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It is the nature of truth in general, as of some ores in particular, to be richest when most superficial.
Sep 29, 2025
PLAIN SUPERFICIALITY is the character of a speech, in which any two points being taken, the speaker is found to lie wholly with regard to those two points.
Our enemy is by tradition our savior, in preventing us from superficiality.
The externals are important but I'm not interested in superficiality.
You are discontented with the world because you can't get just the small things that suit your pleasure, not because it's a world where myriads of men and women are ground by wrong and misery, and tainted with pollution.
Anyone who has looked deeply into the world may guess how much wisdom lies in the superficiality of men. The instinct that preserves them teaches them to be flighty light, and false.
That's a very important thing in life, to be really looked upon for the qualities which you hold in yourself and not all of superficiality.
Christ delves far beyond the means of superficiality, not simply because of his immaculate love, but also because he considers the distinct cases of each individual rather than withholding a broadened perception by use of stereotypes.
The prime occupational hazard of a manager is superficiality.
Grandmother belongs to the generation of women who were satisfied to have men retain their vices, if they removed their hats.
The superficiality of many is a result of deep fears. It takes spare time to think things out; it takes free time to mature. People in a hurry may not think well or mature well. The next best is a state of perpetual puerility.
It is superficial to fall in love with someone looking at their face. To me I need to discover the person. I would never look at someone and exclaim - He is the one!
Failures are like skinned knees, painful but superficial.
We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is a trivial achievement. Being inclined to go on reading is a great achievement.
In these days people take up with each other and drop each other too easily. Pleasure is practiced like a sport, and the easy game of love leads to the dissolution of the feeling of love.
I am totally superficial, I know. But I believe superficiality can be very serious, a defense against the gravity of things, a manner of discretion.
Like many, I suspect, I found the difficulty of analytic philosophy unglamorous and therefore less appealing. This is regrettably superficial but superficiality is characteristic of youth. In my late teens I became enamored of Nietzsche, Bataille, and Artaud.
I used to live in Los Angeles, but I didn't want my kids to grow up in the thick of the obsession with movie-making. There's a lot of sensationalism and superficiality. I wanted to take my kids out of that and raise 'em up elsewhere, and I wanted to stop being preoccupied with whether my star is on the rise or the descent. I can't imagine having a much greater life, and I don't want to be preoccupied with things that don't matter. But of course, ironically, my two oldest daughters have decided that they're going to be actresses.
Superficiality is the curse of the modern world.
Knowledge is indispensable to Christian life and service. If we do not use the mind that God has given us, we condemn ourselves to spiritual superficiality and cut ourselves off from many of the riches of God’s grace.
What we're trying to do as writers is rescue, preserve this space of thoughtfulness of language, of a deeper and more honest appreciation of our reality. And, so, we have to work even harder as writers against this tide of silliness, against this tide of superficiality, against this horrible Greek chorus on Twitter where everyone is insulting each other and now we have an insulter-in-chief, who's risen to the presidency by insulting people.
There are certainly people for whom politics is not a category that helps you understand human existence. In fact, it's kind of a detour into superficiality, and although I disagree with those people, I don't think it's the case that everyone who writes has to write politically or has to write in opposition to the really horrendous things that are going on on a political level in the world today. There are some writers who simply aren't any good at that and really should stay away from it.
But progress in knowledge has made us aware of the superficiality of Plato's lumping of individuals and their original powers into a few sharply marked-off classes; it has taught us that original capacities are indefinitely numerous and variable. It is but the other side of this fact to say that in the degree in which society has become democratic, social organization means utilization of the specific and variable qualities of individuals, not stratification by classes.
This is a world in which each of us, knowing his limitations, knowing the evils of superficiality and the terrors of fatigue, will have to cling to what is close to him, to what he knows, to what he can do. . .
We find that the manager, particularly at senior levels, is overburdened with work. With the increasing complexity of modern organizations and their problems, he is destined to become more so. He is driven to brevity, fragmentation, and superficiality in his tasks, yet he cannot easily delegate them because of the nature of his information.
