We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

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.

Pretend to be something you’re not until you are — fake it until you’re successful, until everybody sees you the way you want them.

Imagine, always pretending to run a world. Always imitating the sort of people they think they might be if the world were the sort of world it isn't. Pretending to be words like 'normal' and 'wholesome' and 'honest' and 'decent' and 'self-respecting' and all the rest, when even the words aren't real. Imagine, being people.

The greatest honor we can give Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of his love.

If you’re not, pretend you are.’ Take

We practice and practice, and we master how to be what we are not.

We pass for what we are.

We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves and in our own being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind of others, and for this purpose we endeavour to shine. We labour unceasingly to adorn and preserve this imaginary existence, and neglect the real. And if we possess calmness, or generosity, or truthfulness, we are eager to make it known, so as to attach these virtues to that imaginary existence. We would rather separate them from ourselves to join them to it; and we would willingly be cowards in order to acquire the reputation of being brave. A great proof of the nothingness of our being, not to be satisfied with the one without the other, and to renounce the one for the other! For he would be infamous who would not die to preserve his honour.

I thought there's something to be said for honor in this world where there doesn't seem to be any honor left. I thought that maybe happiness wasn't really anything more than the knowledge of a life well spent, in spite of whatever immediate discomfort you had to undergo, and that if a life well spent meant compromises and conciliations and reconciliations, and suffering at the hands of the person you love, well then better that than live without honor.

To see ourselves as others see us!

We are lived by powers we pretend to understand.

The best we can do is live our highest right, gracefully as we can, and let the Principle of Coincidence take it from there.

Living is the best and we must live every day as it comes.