Pretender Quotes & Sayings

Crown Prince Rupprecht, the heir to the throne of Bavaria who commanded the army group facing the British at the Somme, was the senior direct lineal heir of James Stuart, the Old Pretender of 1715. Had there been any Jacobites left in Britain in 1916, they would have had to regard this south German prince as their rightful king. — David Frum

But I am a great pretender, sometimes so good at it that I convince myself that what I pretend is what is truly real. — Kameron Hurley

It's a bore, but the answer is good things only happen to you if you're good. Good? Honest is more what I mean. Not lawtype honest
I'd rob a grave, I'd steal two-bits off a dead man's eyes if I thought it would contribute to the day's enjoyment
but unto-thyself-type honest. Be anything but a coward, a pretender, an emotional crook, a whore: I'd rather have cancer than a dishonest heart. Which isn't being pious. Just practical. Cancer may cool you, but the other's sure to. — Truman Capote

I tried to pretend that kiss meant nothing. I tried to pretend she didn't have permanent residence in my dreams. I tried to pretend I wasn't using her to feel wanted, and I tried to pretend I wasn't dying to see her again - I became the great pretender. — Tali Alexander

What if I don't want an unwilling bridegroom, a pretender to the crown, who won his throne through disloyalty and betrayal? What if I tell you that my heart is in an unmarked grave somewhere in Leicester?" She — Philippa Gregory

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

I always see myself as a character actor, but Remington Steele was me. I gave up on trying to be any character. I just put myself as me in this world of Remington Steele and the grand pretender. — Pierce Brosnan

What if I say I'm not like the others
What if I say I'm not just another one of your plays
You're the pretender
What if I say I will never surrender — Foo Fighters

Out into the cool of the evening strolls the pretender. He knows that all his hopes and dreams begin and end there. — Jackson Browne

The great difference between the real leader and the pretender is that the one sees into the future, while the other regards only the present; the one lives by the day, and acts upon expediency; the other acts on enduring principles and for the immortality. — Edmund Burke

Satan is the sower of compromise - leaving a bit of God's truth into the dirty rags of sin. Satan is the commander in deceit, Satan is the ringleader in rebellion against the faithful.
Satan is the sly serpent of temptation.
Satan is the false hope of security.
Satan is the great pretender.
Satan is the great spoiler of everything good.
And Satan wants to destroy you. — Billy Graham

For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men - friends, coworkers, strangers - giddy over these awful pretender women, and I'd want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who'd like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I'd want to grab the poor guy by the lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn't really love chili dogs that much - no one loves chili dogs that much! — Gillian Flynn

The real leaders intend to do definitely that good task for which a pretender has provoked them by saying that it can't be done, but the good number of pretenders tend to do only that job for which a real leader has cautioned them by showing the things that should not be done. — Anuj

I came all this way for a reason. Today is the day of salvation. Trust Jesus to save you. Then be sincere as God knows a pretender. — Kirk Cameron

I have not looked at any of the 'Pretender' Web sites. I'm scared of the Internet. — Andrea Parker

When we perceive aliens as a joke to be laughed at,
they feel so pity for us on the success of their plans. — Toba Beta

The answer is good things only happen to you if you're good. Good? Honest is more what I mean ... Be anything but a coward, a pretender, an emotional crook, a whore: I'd rather have cancer than a dishonest heart. — Truman Capote

I have worked in the homes of many successful people and have seen firsthand that everyone fails in life, but failure can be a gift if you don't give up and are willing to learn, improve, and grow because of it. You see, failure often serves as a defining moment, a crossroads on the journey of your life. It gives you a test designed to measure your courage, perseverance, commitment, and a dedication. Are you a pretender who gives up after a little adversity or a contender who keeps getting up after getting knocked down? — Jon Gordon

That pretender is living on the future queen's coin. She is saying she will do for me what she would not do for herself. She will use Faerie gold to finance my needs. — Hailey Edwards

The work of Henry James has always seemed divisible by a simple dynastic arrangement into three reigns: James I, James II, and the Old Pretender. — Philip Guedalla

