John Lancaster Spalding Quotes

People are ridiculous only when they try or seem to be that which they are not.

I've never met anyone that is their image.

If I told people that I knew what I was doing, nobody would believe me, so why even try and fake it?

it is a curious fact, but one which all experience owns, that people do not desire so much to appear better, as to appear different from what they really are.

One is what one has the nerve to pretend to be.

A man is ridiculous less through the characteristics he has than through those he affects to have.

The vain.- We are like shop windows in which we are continually arranging, concealing or illuminating the supposed qualities other ascribe to us - in order to deceive ourselves.

Those who seek to impress upon us that they are gentlemen will usually be found mistaken.

Affectation naturally counterfeits those excellences which are placed at the greatest distance from possibility of attainment, because, knowing our own defects, we eagerly endeavor to supply them with artificial excellence.

All affectation is the vain and ridiculous attempt of poverty to appear rich

Those who are overreached by our cunning are far from appearing to us as ridiculous as we appear to ourselves when the cunning of others has overreached us.

It is in most cases more difficult to make intelligent people believe that you are what you are not, than really to become what you would appear to be.

Nobody can make a monkey out of anyone who isn't a monkey to start with.

Those who quit their proper character to assume what does not belong to them are, for the greater part, ignorant both of the character they leave and of the character they assume.

When you try to talk about yourself, you dont know who you are, or what your like, or what your like to other people. And the moment you do it's a formula for yourself, and then you're imitating yourself, and then nobody likes you and they dont know why.

To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them ratified.

The best lies about me are the ones I told.

There is a pleasure in affecting affectation.

Never try to wear a hat that has more character than you do.

The only source of the true Ridiculous (as it appears to me) is affectation

I’ve always thought you are what you are and you shouldn’t pretend to be anyone else. But Oliver used to correct me and explain that you are whoever it is you’re pretending to be.

It is fine to imitate a being you respect, but you cannot become that very being. Imitation is something one does to grow and develop. It is not something you use to deceive yourself. You absorb in yourself the things you think have some kind of value, but even if you try to find the meaning about your true self you will not find anything. Because those who cannot accept their real self always fail.

If Chester had a failing, it was that he believed people were what they thought they were.

A man's personal defects will commonly have with the rest of the world precisely that importance which they have to himself. If he makes light of them, so will other men.