Charlatan Quotes

An artist who conforms to conventional ideas is nothing but a mere charlatan. ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

[On Jerry Falwell] No, and I think it's a pity there isn't a hell for him to go to ... The empty life of this ugly little charlatan proves only one thing: that you can get away with the most extraordinary offenses to morality and to truth in this country if you'll just get yourself called Reverend. Who would, even at your network, have invited on such a little toad to tell us that the attacks of September 11th were the result of our sinfulness and were God's punishment if they hadn't got some kind of clerical qualification. People like that should be out in the street, shouting and hollering with a cardboard sign and selling pencils from a cup. ~ Christopher Hitchens

You're quite bright for a charlatan sadhvi. How long have you been in this business of deception?"
Oh, if only he knew.
"Years," I said through a thin smile. ~ Roshani Chokshi

Cranks are much too important. They are part of the other America - Greil Marcus's old, weird America. A charlatan is a crank with a book deal and a radio program and a suit in federal court. A charlatan succeeds only in Idiot America. A charlatan is a crank who succeeds too well. A charlatan is a crank who's sold out. ~ Charles P. Pierce

A general must be a charlatan. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

Hugo Gernsback invented pulp magazines and the grandfather paradox. Not bad for a charlatan. ~ James Gleick

I am totally lost in the folds of Love,
totally free of worry and care.

I have passed beyond the four qualities.
My heart has torn away the veil of pretense.

There was a time I circled with the nine spheres, rolling with the stars across the sky.
There was a time I stayed by his side -
I lived in his world
and he gave me everything.

With the best of intentions
I became a prisoner in this form.
How else did I get here?
What crime did I commit?
But I'd rather be in a prison with my Friend
than in a rosegarden all alone.

I came to this world
To have a sight of Joseph's purity.
Like a baby born of its mother's womb,
I was brought here with blood and tears.

People think they are born only once
But they have been here so many times.

In the cloak of this ragged body
I have walked countless paths.
How many times I have worn out this cloak!

With ascetics in the desert
I watched night turn into day.
With pagans in the temple
I slept at the foot of idols.

I've been a charlatan and a king;
I've been a healer, and fraught with disease.

I've been on my death-bed so many times. . . . Floating up like the clouds
Pouring down like the rain.

As a darvish I sought the dust of annihilation
but it never touched my robe.
So I gathered armfuls of roses
in this faded ga ~ Rumi

The basic point of the lion's roar is that, if we are able to deal with emotions directly, able to relate with them as workable, then there is no need for external aid or explanations. It is a self-maintained situation. Any help from outsiders becomes credentials. So self-existing help develops. At that point, one does not need to avoid the credential problem any more, because there is no room for speculation or rationalization. Everything becomes obvious and immediate, workable. And there is no chance or time or space to speculate on how to become a charlatan, how to con other people, because the situation is so immediate. So the idea of charlatanism does not appear at all, because there is no room for the idea of a game. ~ Chogyam Trungpa

A charlatan makes obscure what is clear; a thinker makes clear what is obscure. ~ Hugh Kingsmill

Modernity is not divorced from spiritualism, though it is from the charlatan. The ascetic (renunciate) owns nothing - not even his or her ego - in the spiritual realm. The charlatan seeks to own everything. ~ Amarjyoti Acharya

I counted his failings in my head: his obnoxious, cocky attitude; his pierced and painted wannabe girlfriend; his leather jacket and black motorcycle; his tattoos and multiple piercings. Even his name rankled. Dante. I'd spent my formative years dodging his type. I refused to be intimidated by him. That poncy lot. I seethed some more. And geeks? Surely he could come up with something more original. My entire year's work depended on a successful outcome here, and Tristan had assured me this guy was the real deal, not just another charlatan. We only had two night's use of the control tower. As of next week, it was scheduled for demolition. I'd convinced myself Dante was just a means to an end, and then he smiled at me, his hard, uncompromising face lighting up for just a second. With his sharp cheekbones and proud chin, he looked almost beautiful, and my stomach turned cartwheels. His eyes glittered like diamonds, pale silver that appeared luminous in the badly lit room. ~ Sofia Grey

Hope is but a charlatan that ceases not to deceive us. For myself happiness only began when I had lost it. ~ Nicolas Chamfort

People who detest their sanity love to tell you they are insane, authors included...and all for a few bucks. Their charlatan madness is masturbation. ~ W.T. Shad

Surely nobody would be a charlatan, who could afford to be sincere. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

An enthusiasm for Poe is the mark of a decidedly primitive stage of reflection. Baudelaire thought him a profound philosopher ... Poe was much the greater charlatan of the two, as well as the greater genius. ~ Henry James

Being called a huckster and a charlatan started several years ago, so that's something I'm accustomed to. In most cases, it doesn't bother me. ~ Tim Ferriss

When modernist poetry, or what not so long ago passed for modernist poetry, can reach the stage where the following piece by Mr. Ezra Pound is seriously offered as a poem, there is some justification for the plain reader and orthodox critic who shrinks from anything that may be labelled 'modernist' either in terms of condemnation or approbation ... Better he thinks, that ten authentic poets should be left for posterity to discover than one charlatan should be allowed to steal into the Temple of Fame. ~ Laura Riding

