Grandiose Quotes - Page 2

To our real, naked selves there is not a thing on earth or in heaven worth dying for. It is only when we see ourselves as actors in a staged (and therefore unreal) performance that death loses its frightfulness and finality and becomes an act of make-believe and a theatrical gesture. It is one of the main tasks of a real leader to mask the grim reality of dying and killing by evoking in his followers the illusion that they are participating in a grandiose spectacle, a solemn or lighthearted dramatic performance.

Eric Hoffer

Real, Believe, Self

Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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I seem to know all the cliches, but not how to put them together in a believable way. Or else these stories are terrible and grandiose precisely because all the cliches intertwine in an unrealistic way and you can't disentangle them. But when you actually live a cliche, it feels brand new, and you are unashamed.

Umberto Eco

Together, Stories, Way

"The Mysterious Flame Of Queen Loana". Book by Umberto Eco, 2005.

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An individualism which has got beyond the stage of hedonism tends to yield to the lure of the grandiose. It was not man, the individual, nor even the Supreme Being, that Robespierre set up against Christ; it was that Leviathan, the Nation.

Andre Malraux

Men, Yield, Leviathan

"The Voices of Silence". Book by Andre Malraux, Doubleday, Part IV, Chapter I, 1953.

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Psychopaths have a grandiose self-structure which demands a scornful and detached devaluation of others, in order to ward off their envy toward the good perceived in other people. He will choose you, disarm you with his words, and control you with his presence. He will delight you with his wit and his plans. He will show you a good time but you will always get the bill. He will smile and deceive you, and he will scare you with his eyes. And when he is through with you, and he will be through with you, he will desert you and take with him your innocence and your pride.

Robert D. Hare

Eye, Pride, Self

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It is to escape the responsibility for failure that the weak so eagerly throw themselves into grandiose undertakings.

Eric Hoffer

Failure, Responsibility, Weak

Eric Hoffer (1963). “The Ordeal of Change”

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Where there had been only fearful emptiness or equally frightening grandiose fantasies, an unexpected wealth of vitality is now discovered. This is not a homecoming, since this home has never before existed. It is the creation of home.

Alice Miller

Home, Vitality, Fans

Alice Miller (1997). “The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self”, p.19, Basic Books

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Belief in the traditional sense, or certitude, or dogma, amounts to the grandiose delusion, "My current model" -- or grid, or map, or reality-tunnel -- "contains the whole universe and will never need to be revised." In terms of the history of science and knowledge in general, this appears absurd and arrogant to me, and I am perpetually astonished that so many people still manage to live with such a medieval attitude.

Robert Anton Wilson

Attitude, Reality, Tunnels

Robert Anton Wilson (1977). “Cosmic trigger: final secret of the illuminati”, New Falcon Pubns

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Darkness always had its part to play. Without it, how would we know when we walked in the light? It’s only when its ambitions become too grandiose that it must be opposed, disciplined, sometimes—if necessary—brought down for a time. Then it will rise again, as it must.

Clive Barker

Ambition, Play, Light

FaceBook post by Clive Barker from Mar 12, 2014

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No, dance is not a monster. The stage is monstrous, not in the negative sense but on the grandiose side. And dance is sacred as something emotionally strong happens.

Sylvie Guillem

Strong, Monsters, Negative

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I was attacked the other night for being grandiose. I would just want you to note: Lincoln standing at Council Bluffs was grandiose. The Wright Brothers standing at Kitty Hawk were grandiose. John F. Kennedy was grandiose. I accept the charge that I am grandiose and that Americans are instinctively grandiose.

Newt Gingrich

Brother, Night, Want

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Utopians...consider individual freedom as the stumbling block on which the grandiose idea of mankind's totalization may flounder.

Thomas Steven Molnar

Block, Ideas, May

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One of the most fashionable notions of our times is that social problems like poverty and oppression breed wars. Most wars, however, are started by well-fed people with the time on their hands to dream up half-baked ideologies or grandiose ambitions, and to nurse real or imagined grievances.

Thomas Sowell

Dream, Real, War

Thomas Sowell (2002). “Controversial Essays”, Hoover Inst Press

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Finally, the most grandiose result of the photographic enterprise is to give us the sense that we can hold the whole world in our heads – as an anthology of images. To collect photographs is to collect the world

Susan Sontag

Giving, World, Photograph

Susan Sontag (2011). “On Photography”, p.5, Macmillan

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For someone so conflicted, who am I to give advice to anybody? It’s such a funny, grandiose idea

Florence Welch

Ideas, Giving, Advice

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Do not try to paint the grandiose thing. Paint the commonplace so that it will be distinguished.

William Merritt Chase

Trying, Paint, Distinguished

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He's got lots of money and clearly has grandiose schemes, seeing himself as an important global player. There is a reality to it. Oil is at record prices, and he's willing to spend both in Venezuela and in the region. But the question is, how much influence is he gaining

Michael Shifter

Player, Reality, Oil

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All right, New York City! Welcome to Madison... Square... Jericho! And after tonight, when I become the true, undisputed Intercontinental champion, the Jerichoholics of the Big Apple will throw a celebration party that will make the millennium bash in Times Square look like my sister's seventh birthday party! It'll be a celebration so huge, so grandiose, so spectacular, that it will never, EEEEEEEEVER, be forgotten again!

Chris Jericho

New York, Party, Squares

"Royal Rumble", www.imdb.com. 2000.

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I think that doing comedy and playing Dwight is a service. Not to get grandiose about it, but I have a talent for playing oddball characters and I can make people laugh and that can help bring families together and people will really enjoy it and it puts a smile on their face and I think that is a really great thing.

Rainn Wilson

Character, Thinking, Laughing

Source: bigthink.com

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Hearing, seeing and understanding each other, humanity from one end of the earth to the other now lives simultaneously, omnipresent like a god thanks to its own creative ability. And, thanks to its victory over space and time, it would now be splendidly united for all time, if it were not confused again and again by that fatal delusion which causes humankind to keep on destroying this grandiose unity and to destroy itself with the same resources which gave it power over the elements.

Stefan Zweig

Confused, Space, Creative

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On the other hand, hope is subversive, for it limits the grandiose pretension of the present, daring to announce that the present to which we have all made commitments is now called into question.

Walter Brueggemann

Commitment, Hands, Limits

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A writer should never install himself before a panorama, however grandiose it may be.

Blaise Cendrars

May, Should, Panorama

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I love that, for Kanye [West], there's no difference between the epic and the personal. That makes him sound like a really grandiose douche - which, I don't think anyone, himself included, could contest - but at the same time, it's really amazing. I love the scope of his perfectionism.

David Longstreth

Thinking, Epic, Differences

Source: pitchfork.com

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It always seemed to me like it was a significant thing to do with one's life to be an actor 'cause I love movies and I felt like, not to be grandiose about it, but there is something important about film with the function it provides to general society.

Charlie Hunnam

Significant Things, Movie Love, Important

"Comic-Con 2011: Charlie Hunnam and Ron Perlman Interview SONS OF ANARCHY". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. July 25, 2011.

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Small steps work—grandiose goals don’t.

Sonia Choquette

Goal, Small Steps, Steps

Sonia Choquette (2010). “Trust Your Vibes: Secret Tools for Six-Sensory Living”, p.16, ReadHowYouWant.com

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It might sound dramatic and a little grandiose, but as a Latina, I would like to be someone that gives a voice to my culture.

Cristela Alonzo

Voice, Giving, Sound

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