QuoteProject
No, it's not that they're bad. It's that they're obliged to pretend they're good. They've been brought up to deceive and be cunning, to protect themselves from our society. I don't want to be like that.
Carlos Fuentes
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote highlights the conflict between societal expectations and true self-identity.

Carlos Fuentes emphasizes the societal pressure that forces individuals to disguise their true nature for self-protection. He expresses a desire to remain genuine rather than conform to the deceptive behaviors that society often encourages.

Themes

SocietyDeceptionIdentityGenuinenessHonesty

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about authenticity in the workplace, this quote can serve as a powerful reminder to be true to oneself.

More from Carlos Fuentes

The possibility of being as free with the camera as we are with the pen is a fantastic prospect for the creative life of the 21st century.
Carlos FuentesRead
Writing is a struggle against silence.
Carlos FuentesRead
Literature overtakes history, for literature gives you more than one life. It expands experience and opens new opportunities to readers.
Carlos FuentesRead
One wants to tell a story, like Scheherezade, in order not to die. It's one of the oldest urges in mankind. It's a way of stalling death.
Carlos FuentesRead
You have an absolute freedom in Mexican writing today in which you don't necessarily have to deal with the Mexican identity. You know why? Because we have an identity... We know who we are. We know what it means to be a Mexican.
Carlos FuentesRead
What's happened at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq is one of the grossest violations of human rights under the Geneva Conventions that we have record of. It is simply monstrous.
Carlos FuentesRead

Similar quotes

The end of man is action, and not thought, though it be of the noblest.
Thomas CarlyleRead
We are all born idolaters, and idolatry is good, because it is in the nature of man. Who can get beyond it? Only the perfect man, the God-man. The rest are all idolaters. So long as we see this universe before us, with its forms and shapes, we are all idolaters. This is a gigantic symbol we are worshipping. He who says he is the body is a born idolater.
Swami VivekanandaRead
How do you judge the brightness of a light when you’re the source? A spotlight can never see the shadows it casts.
Neal ShustermanRead
We have learned to live with unholiness and have come to look upon it as the natural and expected thing.
Aiden Wilson TozerRead
That's the trouble with the world. We all despise ourselves.
Charlie ChaplinRead
Take away the cause, and the effect ceases.
Miguel De CervantesRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.