Petty Quotes - Page 12

• Great things alone can make a great mind, and petty things will make a petty mind unless a man rejects them as completely alien.

  Carl von Clausewitz

  Men, Mind, Aliens

  Carl von Clausewitz (2008). “On War”, p.145, Princeton University Press

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Apartheid - both petty and grand - is obviously evil. Nothing can justify the arrogant assumption that a clique of foreigners has the right to decide on the lives of a majority.

  Steven Biko

  Evil, Majority, Arrogant

  "I Write What I Like (We Blacks)". Book by Steven Biko, 1978.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Cultivated people foster what is good in others,
  not what is bad.
  Petty people do the opposite.

  Confucius

  Opposites, People

  10 Copy quote

• For Star Trek proves, as faulty as individual episodes could be, is that the much-maligned common man and common woman has an enormous hunger for brotherhood. They are ready for the twenty-third century now, and they are light-years ahead of their petty governments and their visionless leaders.

  Gene Roddenberry

  Stars, Men, Light

  66 Copy quote

• There may be something petty in a refined taste; it easily degenerates into effeminacy. It does not consider the broadest use. It is not content with simple good and bad, and so is fastidious and curious or nice only.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Nice, Simple, Doe

  Henry David Thoreau, David Gross (2007). “The Price of Freedom: Political Philosophy from Thoreau's Journals”, p.29, David M Gross

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's a petty thing, but I wouldn't join the Scouts when I was a kid, 'cause you had to swear allegiance to the queen. I'm just not a royalist. I think it's idiotic, a hereditary principle.

  Elvis Costello

  Queens, Kids, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• If the masses started to accept UFOs, it would profoundly affect their attitude towards life, politics, everything. It would threaten the status quo. Whenever people come to realize that there are larger considerations than their own petty lives, they are ripe to make radical changes on a personal level, which would eventually lead to a political revolution in society as a whole

  John Lennon

  Attitude, Political Revolution, People

  27 Copy quote

• Men spend their life down here in the worship of petty (or mean) interests and the search of perishable things, and with that ("et avec cela", Fr.) they pretend to perpetuate for all eternity their self ("moi", Fr.) so hardly worthy ("digne", Fr.) of it.

  African Spir

  Mean, Men, Self

  "Paroles d'un sage: Choix de pensées d'African Spir" ("Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir") by Hélène Claparède-Spir, (p. 51), 1937.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We need to ascend beyond our own petty Resistance, our own negative self-judgment and self-sabotage, our own "I'm not worthy" mind-set.

  Steven Pressfield

  Self, Mind, Negative

  4 Copy quote

• Education has a tremendous power on man. Can't we see to which astonishing disciple the people of Sparte have submitted ("s'est plié", Fr.) for centuries, and this with a view to very petty purposes: purely outer greatness, the military predominace of Sparte. This example proves that man can everything on themselves when they want it ("peuvent tout sur eux-mêmes quand ils le veulent", Fr.); therefore it would only be a question of making them will the good.

  African Spir

  Military, Greatness, Men

  "Paroles d'un sage: Choix de pensées d'African Spir" ("Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir") by Hélène Claparède-Spir, (p. 58), 1937.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Sisters are the worst. And they are the best. A sister can be awful and complicated and loving and protective and petty and competitive, and when you die she is the person you want beside you holding your hand. Somebody's gotta organize the potluck after the service and you know your husband's not gonna be up to the job.

  Cathy Lamb

  Jobs, Husband, Hands

  Cathy Lamb (2009). “Henry's Sisters”, p.96, Kensington Publishing Corp.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Yes, I laugh at all mankind, and the imposition that they dare to practice when they talk of hearts. I laugh at human passions and human cares, vice and virtue, religion and impiety; they are all the result of petty localities, and artificial situation. One physical want, one severe and abrupt lesson from the colorless and shriveled lip of necessity, is worth all the logic of the empty wretches who have presumed to prate it, from Zeno down to Burgersdicius. It silences in a second all the feeble sophistry of conventional life, and ascetical passion.