There is a breeze blowing. I see it in the deep discontent that is being voiced with the threadbare state of the evangelical world, with its empty worship, its market-driven superficiality, and its trivial thought. It is a breeze blowing toward better, deeper, more honest things. I suspect that it is the Holy Spirit who is blowing, that this is his breeze, and that these leaves that are shaking are the signs of better things to come within an evangelical faith that is thus being reformed. Let us all pray that it is so!
Live in your roots, not in your branches.
there are people who are born superficial ... They prefer not to have to deal with more than a limited number of oversimplified ideas - they prefer the book reviews to the books, the headlines and the leading paragraph to the full report, the generalization to the facts, and the negative to the positive.
Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep.
For this beauty, beauty without strength, chokes out life.
On the superficiality of the industry: We are setting an example of what we think is beautiful and you really want to put that much make up on me?
I think it's very important to really find the wheat amidst the chafe and not give into superficialities, to not get caught up the commercialism or the fads, you know, the "over-popularization" of some things that we might see today. That doesn't mean we have to throw out the Buddha with the bath water, it's not all bad.
It is true that we do not recognize greatness among us. Our measurements of importance are generally faulty and speak mainly to the superficialities of life, e.g., where one lives, the type of clothing one wears, the cars one drives, to the number of bodyguards that one employs to carry bags and open and close doors.
There are two ways of confronting the country's problems.One is through a management style based on adventurism, instability, play-acting, exaggerations, wrongdoing, being secretive, self-importance, superficiality and ignoring the law. The second way is based on realism, respect, openness, collective wisdom and avoiding extremism.
Seriousness is no more a guarantee of truth, insight, authenticity or probity, than humour is a guarantee of superficiality and stupidity.
I think in fact that unless there is an organic link between the subjective impressions of the author and his objective representation of reality, he will not achieve even superficial credibility, let alone authenticity and inner truth.
One who aspires to greatness should read and study, pursuing the True Way with such a firm resolve that he is perfectly straightforward and open, rises above the superficialities of conventional behavior, and refuses to be satisfied with the petty or commonplace.
The most common error made in matters of appearance is the belief that one should disdain the superficial and let the true beauty of one's soul shine through. If there are places on your body where this is a possibility, you are not attractive - you are leaking.
The exploitation and superficiality of mainstream America is the object not of [Bob] Dylan's hipster scorn, but of an apocalyptic parable of holy fools and righteous thieves - the kind of imagery that Dylan's later work would explore more fully.
most of our social and educational institutions are designed to weed out or make over people ... until we produce a world where everyone is a smart, quick-witted, aggressive person living on the surface of the mind without ever looking into the depths.
Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem.
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
The Islamists had control over territory that was about half the size of the Federal Republic of Germany. For years, we have been putting the lives of our troops on the line, we have taken huge losses and the Europeans cut the budget? If money is more important than the lives of our children, what else is this than the usual arrogance and superficiality? And where is all this terror coming from? It is a result of mistakes the West committed in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the 1980s, when they armed the Islamic rebels against the Soviet troops.
In my art and life, I really strive to reverse the old adage that what you see is what you get. If I can be Coyote and practice my sneak-up, I can engage the viewers from a distance with one image and lure them in for exposure to another layer, which changes the initial view into quite a different reality. After all, that is what ethnic culture is all about - or even an ongoing relationship. What you see on the surface is never the same again one you begin to plumb the depths.
nothing is more common than to mistake the sign for the thing itself; nor is any practice more frequent than that of endeavoring to acquire the exterior mark, without once thinking to labor after the interior grace.
A society where the simple many obey the few seers can live; a society where all were seers could live even more fully. But a society where the mass is still simple and the seers are no longer attended to can achieve only superficiality, baseness, ugliness, and in the end extinction. On or back we must go: to stay here is death.
I have to say that, though it sounds so superficial, the accent really does help. I like having accents preparing for a part.
I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another.
Honesty has a beautiful and refreshing simplicity about it. No ulterior motives. No hidden meanings. An absence of hypocrisy, duplicity, political games, and verbal superficiality. As honesty and real integrity characterize our lives, there will be no need to manipulate others.
Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic diseases of the 20th century, and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press.