Quotes & Sayings About Impostor

Those who are seeking the true religion will never find it outside the Catholic Church alone, because, in every other religion, if they trace it up to the author, they will find some impostor whose imagination furnished a mass of sophisms and errors — Alphonsus Liguori

She explained that many people, but especially women, feel fraudulent when they are praised for their accomplishments. Instead of feeling worthy of recognition, they feel undeserving and guilty, as if a mistake has been made. Despite being high achievers, even experts in their fields, women can't seem to shake the sense that it is only a matter of time until they are found out for who they really are- impostors with limited skills or abilities. — Sheryl Sandberg

A company of wolves, is better than a company of wolves in sheep's clothing. — Anthony Liccione

The imposter syndrome is at the core off every human being's soul. We're born with it. It's why human beings are alive today. It's an innate sense you're born with. It's why our ancestors avoided the saber-toothed tiger, because they doubted themselves. They were scared of certain things. That's why they worked hard to learn how to build fire, and taking it all through the generations, that impostor syndrome is always going to be there. Instead of being afraid and letting it get you down, be that 1% who embraces the impostor syndrome and realizes that it's never going away. Because the impostor syndrome exists, it weeds out the 99% of people who cannot get over it and cannot get over their fear. It puts the people who do, into the top 1%, and anyone can join us here, when you just embrace the impostor syndrome. — Harry Duran

As I do next to all women who glow with this kind of femininity, I feel like an impostor, a poor imitation of my gender. To her, womanhood comes naturally, like a yawn or a sneeze, just as effortless. To me, womanhood is something I need to observe and study, learn and imitate, and still can never fully comprehend. — Elif Shafak

When I became a bandit, I spent a lot of time being close to the lowliest of the low: criminals, the enslaved, deserters, men who had nothing to lose. Contrary to what I had expected, I found that they had a hardscrabble beauty and grace. They were not mean in their nature, but made mean by the meanness of their rulers. The poor were willing to endure much, but the emperor had taken everything from them.

These men have simple dreams: a plot of land, a few possessions, a warm house, conversations with friends, and a happy wife and healthy children. They remember the smallest acts of kindness and think me a good man because of a few exaggerated stories. They've raised me on their shoulders and called me duke, and I have a duty to help them get a little closer to their dreams. — Ken Liu

Relentless criticism in childhood can internalize a parental scorn that no amount of success will silence. — Bruce Watson

The Christ is a myth. The Holy Ghost Priestcraft overshadowed the harlot Superstition; this Christ was born; and the Joseph of humanity, beguiled by the Gabriel of credulity, was induced to support the family. But the soldiers of Reason have crucified the illegitimate impostor, he is dead; and the ignorant disciples and hysterical women who still linger about the cross should take his body down and bury it. — John Remsburg

The reality is you must realize that this was a choice made by the impostor. We all have choices, and there is always a better solution than to steal. They have chosen to sacrifice you for their own needs. — Linda Foley

Thorne's voice pitched high in imitation of the queen. The impostor of my beloved niece is vanquished ... Let us put this messiness behind us while we go forward with the coronations ... I am a psychotic, power-hungry nut basket and my breath smells really bad under this veil. — Marissa Meyer

And as to you, Sir, treacherous in private friendship and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor; whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any. — Thomas Paine

She was an impostor here, unfit to be around these innocent lives. — Stephen Lloyd Jones

It is impossible to feign mastery of an instrument, however skillful the impostor may be. — Andres Segovia

Before we can become who we really are, we must become conscious of the fact that the person who we think we are, here and now, is at best an impostor and a stranger. — Thomas Merton

The other Max looked at me, and her eyes narrowed. 'They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,' she said snidely. 'So I guess you're really sucking up.'
'Who are you?' I gasped, my eyes wide. 'You're an impostor!'
'No she isn't.' The little creepy one, Angel, turned to look at me. Her arm was still bleeding where Ari had bitten it. 'You are.'
I swallowed my anger. Who did she think she was, her and her stupid dog? I gave a concerned smile. 'But Angel,' I said, sincerity dripping from my voice, 'how can you say that? You know who I am.'
'I think I'm Angel,' she said. 'And my dog isn't stupid. You're the stupid one, to think that you could fool us. I can read minds, you idiot. — James Patterson

I wrote large chunks of 'The Impostor' and 'The Good Doctor' on a beach in Goa. — Damon Galgut

