Social Mask Quotes

“People seldom change. Only their masks do. It is only our perception of them and the perception they have of themselves that actually change.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“The slivers we show, the mountains we hide.”
― Chanel Miller, Know My Name

“...the only way out consists of using a social mask.

This is why those under depression will smile more as well as make efforts to please and entertain compared to anyone else.

...

If they could hide in public, and they do hide in other ways, both psychological and physical.

The psychological feeling of being trapped comes afterwards from the need to have social life, and that's when the anti-social personality starts developing furthermore.”
― Mark Brightlife, Overcoming Depression: Pragmatic Solutions to Deal with Suicidal Thoughts

“I was filled with electric thunder, simmering water, fiery red and gold, but all I had to do was smile and nod and the world would take me for easy breezy blue. Sometimes I wondered if I wasn’t the only one using her skin to contain herself. Maybe we are all fire wrapped in skin, trying to look cool.”
― Glennon Doyle Melton, Untamed

“Sometimes you stand in a difficult dilemma: are the people around you too righteous or too naive? Perhaps naivety is simply sincere righteousness without a social mask.”
― Elmar Hussein

“Features of the hidden nature and personality of a person are expressed in his attitude to life and other people. Observe and analyze this attitude, and you will understand what kind of person he is.”
― Elmar Hussein

“We find out early that telling the whole truth makes people uncomfortable and is certainly not ladylike or likely to make us popular, so we learn to lie sweetly so that we can be loved. And when we figure out this system, we are split in two: the public self, who says the right things in order to belong, and the secret self, who thinks other things.”
― Glennon Doyle Melton, Carry On, Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed

“Export Credit Guarantees.‘After all, Madame Nhu is asking a thousand dollars an interview, in this case we can insist on five and get it. Damn it, this is The Man . . . ’ The brain dulls. An exhibition of atrocity photographs rouses a flicker of interest. Meanwhile, the quasars burn dimly from the dark peaks of the universe. Standing across the room from Catherine Austin, who watches him with guarded eyes, he hears himself addressed as ‘Paul’, as if waiting for clandestine messages from the resistance headquarters of World War III.

Five Hundred Feet High. The Madonnas move across London like immense clouds. Painted on clapboard in the Mantegna style, their composed faces gaze down on the crowds watching from the streets below. Several hundred pass by, vanishing into the haze over the Queen Mary Reservoir, Staines, like a procession of marine deities. Some remarkable entrepreneur has arranged this tour de force; in advertising circles everyone is talking about the mysterious international agency that now has the Vatican account. At the Institute Dr Nathan is trying to sidestep the Late Renaissance. ‘Mannerism bores me. Whatever happens,’ he confides to Catherine Austin, ‘we must keep him off Dali and Ernst.’

Gioconda. As the slides moved through the projector the women’s photographs, in profile and full face, jerked one by one across the screen. ‘A characteristic of the criminally insane,’ Dr Nathan remarked, ‘is the lack of tone and rigidity of the facial mask.’

The audience fell silent. An extraordinary woman had appeared on the screen. The planes of her face seemed to lead towards some invisible focus, projecting an image that lingered on the walls, as if they were inhabiting her skull. In her eyes glowed the forms of archangels. ‘That one?’ Dr Nathan asked quietly. ‘Your mother? I see.”
― J.G. Ballard, The Atrocity Exhibition

“People tend to wear the mask that shows them off in the best possible light - humble, confident, diligent. They say the right things, smile, and seem interested in our ideas. They learn to conceal their insecurities and envy. [...] People continually leak out their true feelings and unconscious desires in the
nonverbal cues they cannot completely control--facial expressions,
vocal inflections, tension in the body, and nervous gestures. [...] On the other hand, since appearances are what people judge you by, you must learn how to present the best front and play your role to maximum effect.”
― Robert Greene, The Laws of Human Nature