We have constructed an artifice, a Potemkin village of an ecosystem where we perpetrate the illusion that the things we consume have just fallen off the back of Santa’s sleigh, not been ripped from the earth. The illusion enables us to imagine that the only choices we have are between brands. - Robin Wall Kimmerer
A piece of art, when completed, encapsulates its own reality. As its architect, the artist’s task is to craft it well enough that the reader believes in its existence and is willing to enter, explore, and engage based on the artist’s version of the truth, even if that truth is artifice. - Kate Kearns
Let's go old school to impress people. Wear a smile, rather than a branded dress. Crease out our differences with understanding. And, use empathy, care, and patience as accessories. Then, let's make a conversation, not talk. Ah, what a fine world it would be! Fine, pure and minus artifice. - Saru Singhal
All too often, we mask truth in artifice, concealing ourselves for fear of losing the ones we love or prolonging a deception for those we wish to expose. We hide behind that which brings us comfort from pain and sadness or use it to repel a truth too devastating to accept. - Emily Thorne
Representative government is artifice, a political myth, designed to conceal from the masses the dominance of a self-selected, self-perpetuating, and self-serving traditional ruling class. - Giuseppe Prezzolini