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Pretense Quotes

Browse 329 quotes about Pretense.

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Pretense Quotes

“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe.”

PeopleCountryGovernmentLibertyArmsBearsGunEuropeStandingConstitutionArmyLibertarianAmendmentsGun ControlFoundingGoverningFreedom And LibertyPretenseSecond AmendmentFreedom LibertyOur Founding FathersLimited GovernmentFirearmsUs Founding FathersRight To Bear ArmsForefathersMilitiaBearing ArmsGun RightsPretenceLimiting GovernmentRights And FreedomsPro GunFounding Fathers GunHandguns2 AmendmentUs ConstitutionFounding Fathers Second AmendmentFramersDisarmingAnti GunAmendment 1Government And SocietySupreme PowerStrong ArmsUnjust LawsAmending The ConstitutionGovernment PoliticsAmendment 4Pro Gun ControlEurope And AmericaAmerican LawHandgun BanDivided Government
Book:An Examination Into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution Proposed by the Late Convention Held at Philadelphia: With Answers to the Principal Objections that Have Been Raised Against the System
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“Perhaps extreme danger strips us of all pretenses, all ambitions, all confusions, focusing us more intensely than we are otherwise ever focused, so that we remember what we otherwise spend most of our lives forgetting: that our nature and purpose is, more than anything else, to love and to make love, to take joy from the beauty of the world, to live with an awareness that the future is not as real a place for any of us as are the present and the past.”

WorldLoveRealPastRememberJoyPurposeForgetOur LivesAwarenessDangerAmbitionExtremesFocusedConfusionMaking LovePretenseBeauty Of The World
Book:Fear Nothing: A Novel
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“A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretense. No truth seems true. A simple morning's greeting and response appear loaded with innuendo and fraught with implications. Each nicety becomes more sterile and each withdrawal more permanent.”

LoveSeemsTruthSimpleMorningResponseSimplicityPermanentSensationsBizarreImplicationsPretenseLoadedWithdrawalGreetingsInnuendoNiceties
Book:The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou
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“Without an unfettered press, without liberty of speech, all of the outward forms and structures of free institutions are a sham, a pretense - the sheerest mockery. If the press is not free; if speech is not independent and untrammeled; if the mind is shackled or made impotent through fear, it makes no difference under what form of government you live, you are a subject and not a citizen.”

IfsMindMadeGovernmentFormDifferencesLibertySubjectsCitizensSpeechIndependentInstitutionsStructurePressesPretenseMockeryForms Of GovernmentMedia ControlLiberty Of Speech
Book:Bedrock: Views on Basic National Problems
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“The prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give to Congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretense by a state legislature. But if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both.”

PeopleIfsGivingShouldMayMadeStatesPowerGunConstitutionBlindCongressPursuitConstructionAmendmentsRestraintGun ControlPretenseLegislatureSelf DefenseProhibitionSecond AmendmentRight To Bear ArmsBearing ArmsClausesRights And FreedomsFounding Fathers Gun2 AmendmentFounding Fathers Second AmendmentDisarmingState LegislaturesPatriotic Gun
Author:William Rawle
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“A noiseless course, not meddling with the affairs of others, unattractive of notice, is a mark that society is going on in happiness. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy.”

PeopleIfsGovernmentCareCoursesPoliticsLaborMarkAffairPretenseUnattractiveMeddling
Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private
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“The divide of race has been America's constant curse. Each new wave of immigrants gives new targets to old prejudices. Prejudice and contempt, cloaked in the pretense of religious or political conviction, are no different. They have nearly destroyed us in the past. They plague us still. They fuel the fanaticism of terror. They torment the lives of millions in fractured nations around the world. These obsessions cripple both those who are hated and, of course, those who hate, robbing both of what they might become.”

WorldGivingHas BeensStillsDifferentMightAmericaPastPoliticalHateCoursesNationsReligiousRaceMillionsHellPrejudiceConstantWaveTerrorConvictionObsessionDestroyedAround The WorldHatedCurseFuelImmigrantsTargetDividesContemptTormentPlagueFanaticismPretenseRobbingPretenceCripplesAnti Discrimination
Author:William J. Clinton
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“An over-scrupulous jealousy of danger to the rights of the people, which is more commonly the fault of the head than of the heart, will be represented as mere pretense and artifice, the stale bait for popularity at the expense of the public good.”

