Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quotes

To make astute people believe one is what one is not is, in most cases, harder than actually to become what one wishes to appear.

In all aspects of life, we take on a part and an appearance to seem to be what we wish to be--and thus the world is merely composed of actors.

When I paint, I seriously consider the public presence of a person - the surface facade. I am less concerned with how people look when they wake up or how they act at home. A person's public presence reflects his own efforts at image development.

Image is powerful, but image is also superficial.

We all present versions of ourselves. The person you are at work is not the same person you are at home. The face we present in our most intimate relationships is not the face we present to the world.

Masks are wonderfully paradoxical in this way: while they may hide the physical reality, they can show us how a person wants to be seen.

Oh, everybody wears a mask. We all put our best foot forward. We all try and make a statement, I'm not saying that's bad.

A man of the world must seem to be what he wishes to be thought.

You hide your instinctive self and instead create a social self with lies. That's how people are able to get along with each other. What's scary is when you strip all the lies away to get at the essential you. What if it's pure evil? You don't want to face that. So lies aren't all bad - we need them to live.

To establish oneself in the world, one does all one can to seem established there already.

Very few people look the part and are it too.

Let him think is I am more man than I am and I will be so.

Be hypocritical, be cautious, be not what you seem but always what you see.

A man, in order to establish himself in the world, does everything he can to appear established there.

We lie to one another every day, in the sweetest way, often unconsciously. We dress ourselves and compose ourselves in order to present ourselves to one another.

Camouflage is a game we all like to play, but our secrets are as surely revealed by what we want to seem to be as by what we want to conceal.

I play into the perception of me, but it's not really me.

A man may not always be what he appears to be, but what he appears to be is always a significant part of what he is.

Keep up appearances; there lies the test. The world will give thee credit for the rest.

One goes on with the blithe belief that who you really are is transparent to everybody. Then you realise, with some horror, that in fact it's not. So all you can do is keep muddying the waters a bit.

During the seven years that I worked as a management consultant, I spent a lot of time trying to look older than I was. I became pretty good at furrowing my brow and putting on somber expressions.

I'm just very good at pretending.

I just think, as a model, it's taught me to be a master of deception and illusion.

If somebody ever says something is a mature theme, it's bound to not be. I mean, you shouldn't fall for that. You can make it sound mature, but anything that's about being mature is pretty immature.

The Tao of Jen was very much the Tao of hiding everything that didn't look good. The Tao of Jen is wearing a cocktail dress with underwear with holes in it. The Tao of Jen is all style and no substance.