Be anything but a coward, a pretender, an emotional crook, a whore: I'd rather have cancer than a dishonest heart. Which isn't being pious. Just practical. — Truman Capote

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

I say, White-Jacket, d'ye mind me? there never was a very great man yet who spent all his life inland. A snuff of the sea, my boy, is inspiration; and having been once out of sight of land, has been the making of many a true poet and the blasting of many pretenders; for, d'ye see, there's no gammon about the ocean; it knocks the false keel right off a pretender's bows; it tells him just what he is, and makes him feel it, too. A sailor's life, I say, is the thing to bring us mortals out. What does the blessed Bible say? Don't it say that we main-top-men alone see the marvellous sights and wonders? Don't deny the blessed Bible, now! don't do it! How it rocks up here, my boy!" holding on to a shroud; "but it only proves what I've been saying - the sea is the place to cradle genius! Heave and fall, old sea! — Herman Melville

To many, love is both a blessing and a curse. From love springs bliss and utter ruin. But they are confused. What they describe is a selfish version of love - a dark pretender. If anyone seeks this kind of love, they will never find grace. True Love is unconditional generosity and requires nothing in return. True Love takes nothing for self, but only gives to others. — Remigio Bongulielmi

I wasn't into Tolkien at school really. But the story is timeless, the themes that it touches on are contained in cultures all around the world. The innocent on a quest, the pretender, an inanimate object that holds evil - it's really strange that these themes are there in so many different countries' folklore. — Billy Boyd

Jacobitism involved much more than a debate about the merits of a particular dynasty. Men and women were well aware that its success was almost certain to involved them in civil war. And the more politically educated knew that the Stuart Pretender was a pawn in a worldwide struggle for commercial and imperial primacy between Britain and France. — Linda Colley

I often feel like a pretender when wearing makeup. The most beautiful features in a woman are her character and her experiences. Why hide that? — Masiela Lusha

The pretender sees no one but himself, Because he has the veil of conceit in front; If he were endowed with a God discerning eye, He would see that no one is weaker than himself. — Bill Vaughan

The lover I am; it befits me to burn;
but what is the reason for your weeping and burning?
The candle replied: 'Oh my ill-fated lover,
a honey-sweet [shirin] friend went away from me.
Someone like Shirin has deserted me;
there is fire on my head, as it was on Farhad's.'
The candle continued, while a painful flood
each moment gushed down on his yellow cheeks:
'Pretender, this love is not your game,
as you have no patience, no strength to stand.
Untouched you shrink from a single flame,
whereas I stand still until I am consumed.
If the fire of love has scorched your wings,
look at me: it burned me from head to foot. — Saadi

I had long since insisted upon interpreting the things that Fate forced me to do as victories of my own will and intelligence, and now this bad habit had grown into a sort of frenzied arrogance. In the nature of what I was calling my intelligence there was a touch of something illegitimate, a touch of the sham pretender who has been placed on the throne by some freak chance. This dolt of a usurper could not foresee the revenge that would inevitably be wreaked upon his stupid despotism. — Yukio Mishima

I am Valentine's son. Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern. You never had any right to that name. You're a ghost. And a pretender. — Cassandra Clare

A fire burned in his belly with Helen's words, her challenge laid bare. Are you a king worthy of great glory, or a pretender clamoring for attention at the edge of the world? One look to Menelaus was all the reminder Agamemnon needed of how much he detested that comparison. — Aria Cunningham

We must have kings, we must have nobles; nature is always providing such in every society; only let us have the real instead of the titular. In every society some are born to rule, and some to advise. The chief is the chief all the world over, only not his cap and plume. It is only this dislike of the pretender which makes men sometimes unjust to the true and finished man. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

He is my brother," I said. "I cannot desert him."
"You can go to your own death," William said. "Or you can survive this, bring up your children, and guard Anne's little girl who will be shamed and bastardized and motherless by the end of this week. You can wait out this reign and see what comes next. See what the future holds for the Princess Elizabeth, defend our son Henry against those who will want to set him up as the king's heir or even worse-flaunt him as a pretender. You owe it to your children to protect them. — Philippa Gregory