PeopleHeartRightsDangerFaultsMereExpensesPopularityPretenseStaleBaitArtificePublic Good
Book:The Federalist Papers: The Making of the US Constitution
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“Every one of the aristocratic conspirators and would-be murderers claims to be an arch-patriot; every one of them insists that the war is being waged to make the world safe for democracy. What humbug! What rot! What false pretense! These... tyrants, these red-handed robbers and murderers, the "patriots," while the men who have the courage to stand face to face with them, speak the truth, and fight for their exploited victims - they are [called] the disloyalists and traitors. If this be true, I want to take my place side by side with the traitors in this fight.”

IfsMenWorldWantWarWould BeFacesFightingSpeakSidesDemocracyHe ManSafeRedClaimsVictimBeing TrueTyrantsAntiwarSolitaryPatriotMurdererFace To FacePretenseSpeak The TruthTraitorRobbersArchesAristocraticHumbugConspirators
Author:Eugene V. Debs
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“Talk about the flag or drugs or crime (never about race or class or justice) and follow the yellow brick road to the wonderful land of consensus. In place of honest argument among consenting adults the politicians substitute a lullaby for frightened children: the pretense that conflict doesn't really exist, that we have achieved the blessed state in which we no longer need politics.”

NeedsChildrenStatesPoliticsJusticeRaceClassWonderfulLandHonestCrimePoliticianDrugConflictAdultsArgumentBlessedSubstitutesFrightenedYellowFlagsBricksConsensusPretenseLullabyYellow Brick RoadBrick Roads
Book:Hotel America: Scenes in the Lobby of the Fin-de-siècle
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“Play exists for its own sake. Play is for the moment; it is not hurried, even when the pace is fast and timing seems important. When we play, we also celebrate holy uselessness. Like the calf frolicking in the meadow, we need no pretense or excuses. Work is productive; play, in its disinterestedness and self-forgetting, can be fruitful.”

NeedsImportantSelfPlayMomentsSeemsFunForgetHolySakeExcuseCelebrateProductivePaceTimingPretenseMeadowsCalvesUselessnessWork Play
Author:Margaret Guenther
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“We are not deceived by their pretenses to piety. We have seen their kind before. They are the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions - by abandoning every value except the will to power - they follow in the path of fascism, and Nazism, and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way, to where it ends: in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies.”

WayHumansKindEndsLyingValuesVisionPathSacrificeCenturyGravesIdeologyRadicalHuman LifePresidentialFascism20th CenturyDeceivedTotalitarianismPietyPretenseWill PowerHeirsNazismDiscarded
Author:George W. Bush
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“Most literary critics agree that fiction cannot be reduced to mere falsehood. Well-crafted protagonists come to life, pornography causes orgasms, and the pretense that life is what we want it to be may conceivably bring about the desired condition. Hence religious parables, socialist realism, Nazi propaganda. And if this story likewise crawls with reactionary supernaturalism, that might be because its author longs to see letters scuttling across ceilings, cautiously beginning to reify themselves into angels. For if they could only do that, then why not us?”

IfsWantWellsMayStoriesMightLife IsCausesReligiousFictionConditionsAngelLettersAgreeMereCriticsPropagandaWhy NotFalsehoodRealismSocialistNaziPornographyCeilingsPretenseReactionariesProtagonistsParablesNazi Propaganda
Book:Europe Central
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“What matters is abuse, and how it is anchored in a religion that denies women their rights as humans. What matters is that atrocities against women and children are carried out in Europe. What matters is that governments and societies must stop hiding behind a hollow pretense of tolerance so that they can recognize and deal with the problem.”

HumansChildrenMatterProblemGovernmentDealsBehindsRightsEuropeAbuseDenyToleranceHidingWhat MattersHollowPretenseAtrocitiesGovernment And Society
Book:Infidel
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“I am apparently gentle, unstable, and full of pretenses. I will die a poet killed by the nonpoets, will renounce no dream, resign myself to no ugliness, accept nothing of the world but the one I made myself. I wrote, lived, loved like Don Quixote, and on the day of my death I will say: ‘Excuse me, it was all a dream,’ and by that time I may have found one who will say: ‘Not at all, it was true, absolutely true.’”

