Ostentatious Quotes - Page 2

• The people seemed nearly ostentatious about minding their own business.

  Robert Jordan

  People, Own Business

  Robert Jordan (2009). “The Great Hunt: Book Two of 'The Wheel of Time'”, p.355, Macmillan

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• The afrit batted his eyelashes with a ostentatious lack of concern. "Indeed? Have you a name?" "A name?" I cried. "I have MANY names! I am Bartimaeus! I am Sakhr al-Jinni! I am N'gorso the Mighty and the Serpent of Silver Plumes!" I paused dramatically. The young man looked blank. "Nope never heard of you. Now if you'll just-

  Jonathan Stroud

  Men, Eyelashes, Names

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• As I glanced at the phraseology of the research report, dull and unfathomable to outsiders like me, I thought that if you have the ambition to become a villain, the first thing you should do is learn to be impenetrable. Don’t act like Blofeld—monocled and ostentatious. We journalists love writing about eccentrics. We hate writing about impenetrable, boring people. It makes us look bad: the duller the interviewee, the duller the prose. If you want to get away with wielding true, malevolent power, be boring.

  Jon Ronson

  Hate, Writing, Ambition

  Jon Ronson (2012). “Jon Ronson's Adventures With Extraordinary People”, p.534, Pan Macmillan

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• Self-denial is taught much better by inspiring the love of our neighbor, than by the prohibition of innocent comforts and pleasures. Spirituality is much better taught by making spiritual things the objects of supreme desire, than by commanding an ostentatious avoidance of the enjoyments of life.

  Harriet Martineau

  Spiritual, Self, Desire

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• You have overburdened your argument with ostentatious erudition.

  David McCullough

  Argument, Abigail, Erudition

  "John Adams' Legacy Revisited in HBO Series". "Talk of the Nation" with Neal Conan, www.npr.org. April 15, 2008.

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• The consumer's side of the coffin lid is never ostentatious.

  Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

  Decision, Coffins, Sides

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• Critics are always complaining about the materialism of hip-hop and accusing the artists of living way above their means. But this ostentatious sort of spending isn't strictly the province of hip-hop. It's almost like a continuation of the American Dream.

  Simon de Pury

  Dream, Mean, Artist

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I do not play games, but always just say what's on my mind. Ostentatious modesty - for fools. If a man afraid of your honesty, it means that he is not the one you need.

  Mila Kunis

  Honesty, Mean, Men

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• I think I have in fact been situated in most of the squares on the political checkerboard, one after another and sometimes simultaneously: as anarchist, leftist, ostentatious or disguised Marxist, nihilist, explicit or secret anti-Marxist, technocrat in the service of Gaullism, new liberal and so on.

  Michel Foucault

  Thinking, Squares, Political

  Source: www.nicklewis.org

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• The manly pride of the Romans, content with substantial power, had left to the vanity of the East the forms and ceremonies of ostentatious greatness. But when they lost even the semblance of those virtues which were derived from their ancient freedom, the simplicity of Roman manners was insensibly corrupted by the stately affectation of the courts of Asia.

  Edward Gibbon

  Pride, Greatness, Vanity

  Edward Gibbon (1875). “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.107

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• There is nothing so difficult to describe as happiness. Whether some feeling of envy enters into the mind upon hearing of it, or whether it is so calm, so unassuming, so little ostentatious in itself, that words give an imperfect idea of it, I know not. It is easier to enjoy it, than define it. ... and is oftener found at home, when home has not been embittered by dissensions, suspicions and guilt, than any where else upon earth. Yes, it is in home and in those who watch there for us.

  Lady Caroline Lamb

  Happiness, Home, Ideas

  Lady Caroline Lamb (2009). “The Works of Lady Caroline Lamb: Glenarvon (1816)”

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• How different is the ready hand, tearful eye, and soothing voice, from the ostentatious appearance which is called pity.

  Jane Porter

  Eye, Hands, Voice

  Sir Philip Sidney, Jane Porter (1807). “Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney: With Remarks”, p.114

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• If a young lady has that discretion and modesty without which all knowledge is little worth, she will never make an ostentatious parade of it, because she will rather be intent on acquiring more than on displaying what she has.

  Hannah More

  Littles, Modesty, Parades

  Hannah More (1835). “The works of Hannah More”, p.344

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• Always run to the short way; and the short way is the natural: accordingly say and do everything in conformity with the soundest reason. For such a purpose frees a man from trouble, and warfare, and all artifice and ostentatious display.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Running, Men, Atheism

  Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Lucius Annaeus Seneca (2015). “Stoic Six Pack: Meditations of Marcus Aurelius The Golden Sayings Fragments and Discourses of Epictetus Letters from a Stoic and The Enchiridion”, p.22, Lulu.com

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• Recognising that an ostentatious cult of heroism and state service served an important propaganda function for the British elite does not mean, of course, that we should dismiss it as artificial or insincere. All aristocracies have a strong military tradition, and for many British patricians the protracted warfare of the period was a godsend. It gave them a job, and, more important, a purpose, an opportunity to carry out what they had been trained to do since childhood: ride horses, fire guns, exercise their undoubted physical courage and tell other people what to do.

  Linda Colley

  Strong, Horse, Jobs

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• From heaven's standpoint, all spiritual victories are won not primarily in the pulpit, not primarily in the klieg light of publicity, nor yet through the ostentatious blaring of trumpets, but in the secret place of prayer.

  Paul Billheimer

  Spiritual, Prayer, Light

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• It's very dangerous to invent something in our times; ostentatious men of the other world, who are hostile to innovations, roam about angrily. To live in peace, one has to stay away from innovations and new ideas. Innovations, like trees, attract the most destructive lightnings to themselves.

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Science, Men, Other Worlds

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• A lot of parts of L.A. are interchangeable with suburbs in Joburg. Very big, ostentatious houses with palm trees and lawns. Lawns are very important. Never underestimate lawns.

  Neill Blomkamp

  House, Tree, Important

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• For me it's a dedication to your real interests. It's an ability to be open-minded. Without an open-minded mind, you can never be a great success. The great artists have been open-minded, even though they may seem, like Picasso, to be very directed, you can be directed and open-minded at the same time. I think you have to be really intensely serious about your work, but not so serious that you can't see the lightness that may also involve your life. You have to have that lightness too. You have to not be so heavy-handed and so ostentatious. It's very important not to be.

  Martha Stewart

  Real, Thinking, Dedication

  "Discovering Everyday Good Things". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 2, 1995.

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• There are as many attitudes to cooking as there are people cooking, of course, but I do think that cooking guys tend - I am a guilty party here - to take, or get, undue credit for domestic virtue, when in truth cooking is the most painless and, in its ways, ostentatious of the domestic chores.

  Adam Gopnik

  Attitude, Party, Thinking

  "Adam Gopnik on Food, Baseball, and The New Yorker". Interview with David Haglund, www.slate.com. November 7, 2011.

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