Being true to oneself

I am not so much worried about how I am in the minds of other men as how I am to myself. I want to be enriched by me not by borrowings from others. Those outside us only see events and external appearances… They do not see my mind: they only see the looks on my face.

That is why all those judgements which are based on external appearances are unbelievably unreliable and dubious, and why there is no more reliable witness than each man is to himself.

~ Montaigne, The Complete Essays (1587-88)