In 1966, after arriving in New York, I read two of Luria's books, Higher Cortical Functions in Man and Human Brain and Psychological Processes. The latter, which contained very full case histories of patients with frontal lobe damage, filled me with admiration [4].
[Footnote 4]. And fear, for as I read it, I thought, what place is there for me in the world? Luria has already seen, said, written, and thought anything I can ever say, or write, or think. I was so upset that I tore the book in two (I had to buy a new copy for the library, as well as a copy for myself). — Oliver Sacks

What's talent but the ability to get away with something? — Tennessee Williams

Don't ask, don't tell. Keep your head down. Don't lie - just keep them talking about themselves and pretty soon they'll see their reflection. It's easy to be liked that way: people love themselves. — Mitty Walters

A loon thought he was Frank Sinatra and every time Frank came on TV or radio the loon would go mad, impostor! — Stephen Richards

It is shame to be an impostor ... it only means u gave up! ... it is impossible to be perfect ... but it is possible to believe in your self ... — Woody

A war changes people in a number of ways. It either shortcuts you to your very self; or it triggers such variations that you might as well have been a larva, pupating in dampness, darkness and tightly wrapped puttees. Then, providing you don't take flight from a burst shell, you emerge from your khaki cocoon so changed from what you were that you fear you've gone mad, because people at home treat you as though you were someone else. Someone who, through a bizarre coincidence, had the same name, address and blood ties as you, but who must have died in the war. And you have no choice but to live as an impostor because you can't remember who you were before the war. There's a simple but horrible explanation for this: you were born in the war. You slid, slick, bloody and fully formed, out of a trench.
The Great War was the greatest changer of them all. — Ann-Marie MacDonald

I never insert myself into situations where I am completely blind or don't have a single clue about what's being discussed. I don't to be an impostor and just helping for the sake of helping. If I am going to help somebody, I want it to be valuable. And if they don't follow my advice, then they are a frigging idiot. I'm joking. — Charlie Sheen

He sounds to himself, saying this, like an impersonator; life, just as we first thought, is playing grownup. — John Updike

I may change my opinion on the same subject, the same event, ten, twenty, thirty times in the course of a single day. And to think that each time, like the worst impostor, I dare utter word "truth"! — Emil Cioran

But the impostor syndrome doesn't allow any success to go unpunished. — Joyce M. Roche

Once again I was thunderstruck - but this time by a feeling of profound relief, for I had been redeemed from oblivion. More, the error that caused me to live as an unwitting impostor for so many years had been corrected at last. I had been made whole as a person - not again but for the very first time. — Daniel Quinn

Cinder flexed her tongue, testing it, and raised her voice."I am princess Selene."
Levana leaned forward. "Your are an impostor!"
"And I am ready to claim what's mine. People of Artemisia, this is your chance. Renounce Levana as your queen and swear fealty to me, or I swear that when I wear that crown, very person in this room will be punished for their betrayal. — Marissa Meyer

Religions have been universal in the sense that all the people we know anything about have had a religion. But the differences among them are so great and so shocking that any common element that can be extracted is meaningless ... The older apologists for Christianity seem to have been better advised than some modern ones in condemning every religion but one as an impostor, as at bottom some kind of demon worship or at any rate a superstitious figment. — John Dewey

While the impostor draws his identity from past achievements and the adulation of others, the true self claims identity in its belovedness. We encounter God in the ordinariness of life: not in the search for spiritual highs and extraordinary, mystical experiences but in our simple presence in life. — Brennan Manning

Lila knew what it felt like to want something, knew the way it whispered and sang and screamed in your bones. And this felt like that, but wasn't. An impostor of longing. — V.E Schwab

In the midst of this utopia, which only your fellow lone voyagers would perceive, you used to transgress society's rules unknowingly, and no one would hold you accountable for it. You would mistakenly enter private residences, go to concerts to which you had not been invited, eat at community banquets where you could only guess the community's identity when they started giving speeches. Had you behaved like this in your own country, you would have been taken for a liar or a fool. But the improbable ways of a foreigner are accepted. Far from your home, you used to taste the pleasure of being mad without being alienated, of being an imbecile without renouncing your intelligence, of being an impostor without culpability. — Edouard Leve

If we believe that he [Jesus Christ]really countenanced the follies, the falsehoods, and the charlatanisms, which his biographers [writers of the New Testament]father upon him, and admit the misconstructions, interpolations, and theorizations of the fathers of the early and the fanatics of the latter ages, the conclusion would be irresistible by every sound mind that he was an impostor. — Thomas Jefferson