My first meeting with you only confirmed what I first suspected. You are a fraud, a charlatan and a shyster. My favourite kind of person, in fact. ~ Stephen Fry

I hear them marvel at my work
my indignant science. I hear them call out in fear of what they see. And there are some gentlemen who doubt what I will tell them. They call me a liar and a charlatan or a quack. But in time the methods of science that I now employ to convince people will surely set them free
alas, this I cannot explain to the angry fools. (Spencer Black) ~ E.B. Hudspeth

There were others who would have called him a scammer, a swindler, a con, but he never thought of himself this way. No good charlatan ever did. ~ Victor LaValle

Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication, and courage. But if we don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us
and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along. ~ Carl Sagan

There is hardly any mental misery worse than that of having our own serious phrases, our own rooted beliefs, caricatured by a charlatan or a hireling. ~ George Eliot

To some Germans and, no doubt, to most foreigners it appeared that a charlatan had come to power in Berlin. To the majority of Germans Hitler had - or would shortly assume - the aura of a truly charismatic leader. They were to follow him blindly, as if he possessed a divine judgment, for the next twelve tempestuous years. ~ William L. Shirer

Fortunately, our friend Raistlin taught me what to watch - " "Raistlin!" Flint puffed. "That pasty-faced, skinny magician. He's more than half charlatan himself. Always sniveling and whining and poking his nose where it doesn't belong. If it weren't for his twin brother looking after him, someone would've put an end to his magic long ago. ~ Margaret Weis

The artist in his teens who is happy is a charlatan. Life comes bursting in all around lis too suddenly, too crudely, too cruelly, for happiness. ~ William McFee

Hegel, installed from above, by the powers that be, as the certified Great Philosopher, was a flat-headed, insipid, nauseating, illiterate charlatan who reached the pinnacle of audacity in scribbling together and dishing up the craziest mystifying nonsense. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Management who fall into this category are often so concerned about digital that they latch on to any idea, no matter how inappropriate. They want quick-fix solutions that will somehow solve digital. That makes them vulnerable to any charlatan with a digital product to sell. ~ Anonymous

Billy Graham is a boring, racist charlatan. ~ Christopher Hitchens

I finish a short afternoon shift that I spent learning about book descriptions with George. It is an arcane system that the Internet is putting paid to, where fair is foul and good is bad and perfect means you are a charlatan. Price-clipped is bad. Second impression is bad. Inscribed is bad, unless it is by the author, and then inscribed is good, but nearly as good as signed. Unless the inscription is to someone patently important - To my dear Laura, love from Petrarch. ~ Deborah Meyler

Donald Trump is an unstable charlatan who is appealing to the worst instincts in people, and I believe ultimately the American people are going to reject that. ~ Martin O'Malley

When he talked, he was lawyer and bard and crossroads charlatan at once, arguing his case, entertaining, pulling back the veil to show you the secrets of the world. It was not just his words, though they were clever enough. It was everything together: his face, his gestures, the sliding tones of his voice. I would say it was like a spell he cast, but there was no spell I knew that could equal it. The gift was his alone. ~ Madeline Miller

Children are ingenuous. They are also blessed with uncanny ability to read a person's character instantly. Even though they are inexperienced and unsophisticated, they often know instinctively who can be trusted and who is the charlatan. ~ Wess Stafford

The charlatan takes very different shapes according to circumstances; but at bottom he is a man who cares nothing about knowledge for its own sake, and only strives to gain the semblance of
it that he may use it for his own personal ends, which are always selfish and material. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

People thought I was a charlatan and a nut. The doctors were against me
they said that working out with weights would give people heart attacks and they would lose their sex drive. ~ Jack LaLanne

They tell me that So-and-So, who does not write prefaces, is no charlatan. Well, I am. I first caught the ear of the British public on a cart in Hyde Park, to the blaring of brass bands,and this ... because ... I am a natural-born mountebank. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Turn over that stone" - she pointed to a flint nearby - "and you will find a charlatan who will dazzle you with the favorable conjunction of Mercury and Venus, flatter your future, and sell you colored water for a gold piece. I can't be bothered with it. From me you get the actuality. ~ Ariana Franklin

The poor wretches have convinced themselves that they are going to be immortal and live for all time, by worshipping that crucified sophist and living under his laws ... they receive these doctrines by tradition, without any definite evidence. So if any charlatan or trickster comes among them, he quickly acquires wealth by imposing upon these simple people. ~ Lucian

Now, I've another errand for you,' said my untiring master; "you must away to my room again. What a mercy you are shod with velvet, Jane!--a clod-hopping messenger would never do at this juncture. You must open the middle drawer of my toilet-table and take out a little phial and a little glass you will find there,--quick!"

I flew thither and back, bringing the desired vessels.

