Pedantic Quotes - Page 2

• To substitute judgments of fact for judgments of value is a sign of pedantic and borrowed criticism.

  George Santayana

  Criticism, Facts, Judgment

  George Santayana (2012). “The Sense of Beauty”, p.14, Courier Corporation

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• Busy old fool, unruly sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains, call on us? Must to thy motions lovers'seasons run? Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide Late schoolboys, and sour prentices, Go tell court-huntsmen that the King will ride, Call countryants to harvest offices; Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime, Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

  John Donne

  Running, Time, Kings

  'Songs and Sonnets' 'The Sun Rising'

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• Slothful, feeble, pretentious, pedantic, elitist - these are some of the epithets that eventually become associated with the absent minded scholar, the poor sighted reader, the book worm, the nerd.

  Alberto Manguel

  Book, Nerd, Poor

  "A History of Reading". Book by Alberto Manguel, 1996.

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• Devising a vocabulary for gardening is like devising a vocabulary for sex. There are the correct Latin names, but most people invent euphemisms. Those who refer to plants by Latin name are considered more expert, if a little pedantic.

  Diane Ackerman

  Sex, Latin, Vocabulary

  Diane Ackerman (2002). “Cultivating Delight: A Natural History of My Garden”, G K Hall & Company

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• A lot of political music to me can be rather pedantic and corny, and when it's done right - like Bruce Springsteen or Jackson Browne or great satire from Randy Newman, there's nothing better.

  Bonnie Raitt

  Political, Done, Corny

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• It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest. I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.

  Edmund Burke

  Drawing, Ideas, People

  Edmund Burke (1963). “Edmund Burke: Selected Writings and Speeches”, p.201, Transaction Publishers

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• I think topical songwriting is a real gift, and it's hard not to be pedantic and show up with the sledgehammer message.

  Mary Chapin Carpenter

  Real, Thinking, Messages

  Source: therumpus.net

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• Some people feel that it's controversial if I say that because my dad is known as a political artist. But I don't really believe that he was a political artist. I think some of his songs were political, and I think they were incredible because he was able to make art that was political and that wasn't pedantic. But I think he was unique in being able to do that.

  Sean Lennon

  Song, Art, Dad

  "Sean Lennon speaks". Interview with Joel Amos, www.sheknows.com. March 22, 2010.

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• I think when people try to use their art for political views, I think they're art becomes smaller, less interesting. And so for me, as an artist, I'm trying to speak about things in a universal way and not be pedantic or small-minded and try to convince other people of my political views. But having said that, every day I live in sort of complete terror because of what I read in the newspaper and what is going on in the world. I'm constantly, as I think many of us are, overwhelmed by the sort of, mass psychosis that's occurring.

  Sean Lennon

  Art, Thinking, Psychosis

  "Sean Lennon speaks". Interview with Joel Amos, www.sheknows.com. March 22, 2010.

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• We think that play and fairytales belong to childhood - how shortsighted that is! As though we would want at any time in our life to live without play and fairytales! We give these things other names, to be sure, and feel differently about them, but precisely this is the evidence that they are the same things, for the child too regards play as his work and fairy tales as his truth. The brevity of life ought to preserve us from a pedantic division of life into different stages - as though each brought something new.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Children, Thinking, Play

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• Television turned out to be exactly as bad as the most irritating and pedantic intellectuals of the '50s said it was going to be.

  Fran Lebowitz

  Television, Said, Irritating

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• Without rules you can't have anything, but you don't want to just be pedantic or obsessive. The painting is finished when it's working. The overall balance is right. Balance shouldn't be confused with design. There has to be restless jostle and aggression and a bit of dynamism, not just pat-ness or settled-ness or immediate pleasing-ness.

  Matthew Collings

  Confused, Design, Balance

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• You will think me very pedantic, gentlemen, but holiday though it may be, I have not the smallest interest in any holiday, except as it celebrates real and not pretended joys.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Real, Holiday, Thinking

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Ernest Spiller, Alfred Riggs Ferguson, Joseph Slater, Jean Ferguson Carr (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: English traits”, p.176, Harvard University Press

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• I've been accused of being a little pedantic here and there, but I don't buy that criticism. I'm telling it like I see it. You don't have to buy it. You don't have to like it. You don't have to listen to it at all. I'm not trying to convince people of things, other than the fact that I'm trying to make as vivid as I can my own feelings and experiences.

  Bruce Cockburn

  People, Feelings, Trying

  Source: progressive.org

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• My self . . . is a dramatic ensemble. Here a prophetic ancestor makes his appearance. Here a brutal hero shouts. Here an alcoholic bon vivant argues with a learned professor. Here a lyric muse, chronically love-struck, raises her eyes to heaven. Her papa steps forward, uttering pedantic protests. Here the indulgent uncle intercedes. Here the aunt babbles gossip. Here the maid giggles lasciviously. And I look upon it all with amazement, the sharpened pen in my left hand.

  Paul Klee

  Uncles, Hero, Eye

  Paul Klee, Felix Klee (1968). “The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918”, p.177, Univ of California Press

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• To write a genuine familiar or truly English style is to write as anyone would speak in common conversation, who had a thorough command and choice of words, or who could discourse with ease, force, and perspicuity, setting aside all pedantic and oratorical flourishes.

  William Hazlitt

  Writing, Choices, Style

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1270, Delphi Classics

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