Men love a prop so well, that they will lean on a pointed poisoned spear; and such was he, the impostor, who, with fear of hell for his scourge, most ravenous wolf, played the driver to a credulous flock. — Mary Shelley

If you wish to be thought a good estate manager, or a good horseman, or a good physician, or a good flute player without really being one, just imagine all the tricks you have to invent just to keep up appearances. You might succeed at first, but in the end you're going to be exposed as an impostor. — Xenophon

I felt like an impostor, taking all that money for reciting ten or twelve lines of nonsense a day. — Errol Flynn

Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy. — David Frum

As we come to grips with our own selfishness and stupidity, we make friends with the impostor and accept that we are impoverished and broken and realize that, if we were not, we would be God. The art of gentleness toward ourselves leads to being gentle with others
and is a natural prerequisite for our presence to God in prayer. — Brennan Manning

You saw him as disapproving of you. I thought him disapproving of me. Funny, isn't it?"
Not only funny, but a strange relief. Why hadn't she seen it? Rhys felt like an impostor here, too. [ ... ]
Tilting her head to the twilight sky, she mused, "Do you know what I think? I have a feeling that dour look on Lord Corning's face had nothing to do with either of us. Perhaps he'd just tasted something unpleasant. — Tessa Dare

When I'm traveling to promote my book, I feel like an artful impostor. What I really am is when I'm in my (painter's) studio and when I'm writing. With actors, it's the same thing. They're kind of artful impostors in public. When you get to know them, they're different people. — Gloria Vanderbilt

The beauty of the impostor syndrome is you vacillate between extreme egomania, and a complete feeling of: 'I'm a fraud! Oh god, they're on to me! I'm a fraud! — Sheryl Sandberg

And I'll flip through the newest issue, walking back from my blue mailbox, hunting for the poem he chose over mine, and it'll be the same thing as always. The prose will have pulled back, and the poem will be there, cavorting, saying, I'm a poem, I'm a poem. No, you're not! You're an impostor, you're a toy train of pretend stanzas of chopped garbage. Just like my poem was. — Nicholson Baker

...Yes... I am perfect. A perfect 'impostor'. B-ko — Suzumu

The impostor syndrome. I know it well. Inside every self-assured professional lives a frightened neurotic who prays that he can somehow succeed before his clients discover the fraud. It's the guilty secret that drives us all. — Richard North Patterson

Impostor; do not charge most innocent Nature, As if she would her children should be riotous With her abundance; she, good cateress, Means her provision only to the good, That live according to her sober laws, And holy dictate of spare temperance. — John Milton

We're on Twitter with one side of our personality, and Facebook with another, and LinkedIn with another side of our personality, and we're toggling between them. That's just a version of what an impostor does: shifting from one side of their personality to another with lightning speed. — Walter Kirn

The prudent man always studies seriously and earnestly to understand whatever he professes to understand, and not merely to persuade other people that he understands it; and though his talents may not always be very brilliant, they are always perfectly genuine. He neither endeavours to impose upon you by the cunning devices of an artful impostor, nor by the arrogant airs of an assuming pedant, nor by the confident assertions of a superficial and imprudent pretender. He is not ostentatious even of the abilities which he really possesses. His conversation is simple and modest, and he is averse to all the quackish arts by which other people so frequently thrust themselves into public notice and reputation. — Adam Smith

This is where someone who does his job competently and effectively believes that he's just an impostor; that he doesn't really know what he's doing. — Russ Harris

The most horrible wickedness and cruelties, and the greatest miseries that have troubled the human race began with this thing called revelation, or revealed religion ... It would be far, far better for us to let a thousand devils roam the world, and publicly preach the doctrine of devils (if there were such a thing, which there isn't), than to let one impostor and monster such a Moses, Joshua, Samuel or the Bible prophets come speaking the so-called word of God, and causing men to believe it. — Thomas Paine

The Man of Truth has learned that Illusion is the One Reality, and that Substance is the Great Impostor. — H.P. Lovecraft

Sometimes, sitting here in the dark, slowly slowly creating strategy, she wondered if she was only fooling herself to think her plans were clever. — Vernor Vinge

