Pettiness Quotes - Page 2

• The Constitution gives us a standard to follow. We cannot define impeachable offenses to a greater degree than the language of the Constitution. But we all agree the issue is the public trust. Our duty is not to punish anyone. And our challenge is to avoid pettiness.

  Asa Hutchinson

  Issues, Giving, Challenges

  "Transcript: House Judiciary Committee meeting", www.cnn.com. October 5, 1998.

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• To the mean eye all things are trivial, as certainly as to the jaundiced they are yellow.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Mean, Eye, Yellow

  Thomas Carlyle (1872). “On Heroes, Hero-worship and the Heroic in History”, p.87

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• To write the lives of the great in separating them from their works necessarily ends by above all stressing their pettiness, because it is in their work that they have put the best of themselves.

  Simone Weil

  Stress, Writing, Biographies

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• Always in all my books I'm trying to reveal or help to reveal the hidden greatness of the small, of the little, of the unknown - and the pettiness of the big.

  Eduardo Galeano

  Book, Greatness, Trying

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• I believe people who go into politics want to do the right thing. And then they hit a big wall of re-election and the pettiness of politics. In the end, politics gets in the way of the business of people.

  Kevin Costner

  Wall, Believe, People

  "Keeper of the flame" by Jonathan Freedland, www.theguardian.com. March 15, 2001.

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• Some young folks have wind-fall minds, prematurely detached from the tree of knowledge for a life-long sourness and pettiness.

  George Iles

  Fall, Science, Wind

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• Poor fool! in whose petty estimation all things are little.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Littles, Fool, Poor

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2016). “THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER (Literary Classics Series): Historical Romance Novel”, p.32, e-artnow

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• You work here [on the farm] simply without philosophizing; sometimes the work is hard and crowded with pettiness. But at times you feel a surge of cosmic exaltation, like the clear light of the heavens... . And you, too, seem to be taking root in the soil which you are digging, to be nourished by the rays of the sun, to share life with the tiniest blade of grass, with each flower; living in nature's depths, you seem then to rise and grow into the vast expanse of the universe.

  A. D. Gordon

  Flower, Land, Roots

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• You must realize that if you are going to reach the heights you have been called to reach, you may elicit some criticism from those who are jealous, petty or angry because they were left behind.

  T. D. Jakes

  Jealous, Criticism, May

  T. D. Jakes (1999). “Maximize the Moment: God's Action Plan for Your Life”, Putnam Publishing Group

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• The true confessors have been aware that not only is life mostly failure, but that in one's failure or pettiness or wrongness exists the living drama of the self.

  Gore Vidal

  Drama, Self, Has Beens

  Gore Vidal, Donald Weise (1999). “Gore Vidal: Sexually Speaking, Collected Sex Writings”

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• Pettiness separates; breadth unites. Let us be broad and big.

  Emma Goldman

  Bigs, Broads, Breadth

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism and Other Essays”, p.150, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• The Tao has no place for pettiness, and nor has Virtue. Pettiness is dangerous to Virtue; pettiness is dangerous to the Tao. It is said, rectify yourself and be done.

  Zhuangzi

  Done, Tao, Virtue

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• Pettiness seems to go hand in hand with vindictiveness. The smaller the person, the larger the need for revenge. This may account for the fact that some consensual crimes have stiffer penalties than do most crimes with innocent victims.

  Peter McWilliams

  Revenge, Hands, Needs

  Peter McWilliams (1993). “Ain't nobody's business if you do: the absurdity of consensual crimes in a free society”, Mary Book / Prelude Pr

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• A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.

  Eric Hoffer

  Wall, Real, Self

  Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

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• You are chosen to be faithful women of God in our day, to stand above pettiness, gossip, selfishness, lewdness, and all other forms of ungodliness. Recognize your divine birthright as daughters of our Heavenly Father.

  Howard W. Hunter

  Daughter, Father, Gossip

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• We overcome the accuser of our brothers and sisters, we overcome our consciences, we overcome our bad tempers, we overcome our defeats, we overcome our lusts, we overcome our fears, we overcome our pettiness on the basis of the blood of the Lamb.

  D. A. Carson

  Brother, Blood, Lust

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• How full of trifles everything is! It is only one's thoughts that fill a room with something more than furniture.

  Wallace Stevens

  Rooms, Furniture, Trifles

  "Souvenirs and Prophecies: the Young Wallace Stevens" edited by Holly Stevens, (Ch. 9), 1977.

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• I think now it's a very odd time in politics. It should be mostly about good governing. We need a government, not politics. Because there's too much politics. Of course there should be debate. But there seems to be so much pettiness and not enough good faith. It is civilized to agree to disagree and this idea is slowly disintegrating. The great statesmen of the past knew this, and I think it helps drive civilization.

  Daphne Guinness

  Past, Thinking, Helping

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Through the machineries of greed, pettiness, and the abuse of power, love occurs.

  Thomas Pynchon

  Greed, Abuse, Power Of Love

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• Today I offer a prayer of forgiveness:
  forgive the pettiness of my ingratitude...
  the absence of profound thankfulness.

  Mary Anne Radmacher

  Prayer, Butterfly, Profound

  Mary Anne Radmacher (2008). “Live Boldly: Cultivate the Qualities That Can Change Your Life”, p.33, Conari Press

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• In the absence of a great dream pettiness prevails. Shred visions foster risk taking, courage and innovation. Keeping the end in mind creates the confidence to make decisions even in moments of crisis.

  Peter Senge

  Dream, Decision, Innovation

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• We all have demons inside us, Nick. The Tsalagi have an old saying—every heart holds two wolves. One is the white wolf, who is made up of love, kindness, respect, decency, compassion, and all the things that are good in life. The black wolf is born of jealousy, hatred, pettiness, prejudice, vindictiveness, and all the poisons of the human personality. The two constantly war with each other for dominance. And one day, one wolf will overtake and devour the other.” - Acheron

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Kindness, War, Heart

  Sherrilyn Kenyon (2013). “Inferno: Chronicles of Nick”, p.71, Macmillan

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• Like families, competitors can bring out the worst as well as the best in each other. Like romance, competition has many faces, some of them ugly. In addition to showing me my grace and graciousness, the mirror of sports has reflected back to me my jealousy, pettiness, and arrogance.

  Mariah Nelson

  Sports, Mirrors, Romance

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• The shackles and the chains, the violence and aggression, the pettiness and scorn, the jealousy and hatred, the tempest and discord.

  Joe Walsh

  Revenge, Hatred, Violence

  Song: The Confessor

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• But the writer who endures and keeps working will finally know that writing the book was something hard and glorious, for at the desk a writer must try to be free of prejudice, meanness of spirit, pettiness, and hatred; strive to be a better human being than the writer normally is, and to do this through concentration on a single word, and then another, and another. This is splendid work, as worthy and demanding as any, and the will and resilience to do it are good for the writer's soul.

  Andre Dubus

  Book, Writing, Hatred

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