If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.
Jealousy, that dragon which slays love under the pretence of keeping it alive.
Malice can always find a mark to shoot at, and a pretence to fire.
The war on Iraq was a disaster, clearly carried out under false pretences.
Others indeed may talk, and write, and fight about liberty, and make an outward pretence to it; but the free-thinker alone is truly free.
In England, literary pretence is more universal than elsewhere from our method of education.
Civilization is a conspiracy. Modern life is the silent compact of comfortable folk to keep up pretences.
Sincerity is impossible, unless it pervade the whole being, and the pretence of it saps the very foundation of character.
Don't pretend to be what you're not, instead, pretend to what you want to be, it is not pretence, it is a journey to self realization.
All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself.
Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretence.
True glory takes root, and even spreads; all false pretences, like flowers, fall to the ground; nor can any counterfeit last long.
I love the idea of spies in love. How would it work between two people who were so programmed to lie and be suspicious, who have a whole life based on pretence?
In all highly civilised communities Pretence is prominent, and sooner or later invades the regions of Literature.
Give immediate instruction to all your posts in said territory, under your direction, at no time and on no pretence to hoist, or suffer be hoisted, the English flag.
Vanity plays lurid tricks with our memory, and the truth of every passion wants some pretence to make it live.
Anything can become a children's book if you give it to a child...Children are actually the best (and worst) audience for literature because they have no patience with pretence.
Shopkeepers —the great landed and commercial interests—regularly sat and slept, and where the two publicans occupied pews, but seldom made even the pretence of worshipping.
The Relation we bear to the Wisdom of the Father, the Son of His Love, gives us indeed a dignity which otherwise we have no pretence to. It makes us something, something considerable even in God's Eyes.
The Chinese art world does not exist. In a society that restricts individual freedoms and violates human rights, anything that calls itself creative or independent is a pretence. It is impossible for a totalitarian society to create anything with pas...
We may not commit a lesser Sin under pretence to avoid a greater, but we may, nay we ought to endure the greatest Pain and Grief rather than commit the least Sin.
