Flippant Quotes

• The coconut trees, lithe and graceful, crowd the beach like a minuet of slender elderly virgins adopting flippant poses.

  William Manchester

  Beach, Ocean, Elderly

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• Nothing is more disgusting than the crowing about liberty by slaves, as most men are, and the flippant mistaking for freedom of some paper preamble like a Declaration of Independence, or the statute right to vote, by those who have never dared to think or to act.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Freedom, Men, Thinking

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.84, Penguin

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• Sometimes I worry that I've lost the plot My twitching muscles tease my flippant thoughts I never really dreamed of heaven much Until we put him in the ground. There is nothing as lucky, as easy, or free

  Conor Oberst

  Worry, Heaven, Plot

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• A flippant, frivolous man may ridicule others, may controvert them, scorn them; but he who has any respect for himself seems to have renounced the right of thinking meanly of others.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Respect, Men, Thinking

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (18??). “The Works of J. W. Von Goethe”

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• I prefer to be flippant about acting, just in case I'm rubbish.

  Tom Hollander

  Acting, Rubbish, Cases

  "Tom Hollander on why Rev is his proudest achievement". www.mirror.co.uk. November 10, 2011.

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• I could not write about a subject sacred to me because I would be too flippant. Fortunately, there are no subjects sacred to me.

  Joseph Heller

  Writing, Would Be, Sacred

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• There is a fun, flippant side to me, of course. But I would much rather be known as the Ice Queen.

  Siouxsie Sioux

  Queens, Fun, Ice Queen

  "Her dark materials" by Michael Bracewell, www.theguardian.com. September 23, 2005.

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• I am flippant. That's one of my charms.

  Ryan O'Neal

  Charm

  "The Tavis Smiley Show" with Tavis Smiley, www.pbs.org. May 11, 2012.

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• It would be pretty shabby to appear flippant around a documentary that's about how much I love my fans.

  Rick Springfield

  Fans, Would Be, Documentaries

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• We are really pleased with our revenues but our goal isn't to make money. It sounds a little flippant, but it's the truth. Our goal and what makes us excited is to make great products. If we are successful people will like them and if we are operationally competent, we will make money.

  Jonathan Ive

  Successful, People, Goal

  "Jonathan Ive: Apple's goal isn't to make money". www.wired.co.uk. July 30, 2012.

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• As long as we are flippant and stupid and shallow and think that we know ourselves, we shall never give ourselves over to Jesus Christ; but when once we become conscious that we are infinitely more than we can fathom, and infinitely greater in possibility either for good or bad than we can know, we shall be only too glad to hand ourselves over to Him.

  Oswald Chambers

  Faith, Christian, Religious

  Oswald Chambers, Harry Verploegh (1990). “The Oswald Chambers Devotional Reader: 52 Weekly Themes”, Oliver-Nelson Books

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• To live as I incline, or not to live at all: so do I wish; so wisheth also the holiest. But alas! how have I still - inclination? Have I-still a goal? A haven towards which MY sail is set?A good wind? Ah, he only who knoweth WHITHER he saileth, knoweth what wind is good, and a fair wind for him.What still remaineth to me? A heart weary and flippant; and unstable will; fluttering wings; a broken backbone.This seeking for MY home: O Zarathustra, dost thou know that this seeking hath been MY home-sickening; it eateth me up.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Heart, Home, Wind

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2016). “Thus spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None”, p.281, Friedrich Nietzsche

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• To me, a lady is not frilly, flouncy, flippant, frivolous and fluff-brained, but she is gentle, she is gracious, she is godly and she is giving. You and I have the gift of femininity... the more womanly we are, the more manly men will be and the more God is glorified. Be women, be only women, be real women in obedience to God.

  Elisabeth Elliot

  Real, Godly, Men

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• An altered look about the hills; A Tyrian light the village fills; A wider sunrise in the dawn; A deeper twilight on the lawn; A print of a vermilion foot; A purple finger on the slope; A flippant fly upon the pane; A spider at his trade again; An added strut in chanticleer; A flower expected everywhere.

  Emily Dickinson

  Spring, Flower, Twilight

  Emily Dickinson (1994). “The Works of Emily Dickinson”, p.114, Wordsworth Editions

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• I think a lot of actors take on fun roles and then they're lazy or flippant with them. I just can't do that.

  Guy Pearce

  Fun, Thinking, Lazy

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• I've always warned my clients about fame being very dangerous, and unfortunately, they need to be famous to make a living, but not to be flippant with it, that it could kill them, and to always keep their eye on it. There was no reason for me to do it. I don't make my money off fame, not my fame.

  Shep Gordon

  Eye, Needs, Clients

  Source: collider.com

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• Desi, Desi, Desi what am I going to do with you? (Kyrian) Don't you dare take that flippant tone with me! (Desiderius) Why ever not? (Kyrian) Because I am not some scared little Daimon to run cringing from you. I am your worst nightmare. (Desiderius) Must you resort to cliches? C'mon, Desidisastrous, couldn't you think of anything more original than that B-movie dialogue staple? (Kyrian)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Running, Thinking, Worst Nightmares

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• Do I believe in God? Can't answer, I'm afraid. I'm not being flippant, but I don't understand the question. What is it that I am supposed to believe or not believe in? Are you asking whether I believe there is something not in the universe (or the universes, if there are (maybe infinitely) many of them), and that somehow stands above them? I've never heard of any reason for believing that.

  Noam Chomsky

  Believe, Asking, Answers

  Source: chomsky.info

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• I don't mean to be flippant about cancer - it was hard, it was tough and it was scary. Then my next manuscript was about cancer because I had a whole new topic to write about. And because I wrote, it didn't take over. Writing took the chaos out of cancer.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Cancer, Writing, Mean

  "The Writing Life". Interview with Mark Matousek, www.psychologytoday.com. July 19, 2016.

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• The public's appetite for frothy, flippant blondes has waned, but Paris Hilton still fascinates me.

  Diablo Cody

  Paris, Appetite, Stills

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• When one's thoughts are neither frivolous nor flippant, when one's thoughts are neither stiff-necked nor stupid, but rather, are harmonious -- they habitually render physical calm and deep insight.

  Hildegard of Bingen

  Stupid, Calm, Insight

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• My tutors at drama school commended and criticised my use of comedy in my acting for a long time at drama school. They said I had a tendency to somehow perform the most tragic of scenes in a slightly flippant way.

  John Bradley-West

  Drama, School, Long

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• It is very difficult to give a 15 second sound bite on why there is pain and suffering in this world and not have it come off as being flippant or surface level or superficial.

  Lee Strobel

  Pain, Giving, Suffering

  "Interview: Lee Strobel Makes Case for Faith ... Again". Interview with Michelle A. Vu, www.christianpost.com. September 25, 2008.

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• Knee-Jerk Irony: The tendency to make flippant ironic comments as a reflexive matter of course in everyday conversation.

  Douglas Coupland

  Ironic, Everyday, Knees

  "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture". Book by Douglas Coupland, 1991.

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• Americans have a taste for…rocking-chairs. A flippant critic might suggest that they select rocking-chairs so that, even when they are sitting down, they need not be sitting still. Something of this restlessness in the race may really be involved in the matter; but I think the deeper significance of the rocking-chair may still be found in the deeper symbolism of the rocking-horse. I think there is behind all this fresh and facile use of wood a certain spirit that is childish in the good sense of the word; something that is innocent, and easily pleased.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Horse, Thinking, Race

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