Procrastination stems from fear and indecision. When you really want something, you always find and make time for its accomplishment. Once we remove fear and indecision, we have more time to fulfill desires. The Impostor Phenomenon is a common malady among successful people who secretly fear being "discovered" as frauds who haven't earned their stature. Not only do fears interfere with goal attainment, but they can also be self-fulfilling. Fear and worry cause more falls than they prevent. It's important to identify fears and success blocks as a first step in removing them. Identify, but don't overanalyze, your fears. Remember: think about what you want, rather than what you don't want. Observe and notice fears, without judging them. Fears are normal. However, removing fear is both a healthy and attainable goal. When we remove fear, all things become possible. — Doreen Virtue

You'll be amazed how much you have in common with Edith Wharton (who struggled to feel worthy of success), Louisa May Alcott (who badly needed money), Madaleine L'Engle (who could have papered an entire house with her rejection letters) and other writers... — Nava Atlas

I was an impostor, the worthy associate of a brigand, &c., &c., and all this for an atom of chlorine put in the place of an atom of hydrogen, for the simple correction of a chemical formula! — Auguste Laurent

You might be scared to start. That's natural. There's this very real thing that runs rampant in educated people. It's called "impostor syndrome." The clinical definition is a "psychological phenomenon in which people are unable to internalize their accomplishments." It means that you feel like a phony, like you're just winging it, that you really don't have any idea what you're doing. — Austin Kleon

Once you've been loved by a man like Damian, once you've been branded and molded in the fires of that possession, you will never be moved by tepid, impostor kisses. — Leylah Attar

When Jesus drives something home to you through His Word, don't try to evade it. If you do, you will become a religious impostor. Examine the things you tend simply to shrug your shoulders about, and where you have refused to be obedient, and you will know why you are not growing spiritually. As Jesus said, "First ... go ... " Even at the risk of being thought of as fanatical, you must obey what God tells you. — Oswald Chambers

What can a sculptor do without the chisel and the hammer? And what can an impostor politician do without the ignorant and the uneducated? — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Accepting the reality of our sinfulness means accepting our authentic self. Judas could not face his shadow; Peter could. The latter befriended the impostor within; the former raged against him. — Brennan Manning

It's like asking, what's an impostor look like?" Arctor said. "I talked one time to a big hash dealer who'd been busted with ten pounds of hash in his possession. I asked him what the nark who busted him looked like. You know, the
what do they call them?
buying agent that came out and posed as a friend of a friend and got him to sell him some hash."
"Looked," Barris said, winding string, "just like us."
"More so," Arctor said. "The hash-dealer dude
he'd already been sentenced and was going in the following day
he told me, 'They have longer hair than we do.' So I guess the moral of that is, Stay away from guys looking the same as us. — Philip K. Dick

Remember who you are. Realize what you are. Do both those things, or you'll either be completely useless-or too dangerous to help anyone. — Sarah Fine

There is only one heaven, one earth and one queen (me) Queen Elizabeth is an impostor. — Dinah Washington

fear of being unmasked as the incompetent you "really" are is so common that it actually has a clinical name: impostor syndrome. — Megan McArdle

I don't think I'm identified as the anchorman, I think I'm identified as the impostor anchorman - there's a very clear line there ... I don't think it changes the way they respond. — John Oliver

There is point in your life when you come face to face with the reality that you cannot take another step on your own. For me, I had never experienced that point, but depression brought me there. I have slowly, painfully and continually been confronted by my brokenness. Coming to terms with the fact that I am broken has been at the center of my accepting my being loved.
For me, now, there exists a sense of desperate need for what God brings to my spiritual and mental self. Without His voice I cannot cope with the darkness, but with His whisper of "you are My beloved", I can take a step each day away from the chasm. I am broken but not beyond mending, not beyond love.
It has been this desperation that has opened a crevice in which I am seeing Him for the first time. He is why my soul can find some peace even when my mind is dark and numb. It is this love that continually has brought me back from the edge of the impostor to the honesty of my broken, inner self — David Hulon Hood

As in the natural life a child must have a father and a mother, so in the supernatural life of grace a true child of the Church must have God for his Father and Mary for his mother. If he prides himself on having God for his Father but does not give to Mary the tender affection of a true child, he is an impostor and his father is the devil. — Louis De Montfort

No, she did not denounce the impostor, but indubitably she made him aware that she knew he was not Eric Hagh. She may have done so merely by the way she looked at him, or she may have asked him some naive and revealing question. In any case, he knew he was in deadly peril from her, and he acted quickly and audaciously - and with dexterity, taking her keys from her bag. No, he is not a bungler, but - — Rex Stout