WorldMayMadeDreamDiesFoundAcceptingPoetExcuseGentleUglinessPretenseUnstableRenounceExcuse Me
Author:Anais Nin
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“As Our Predecessors have many times repeated, let no man think that he may for any reason whatsoever join the Masonic sect, if he values his Catholic name and his eternal salvation as he ought to value them. Let no one be deceived by a pretense of honesty. It may seem to some that Freemasons demand nothing that is openly contrary to religion and morality; but, as the whole principle and object of the sect lies in what is vicious and criminal, to join with these men or in any way to help them cannot be lawful”

IfsThinkingMenWayMayReasonWholeHelpingSeemsLyingValuesNamesPrinciplesHonestyObjectsOughtMoralityDemandEternalCatholicSalvationCriminalsContraryViciousDeceivedPretenseSectsPredecessorsMasonic
Book:A Light in the Heavens: Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII
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“A real woman understands that man was created to be the initiator, and she operates on that premise. This is primarily a matter of attitude. I am convinced that the woman who understands and accepts with gladness the difference between masculine and feminine will be, without pretense or self-consciousness, womanly.”

MenRealSelfMatterDifferencesConsciousnessAttitudeAcceptingConvincedFeminineMasculinePremisesPretenseSelf ConsciousnessGladnessReal WomenWomanlyMasculine And Feminine
Book:The Mark of a Man: Following Christ's Example of Masculinity
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“Evil, which is our companion all our days, is not to be treated as a foe. It is wrong to cocker vice, but we grow narrow and pithless if we are furtive about it, for this is at best a pretense, and the sage knows good and evil are kindred. The worst of men harm others, and the best injure themselves.”

IfsKnowsMenEvilGrowsWorstVicesHarmTreatedGood And EvilCompanionSageFoePretenseKindred
Book:The sorrows of Priapus: consisting of The sorrows of Priapus and The carnal myth
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“Love is a choice — not simply, or necessarily, a rational choice, but rather a willingness to be present to others without pretense or guide. Love is a conversion to humanity — a willingness to participate with others in the healing of a broken world and broken lives. Love is the choice to experience life as a member of the human family, a partner in the dance of life.”

WorldHumansHumanityChoicesLove IsHealingBrokenMembersGuidesPartnersConversionRationalLove LifeWillingnessPretenseHuman FamilyBroken World
Author:Carter Heyward
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“Prison is a crash course in the darker side of life. Few survive it without becoming a different person: more cynical, jaded, fearful, angry. Its hard to trust again, hard to believe, easy to hate a system that destroyed your life behind the pompous pretense of saving you from yourself, for your own good.”

BelievePersonsDifferentHardHateCoursesEasySidesBehindsBecomingAngryPrisonDestroyedSavingCynicalFearfulCrashPretenseHard To BelieveJadedPompousDarker SideHard To TrustTrusting Again
Book:Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in Our Free Country
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“Try to find the real tense of the report you are reading: Was it done, is it being done, or is something to be done? Reports are now written in four tenses: past tense, present tense, future tense, and pretense. Watch for novel uses of CONGRAM (CONtractor GRAMmer), defined by the past imperfect, the present insufficient, and the future absolutely perfect.”

TryingRealDoneUsePastReadingPerfectWatchesNovelFourWrittenFutureDefinedReportsImperfectionImperfectTensePretenseInsufficientBeing DoneContractorPresent Tense
Author:Amrom Harry Katz
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“...the pretense is made, as it has been made in relation to the finding of any extension of truth, that to do away with right and wrong would produce uncivilized people, immorality, lawlessness and social chaos. The fact is that most psychiatrists and psychologists and other respected people have escaped from moral chains and are able to think freely.”

PeopleThinkingHas BeensMadeFactsAbleSocialMoralFamilyProduceMoralityFindingsRelationChaosChainsExtensionsPsychiatryPsychiatristPsychologistPretenseImmoralityLawlessnessUncivilized
Author:Brock Chisholm
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“It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties.”

IfsGivingSaidWarGovernmentFormFightingLibertyEnemyRightsMilitaryGiving UpSlaveryDenyCivil WarSuperiorityPretenseForms Of GovernmentConfederateDepriving
Author:Patrick Cleburne
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