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a person who wants to seem more than he or she is by pretending to have a higher social rank, a better professional position or a greater wealth

An impostor (also spelled imposter) is a person who pretends to be somebody else, often through means of disguise.


The first man who, having enclosed a piece of land, thought of saying ‘This is mine’ and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, wars, murders; how much misery and horror the human race would have been spared if someone had pulled up the stakes and filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: ‘Beware of listening to this impostor. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to everyone and the earth itself belongs to no one!” ~ Jean Jacques Rousseau
  • Indeed, right is with us and in us, and there is no one else who says this but that he is a liar and an impostor.
  • Anyone who speaks in the name of others is always an impostor.
    • Emil Cioran, A Short History of Decay (1949), French title: Précis de décomposition.

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