It is often said in the Bible that God spake unto Moses, but how do you know that God spake unto Moses? Because, you will say, the Bible says so. The Koran says, that God spake unto Mahomet, do you believe that too? No. Why not? Because, you will say, you do not believe it; and so because you do, and because you don't is all the reason you can give for believing or disbelieving except that you will say that Mahomet was an impostor. And how do you know Moses was not an impostor? — Thomas Paine

This man, this impostor of a man, can kill my body but he can't touch my soul. — Cynthia Hand

Yet she felt an impostor, and already the mask had begun to bite into her face. — J.G. Ballard

He was afraid he might say or do something that would offend King Stephen or Bishop Henry and turn them against Kingsbridge. French-born people often mocked the way the English spoke their language: what would they think of a Welsh accent? In the monastic world, Philip had always been judged by his piety, obedience, and devotion to God's work. Those things counted for nothing here, in the capital city of one of the greatest kingdoms in the world. Philip was out of his depth. He became oppressed by the feeling that he was some kind of impostor, a nobody pretending to be a somebody, and that he was sure to be found out in no time and sent home in disgrace. He — Ken Follett

An impostor would not have the same value as the original person in society. — Saaif Alam

I am just a copier, an impostor. I wait, I read magazines. After a while my brain sends me a product. — Philippe Starck

In football, the result is an impostor. You can do things really, really well but not win. There's something greater than the result, more lasting - a legacy. — Xavi

This phenomenon of capable people being plagued by self-doubt has a name---the impostor syndrome. — Sheryl Sandberg

As long as you think like that, you'll be as brainless and helpless as the actual cuff of Astia. Use your will, Elli, for surely you have one. How else did you survive the torture that nearly killed you? How else did you make it to the woods? How else are you right here, after weeks of winter spent living in a cave, for stars' sake, looking stronger and healthier than I ever expected? No will, my arse. — Sarah Fine

His readiness to undergo persecutions for his beliefs, the high moral character of the men who believed in him and looked up to him as leader, and the greatness of his ultimate achievement - all argue his fundamental integrity. To suppose Muhammad an impostor raises more problems than it solves. Moreover, none of the great figures of history is so poorly appreciated in the West as Muhammad — William Montgomery Watt

Sir - I got a Ministry of Magic leaflet by owl, about security measures we should all take against the Death Eaters ... "
"Yes, I received one myself," said Dumbledore, still smiling. "Did you find it useful?"
"Not really."
"No, I thought not. You have not asked me, for instance, what is my favorite flavor of jam, to check that I am indeed Professor Dumbledore and not an impostor. — J.K. Rowling

Now, which am I to believe, a book that any impostor might make and call the Word of God, or the creation itself which none but an Almighty Power could make? For the Bible says one thing; and the creation says the contrary. The Bible represents God with all the passions of a mortal, and the creation proclaims him with all the attributes of a God. — Thomas Paine

He who attempts to make others believe in means which he himself despises is a puffer; he who makes use of more means than he knows to be necessary is a quack; and he who ascribes to those means a greater efficacy than his own experience warrants is an impostor. — Johann Kaspar Lavater

the Impostor Phenomenon, originally described by Dr. Pauline Clance and Dr. Suzanne Imes: "an internal experience of intellectual phoniness." I think we're all familiar with this belief and its wily ways. It's that voice that tells you you're not good enough, that some day soon everyone will find out you're a fraud, that you need to do a little more research or get a little more training to be successful. And it's favorite tactic is having you pursue the "right" way instead of your way. — Anonymous

IMPOSTOR n. A rival aspirant to public honors. — Ambrose Bierce

've always defined a truly alluring story as a journey we're not equipped to take ourselves with a person we're tempted but afraid to emulate. Impostor narratives are exactly that. When they end in disaster, as Clark's did, or as Gatsby's did, we can congratulate ourselves for our own wisdom. We can also experience, safely, at no cost, the terrible thrill of radical self-invention, of trading who we are for who we might be. — Walter Kirn

If you read the book, you're not a journalist. You're some impostor! No journalist actually does any work. — Tucker Max

I had this feeling suddenly. I get this feeling a lot, but I don't know if there's one word for it. It's not nervous or sad or even lonely. It's all of that, and then a bit more. The feeling is I don't belong here. I don't know how I got here, and I don't know how long I can stay before everyone else realizes that I am an impostor. I am a fraud. I've gotten this feeling nearly everywhere I have ever been in my life. There's nothing you can do about it except drink some water and hope that it subsides. Or you can leave. — Leila Sales