100 Best Mask Quotes To See Behind The Façade

People hide their true selves behind a false mask so that others will stop judging their personalities.

We've compiled a list of mask quotes on this very theme. These quotes are taken from the best work of the wisest thinkers.

If you like mask quotes and want to read more quotes then take a look at these Key quotes and Vanity quotes.

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Read the best quotes about masks.

1. "Love has a powerful way of removing the mask we all insist on wearing."

- Jessy.

2. "I lie without a mask, thus I am an honest man."

- Lionel Suggs.

3. "Wit is often a mask. If you tear it you will find either genius irritated or cleverness juggling."

- Khalil Gibran.

4. "I learned in high school, if I hold up an effigy, a mask, or a lie, that mask will get all the love, not me."

- Lynn Breedlove.

5. "Strength is a facade for the proud, weakness is a mask for the lazy."

- William James.

6. "It's in literature that true life can be found. It's under the mask of fiction that you can tell the truth."

- Gao Xingjian.

7. "Would you make no distinction between hypocrisy and devotion? Would you give them the same names, and respect the mask as you do the face? "

- Moliere.

8. "There is a King Who is aware of every Mask you put on."

- Rumi.

9. "Faith strips the mask from the world and renders meaningless such words as anxiety, danger and fear, so the believer goes through life calmly and peacefully, with profound joy, like a child, hand and hand with his mother."

-Charles de Foucauld.

10. "Behind this mask there is more than just flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, and ideas are bulletproof."

- Alan Moore.

11. "Villainy wears many masks; none so dangerous as the mask of virtue."

- Washington Irving.

12. "If you want to say something and have people listen then you have to wear a mask. If you want to be honest then you have to live a lie."

- Banksy.

13. "It is the mask which makes sacrifice possible, which allows us to make war."

-Jean Baudrillard.

14. "I've never been able to understand the seriousness of it all, the seriousness of pride. People talk, act, live as if they're never going to die. And what do they leave behind? Nothing. Nothing but a mask."

- Bob Dylan.

15. "You trade in your reality for a role. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask."

- Jim Morrison.

16. "Humor is the mask of wisdom."

- Friedrich Durrenmatt.

17. "Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within."

- James A. Baldwin.

18. "Every profound spirit needs a mask."

- Friedrich Nietzsche.

19. "Virtue has a veil, vice a mask."

- Victor Hugo.

20. "I see behind each mask that wonder a kindred soul."

- Walt Whitman.

21. "I wear the mask. It does not wear me."

- Phillippe, 'Man in the Iron Mask'.

22. "Modern society is a biological disaster masquerading as progress."  

- Steven Magee.

23. "During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism."

- Howard Thurman.

24. "Why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe?"

- Ralph Waldo Emerson.

25. "Masks reveal in the eyes the face that lies hidden as if the mask is a dark glass mirroring your soul."

- Chloe Thurlow.

26. "Stripped of all their masquerades, the fears of men are quite identical: the fear of loneliness, rejection, inferiority, unmanageable anger, illness and death."

- Joshua L. Liebman.

Here are some hiding behind the mask quotes about people deceiving and some quotes about what happens when the mask comes off. These mask quotes will make you reflect on people's true character.

27. "There is a quality even meaner than outright ugliness or disorder, and this meaner quality is the dishonest mask of pretended order."

- Jane Jacobs.

28. "Usually, as I say, there is nothing but industrialists, businessmen and speculators concealed behind all these masks."

- Arthur Schopenhauer.

29. "The trouble with a mask is it never changes."

- Charles Bukowski.

30. "I think that is why we stay close to our families, no matter how neurotic the members, how deeply annoying or dull- because when people have seen you at your worst, you don’t have to put on the mask as much."

- Anne Lamott.

31. "A masquerade that nice guys can persuade with such charming ways and leave you with such heartache."

- Celia Rouge Hofin.

32. "I remember hearing someone say that good acting is more about taking off a mask than putting one on, and in movie acting, certainly that's true. With the camera so close, you can see right down into your soul."

-Annette Bening.

33. "You can become a prime minister, you can become a president, but these are all masks. Behind them you will find very violent people."

- Osho.

34. "Most people are loved for who they are not! People hide their true colors. They are afraid to show them. They don’t find their true colors beautiful. They find them ugly."

- Thomas Stark.

35. "I'm a very positive person, but this whole concept of having to always be nice, always smiling, always happy, that's not real. It was like I was wearing a mask."

- Alicia Keys

36. "If you want people to love you for who you are, take the mask off."

- Quetzal.

37. "Behind every mask there is a face, and behind that a story."

- Marty Rubin.

38. "Without wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have a special face for each friend."

- Oliver Wendell Holmes.

39. "Talkative represents the man or woman who delights in talking about divine things but has only theoretical knowledge of such things."

- John Bunyan.

40. "He often felt that too many people lived their lives acting and pretending wearing masks and losing themselves in the process."

- Nicholas Sparks.

41. "Like icebergs, people normally expose only a small part of themselves, and generally just the part they wish to show."

- Nikki Yanofsky.

42. "Vice, in its true light, is so deformed, that it shocks us at first sight; and would hardly ever seduce us, if it did not at first wear the mask of some virtue."

- Lord Chesterfield.

43. "As we ascend the social ladder, viciousness wears a thicker mask."

- Erich Fromm.

44. "People are more complicated than the masks they wear in society."

- Robert Greene.

45. "The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party, when the masks are dropped."

- Cesare Pavese.

46. "I am a stranger. You do not need to lie to me or pretend. Only with friends do you need masks."

- David Gemmell.

47. "Dissimulation is to no purpose before so great a judge. Falsehood puts on a mask. Nothing is hidden under the sun."