She instinctively knows that each pretender she eliminates brings her one step closer to the One, and in fact, it is not unusual to hear her use this exact terminology: The One. You can almost hear the Capitalization as she says it. — Michael Makai

The steady soul and the ego pretender / walk with their arms round each other's shoulders / through the mirage. — Jay Woodman

A man of knowing attains to a sense of humour. Let this always be remembered. If you see someone who has no sense of humour, know well that that man has not known at all. If you come across a serious man, then you can be certain that he is a pretender. Knowing brings sincerity but all seriousness disappears. Knowing brings a playfulness; knowing brings a sense of humour. The sense of humour is a must. — Rajneesh

Im gonna be a pretender the rest of my life. Pretending i dont wish every girl i kiss isnt you. Pretending i dont wish every girl i sleep with isnt you. Im gonna have to pretend i dont wish my next relationship wont be with you. Pretend that i dont wish the girl i get engaged to isnt you. Pretend i dont wish the girl i marry isnt you. Pretend i dont wish the mother of my kids to be you. Pretend its not you i want to spend the rest of my life with. Everything will be a lie the rest of my life. Thats so hard to accept. — Michael A. Perez

Cram nailed his colours to the mast and threw down the Great Pretender — Ron Pickering

Jail is more commonly-suited to those less-commonly able to finance a defense (or to potentially pander the prosecution). The choices for council is either a retained lawyer or, by default, a public defender. In the later of these two, the common title in jail was 'public pretender'. — H. Kirk Rainer

If you are a dreamer come in
If you are a dreamer a wisher a liar
A hoper a pray-er a magic-bean-buyer
If youre a pretender com sit by my fire
For we have some flax golden tales to spin
Come in!
Come in! — Shel Silverstein

Say a prayer for the pretender, who started out so young and strong only to surrender. — Jackson Browne

The idea of what the public will think prevents the public from ever thinking at all, and acts as a spell on the exercise of private judgment, so that, in short, the public ear is at the mercy of the first impudent pretender who chooses to fill it with noisy assertions, or false surmises, or secret whispers. What is said by one is heard by all; the supposition that a thing is known to all the world makes all the world believe it, and the hollow repetition of a vague report drowns the 'still, small voice' of reason. — William Hazlitt

Need I point out that, despite the old saw about uneasy heads and crowns, it is nevertheless safer to be publicly a king than it is to be a pretender in hiding? A king can usually abdicate to save his neck; a pretender may renounce his pretensions but it makes his neck no safer - less so, in fact; it leaves him naked to his enemies. — Robert A. Heinlein

I'm a task-oriented actor. A pretender. And I try to invent my process anew each time I make a new project. So I frown on any method. — Willem Dafoe

The poet is a pretender. / He pretends so completely, / that he even pretends that it is pain / the pain he really feels. — Fernando Pessoa

In here, the human bosom
mine, yours, everybody's
there isn't just one soul. There's a lot of souls. But there are two main ones, the real soul and a pretender soul. Now! Every man realizes that he has to love something or somebody. He feels that he must go outward. 'If thou canst not love, what art thou?' Are you with me? — Saul Bellow

Even if I am but a pretender to wisdom, that in itself is philosophy. — Diogenes

If all power is in the people, if there is no higher law than their will, and if by counting their votes, their will may be ascertained - then the people may entrust all their power to anyone, and the power of the pretender and the usurper is then legitimate. It is not to be challenged since it came originally from the sovereign people. — Walter Lippmann

Quack: A boastful pretender to arts which he does not understand. A vain boastful pretender to physick; An artful, tricking practitioner in physick. — Samuel Johnson

Come, my pretender, my fritter,
my bubbler, my chicken biddy!
Oh succulent one,
it is but one turn in the road
and I would be a cannibal! — Anne Sexton

I don't have any training as an actor, but I guess I'm an intense pretender. When you read something over and over, it gets into you a little bit. You can't help but begin to feel it, even if you're a healthy person as I think I am. — John Hawkes