Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial–notoriously less stable and less inherent than the nature of other things. And insofar as this is the case, sincerity itself is bullshit.

Harry G. Frankfurt
About This Quote

Sincerity in life is an extremely difficult thing to attain. For it requires complete honesty, which is the unquestioned ability to be completely honest about one’s own thoughts and feelings, especially in relationships with other people. Yet, sincerity is something that everyone is quick to be offended by when it does not apply to them. The idea of sincerity seems to stem from the idea that you must possess something that you are unwilling to give away.

Source: On Bullshit

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  1. The contemporary proliferation of bullshit also has deeper sources, in various forms of skepticism which deny that we can have any reliable access to an objective reality and which therefore reject the possibility of knowing how things truly are. These "anti-realist" doctrines undermine confidence in...
  2. Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial–notoriously less stable and less inherent than the nature of other things. And insofar as this is the case, sincerity itself is bullshit.
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