultural echoes, ever-evolving and dynamic.” Sun: “Unlike you, who waxes and wanes, I am a perpetual beacon. I am solid, the silent guide amidst the storms of life, illuminating the path to enlightenment. I am the light that shines beyond all darkness, the eternal truth within.” Moon: “True, I may dance in shadows, casting illusions, but through my reflective glow, I bring lessons, growth, and an understanding of our place in the material world. My phases are a reminder of life’s impermanence and the transformative power of introspection and self-inquiry.” Sun: “It is in recognizing our dual nature that the process of transformation begins. From the unexamined to the enlightened existence, I offer wisdom, authenticity, and a connection to the eternal. Understanding the self is the key to liberation.” Moon: “Together, we form the yin and yang of existence. My reflective lessons and your radiant wisdom define the human experience. In understanding our dance, one finds the rhythm of their soul, a balance between action and introspection, between the material world and the spiritual journey.” Sun: “The journey of self is thus a celestial voyage between us. Embracing both my luminescence and your reflection leads to harmony, living attuned to the eternal rhythm of light and shadow.”

“Masks. - There are women who, however you may search them, prove to have no content but are purely masks. The man who associates with such almost spectral, necessarily unsatisfied beings is to be commiserated with, yet it is precisely they who are able to arouse the desire of the man most strongly: he seeks for her soul - and goes on seeking.”

“In fact the "mask" theme has come up several times in my background reading. Richard Sennett, for example, in "The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism", and Robert Jackall, in "Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate managers", refer repeatedly to the "masks" that corporate functionaries are required to wear, like actors in an ancient Greek drama. According to Jackall, corporate managers stress the need to exercise iron self-control and to mask all emotion and intention behind bland, smiling, and agreeable public faces. Kimberly seems to have perfected the requisite phoniness and even as I dislike her, my whole aim is to be welcomed into the same corporate culture that she seems to have mastered, meaning that I need to "get in the face" of my revulsion and overcome it. But until I reach that transcendent point, I seem to be stuck in an emotional space left over from my midteen years: I hate you; please love me.”

“Typically, in politics, more than one horse is owned and managed by the same team in an election. There's always and extra candidate who will slightly mimic the views of their team's opposing horse, to cancel out that person by stealing their votes just so the main horse can win. Elections are puppet shows. Regardless of their rainbow coats and many smiles, the agenda is one and the same.”

“Who was the real me? I can only repeat: I was a man of many faces. At meetings I was earnest, enthusiastic, and committed; among friends, unconstrained and given to teasing; with Marketa, cynical and fitfully witty; and alone (and thinking of Marketa), unsure of myself and as agitated as a schoolboy. Was the last face the real one? No. They were all real: I was not a hypocrite, with one real face and several false ones. I had several faces because I was young and didn’t know who I was or wanted to be. (I was frightened by the differences between one face and the next; none of them seemed to fit me properly, and I groped my way clumsily among them.)”

“Emotions don’t interfere in my acting, nor in my life.”

“First they warn everyone to wear a mask. Then we find out unless it's a special kind of mask it's not going to protect you at all." "It's not just a question of beds. There's not enough linen, not enough gloves, gowns, hypodermic needles, disinfectant, meds, you name it. Not enough ambulances, not enough ventilators or other equipment. Hospitals are even running out of food." "It's not like every other bad thing stopped happening to make room for the flu. People are still getting cancer and having heart attacks and strokes and road accidents. The idea that we could handle any kind of surge on top of that--whoever's fantasy that was, it was never going to happen." "The retired workers they were depending on to take over for the workers out sick? Very few of those people ever showed. The volunteer doctors and nurses and the other helping hands--they aren't showing up, either. It's not like 9/11. There aren't any heroes rushing toward the danger. The danger is everywhere, and everyone's running scared." "Let's face it, this is America. Anything that's bad for business, people don't want to hear. When it comes to money or doing the right thing, most people are going to choose money. Close up shop for months till they can make a new vaccine? How many businesses would still be alive after that?" "This disaster proves what some of us have been saying about America all along: everything is broken.”

“Anyway. I think forcing yourself to keep up appearances and putting up this identity that isn't yours, a mask you don't wear when you're alone, is phony. If you have to do all that stuff to get someone to love you, then can you really say they love you and who you really are? Once you change yourself to win affection, to win love, I don't even know if you can still call you you. If you've built your relationship on pretense and lies, it'll probably fail in some way or another, and if you've fundamentally changed yourself, then it's not really you.”