If there is not Hell, a good many preachers are obtaining money under false pretenses.
To be patriotic, hate all nations but your own; to be religious, all sects but your own; to be moral, all pretenses but your own.
The crafty person is always in danger; and when they think they walk in the dark, all their pretenses are transparent.
We cannot settle for the pretenses of connection, or for the parodies of self-love.
Various "wars on drugs" throughout history have killed millions, enslaved millions more, destroyed families, are usually just thin pretenses for mass incarceration, mass surveillance, ethnic cleansing, population control.
Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there.
There are pretenses which are very sincere, and marriage is their school.
Home is the place where you are most thoroughly yourself, with no pretenses.