- Leonardo da Vinci.

48. "Mortals are equal; their mask differs."

- Voltaire.

49. "All societies end up wearing masks."

- Jean Baudrillard.

50. "The human face is, after all, nothing more nor less than a mask."

- Agatha Christie.

51. "Say the whole point of love is to try to get your fingers through the holes in the lover's mask."

- David Foster Wallace.

52. "Behind the mask of ice that people wear, there beats a heart of fire."

- Paulo Coelho.

53. "Because I know that hope and fear are connected, I put my mask of hope on."

- Will Smith.

54. "Sometimes wearing a mask is the best way to show our true selves."

- Lisa Mangum.

55. "Sometimes it's not the people who change, it's the mask that falls off."

- Haruki Murakami.

56. "The defenders of the status quo often masquerade as the preservers of harmony."

- Mark Sheppard.

57. "His appearance is in reality a hidden masquerade."

- Justin Bienvenue.

58. "Life is a masquerade. Everywhere you look are people hiding behind masks."

- Ridze Khan.

Here are some 'why one wears mask' quotes and 'how one feels with mask off' quotes.

59. "If I had you wear that mask today, Anne, would you find the courage to tell me what is troubling you?"

- Lena Coakley.

60. "It's a terrible thing to be alone, yes it is, it is, but don't lower your mask until you have another mask prepared beneath, as terrible as you like, but a mask."

- Katherine Mansfield.

61. "Nothing is more real than the masks we make to show each other who we are."

- Christopher Barzak.

62. "We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be."

- Patrick Rothfuss.

63. "I wish everyday could be Halloween. We could all wear masks all the time. Then we could walk around and get to know each other before we got to see what we looked like under the masks."

- R. J. Palacio.

64. "No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true."

- Nathaniel Hawthorne.

65. "We all wear masks, and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing some of our own skin."

- André Berthiaume.

66. "Are we really happy with this lonely game we play? Looking for words to say, Searching but not finding, understanding anyway, We're lost in a masquerade."

- Leon Russell.

67. "There is a life behind the personality that uses personalities as masks."

- Dion Fortune.

68. "Style is the physiognomy of the mind. It is more infallible than that of the body. To imitate the style of another is said to be wearing a mask."

- Arthur Schopenhauer.

69. "We wear the mask that grins and lies."

- Paul Laurence Dunbar.

70. "Wearing a mask wears you out. Faking it is fatiguing."

- Rick Warren.

71. "Although I know it's unfair, I reveal myself one mask at a time."

- Stephen Dunn.

72. "It was a dance of masks and every mask was perfect because every mask was a real face and every face was a real mask so there was no mask and there was no face for there was but one dance."

- Leonard Cohen.

73. "Choose your self-presentations carefully, for what starts out as a mask may become your face."

- Erving Goffman.

74. "So I learned to hold my tongue and to turn my features into an indifferent mask so that no one could ever read my thoughts."

- Suzanne Collins.

75. "Life is too short to spend hoping that the perfectly arched eyebrow or hottest new lip shade will mask an ugly heart."

- Kevyn Aucoin.

76. "You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it."

- Alan Moore.

77. "It’s true, we’re locked in an image, an act, and the sad thing is, people get so used to their image, they grow attached to their masks."

- Jim Morrison.

78. "Most lives are spent putting on and taking off masks."

- Gore Vidal.

79. "Some of us wear the mask prouder than others."

- Lady Gaga.

80. "He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it."

- George Orwell.

81. "Be real, because a mask only fools people on the outside. Pretending to be someone you're not takes a toll on the real you, and the real you is more important than anyone else."

- Alex Gaskarth.

82. "Personality is a mask you believe in."

- Robert J. White.

83. "Tear off the mask. Your face is glorious."

- Rumi.

84. "The only proper mask to wear in life is your own damn face."

- Toni Cade Bambara.

85. "When you wear the mask, the mask becomes you."

- Qiu Xiaolong.

86. "There are three masks: the one we think we are, the one we really are, and the one we have in common."

- Jacques Lecoq.

87. "There come a time, when good man must wear mask."

- Tonto, 'The Lone Ranger'.

88. "The mask in which you choose to disguise yourself uncovers who you subconsciously are or want to be."

- Chloe Thurlow.

89. "We are so accustomed to masquerade ourselves before others that we end by deceiving ourselves."

- François de la Rochefoucauld.

This list of mask quotes is thought-provoking. It also includes some amusing and funny mask sayings and some mask quotes which will give you food for thought.

90. "If you doubt the virtue in self-honor, remember what the flight attendant says, 'Put your own oxygen mask on first.' You are of no use to anyone else if you have not taken care of your own needs first."

- Jonathan Lockwood Huie.

91. "We all have a social mask, right? We put it on, we go out, put our best foot forward, our best image. But behind that social mask is a personal truth, what we really, really believe about who we are and what we're capable of."

- Phil McGraw

92. "Dignity is a mask we wear to hide our ignorance."

- Elbert Hubbard.

93. "I got the bill for my surgery. Now I know what those doctors were wearing masks for."

- James H. Boren.

94. "Do you not know that there comes a midnight hour

when everyone has to throw off his mask?"

- Soren Kierkegaard.

95. "A mask tells us more than a face."

- Oscar Wilde.

96. "Life is a mask through which the universe expresses itself."

- Frank Herbert.

97. "Society is a masked ball, where everyone hides his real character, and reveals it by hiding."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson.

98. "God has given you one face, and you make yourself another."

- William Shakespeare.

99. "Unlike grownups, children have little need to deceive themselves."

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

100. "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.

Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth."

- Oscar Wilde.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for mask quotes then why not take a look at Chess quotes, or Good Times quotes.

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