"That's well! Now, doctor, I shall take the liberty of administering a dose myself, on my own responsibility. I got this cordial at Rome, of an Italian charlatan--a fellow you would have kicked, Carter. It is not a thing to be used indiscriminately, but it is good upon occasion: as now, for instance. Jane, a little water."

He held out the tiny glass, and I half filled it from the water-bottle on the washstand.

"That will do;--now wet the lip of the phial."

I did so; he measured twelve drops of a crimson liquid, and presented it to Mason.

"Drink, Richard: it will give you the heart you lack, for an hour or so."

"But will it hurt me?--is it inflammatory?"

"Drink! drink! drink!"

Mr. Mason obeyed, because it was evidently useless to resist. He was dressed now: he still looked pale, but he was no longer gory and sullied. Mr. Rochester let him sit three minutes after he had swallowed the liquid; he then took his arm--

"Now I am sure you can get on your feet," he said--"try."

The patient ros ~ Charlotte Bronte

Rainer Maria Rilke was admittedly not a Dockers tagger, but a sort of European equivalent: a German poet - in many respects, a charlatan masquerading as a genius who turned out to be a genius. ~ Richard Flanagan

But what about human nature? Can it be changed? And if not, will it endure under Anarchism?

Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy name! Every fool, from king to policeman, from the flatheaded parson to the visionless dabbler in science, presumes to speak authoritatively of human nature. The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of human nature. Yet, how can any one speak of it today, with every soul in a prison, with every heart fettered, wounded, and maimed?

John Burroughs has stated that experimental study of animals in captivity is absolutely useless. Their character, their habits, their appetites undergo a complete transformation when torn from their soil in field and forest. With human nature caged in a narrow space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak of its potentialities?

Freedom, expansion, opportunity, and, above all, peace and repose, alone can teach us the real dominant factors of human nature and all its wonderful possibilities.

Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. Anarchism stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals for the purpose of producing real social wealth; an order that will guarantee to every human being fre ~ Emma Goldman

I was deeply influenced by an Episcopal laywoman named Agnes Sanford, who in her day was quite famous as a faith healer, which is a term I've always distrusted, because it conjures up charlatanry. She was not a charlatan. She was the real thing, and she had had remarkable healings. ~ Frederick Buechner

In a world in which everyone cheats, it's the honest man who passes for a charlatan. ~ Andre Gide

There are rumors that you died on the Fold. People have been selling off parts of you all over Ravka and West Ravka for months. You're quite the good luck charm."
"Those are supposed to be my fingers?"
"Knuckles, toes, fragments of rib."
I felt sick. I looked around, hoping to spot Mal, needing to see something familiar.
"Of course," Nikolai continued, "if half of those were really your toes, you'd have about a hundred feet. But superstition is a powerful thing. ~ Leigh Bardugo

A charlatan walked as a prophet,
and changed the world of sheep in his wake,
and all that while,
God watched
with blind eyes,
helpless… ~ Vijay Fafat

If I did only one thing at a time I'd think I was wasting my time. If, for example, I only wrote novels I would feel like a charlatan and a fraud. ~ Peter Ackroyd

Science is more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking; a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility.
If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then, we are up for grabs for the next charlatan (political or religious) who comes rambling along. ~ Carl Sagan

A master with one disciple is greater than a charlatan with a million. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

At first, I was called a quack, a charlatan, and worse, year after year, in Australia, England and the United States, by men who simply refused to believe that a nurse from 'the bush' could devise a treatment which succeeded where they had failed. ~ Elizabeth Kenny

The man who craves disciples and wants followers is always more or less of a charlatan. The man of genuine worth and insight wants to be himself; and he wants others to be themselves, also. ~ Elbert Hubbard

There's no scientist I know who wouldn't rather be a charlatan. And when circumstances allow you to be both, why it's great fun! ~ Edwin Land

Every true artist must, in his own way, be a magician, a charlatan. ~ Orson Welles

We have not chosen this time. We cannot help it if we are born as men of the early winter of full Civilization, instead of on the golden summit of a ripe Culture, in a Phidias or a Mozart time. Everything depends on our seeing our own position, our destiny, clearly, on our realizing that though we may lie to ourselves about it, we cannot evade it. He who does not acknowledge this in his heart, ceases to be counted among the men of his generation, and remains either a simpleton, a charlatan, or a pedant. ~ Oswald Spengler

When people call me a photographer, I always feel like something of a charlatan - at least in Japanese. The word shashin, for photograph, combines the characters sha, meaning to reflect or copy, and shin, meaning truth, hence the photographer seems to entertain grand delusions of portraying truth. ~ Hiroshi Sugimoto

The charlatan is always the pioneer. From the astrologer came the astronomer, from the alchemist the chemist, from the mesmerist the experimental psychologist. The quack of yesterday is the professor of tomorrow. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy name! Every fool, from king to policeman, from the flatheaded parson to the visionless dabbler in science, presumes to speak authoritatively of human nature. The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of human nature. Yet, how can any one speak of it today, with every soul in a prison, with every heart fettered, wounded, and maimed? ~ Emma Goldman