  Charles Robert Maturin

  Passion, Heart, Practice

  19 Copy quote

• I hate the uneducated and the ignorant. I hate the pompous and the phoney. I hate the jealous and the resentful. I hate the crabbed and mean and the petty. I hate all ordinary dull little people who aren't ashamed of being dull and little.

  John Fowles

  Hate, Jealous, Mean

  John Fowles (1980). “The collector”, Dell Pub Co

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• If there is one realm in which it is essential to be sublime, it is in wickedness. You spit on a petty thief, but you can't deny a kind of respect for the great criminal.

  Denis Diderot

  Sublime, Essentials, Thieves

  "Rameau's Nephew". Book by Denis Diderot, 1805.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our role as artist is more controversial now because there are those, claiming the absolute authority of religion, who detest much of our work as much as they detest most of our politics. Instead of rationally debating subjects like abortion or gay rights, they condemn as immoral those who favor choice and tolerance. They disown their own dark side and magnify everyone else's until, at the extreme, doctors are murdered in the name of protecting life. I wonder, who is this God they invoke, who is so petty and mean? Is God really against gun control and food stamps for poor children?

  Barbra Streisand

  Children, Mean, Dark

  7 Copy quote

• The least practical of us have some petty thrift dear to our hearts, some one direction in which we love to scrimp.

  Agnes Repplier

  Heart, One Direction, Dear

  Agnes Repplier (1891). “Points of View”, Boston Houghton, Mifflin 1893.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• My patriotism is of the kind which is outraged by the notion that the United States never was a great nation until in a petty three months' campaign it knocked to pieces a poor, decrepit, bankrupt old state like Spain. To hold such an opinion as that is to abandon all American standards, to put shame and scorn on all that our ancestors tried to build up here, and to go over to the standards of which Spain is a representative.

  William Graham Sumner

  Three, Campaigns, Pieces

  William Graham Sumner (1919). “War and Other Essays”

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• I don’t have time to worry about something as petty as what I look like.

  Adele

  Self Esteem, Worry, Looks

  "Adele Opens Up About Her Inspirations, Looks and Stage Fright". Interview with Toure, www.rollingstone.com. April 28, 2011.

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• Life consists not of a series of illustrious actions or elegant enjoyments. The greater part of our time passes in compliance with necessities, in the performance of daily duties, in the removal of small inconveniences, in the procurement of petty pleasures; and we are well or ill at ease, as the main stream of life glides on smoothly, or is ruffled by small obstacles and frequent interruption.

  Samuel Johnson

  Life, Ease, Action

  Samuel Johnson, Hester Lynch Piozzi, James Boswell (1804). “The beauties of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: consisting of maxims and observations, moral, critical, and miscellaneous: to which are now added biographical anecdotes of the doctor, selected from the works of Mrs. Piozzi;--his Life, recently published by Mr. Boswell, and other authentic testimonies; also his will, and the sermon he wrote for the late Doctor Dodd”

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Also, I do not like the companionship of women. They are petty and personal. They hang on to their mysteries and secrets, they act and pretend. I like the character of men better.

  Anais Nin

  Character, Men, Secret

  Anais Nin (1977). “DELTA OF VENUS EROTICA”

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• I haven't a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices whatsoever.

  Mark Twain

  Men, Vices, Particles

  "Answers to Correspondents". Essay by Mark Twain, first published in The Californian (June 17, 1865), reprinted in Mark Twain's book "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches", 1867.

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• One of my major shortcomings - I'm vindictive. I don't know why that is. Even in petty things in my life I tend to strike back. It's a lot more pleasurable a sensation than feeling threatened.

  Andy Rooney

  Feelings, Vindictive, Strikes

  6 Copy quote

• Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions. Intellect, will, taste, and passion co-operate just as they do in practical affairs; and lucky it is if the passion be not something as petty as a love of personal conquest over the philosopher across the way.

  William James

  Philosophical, Passion, Men

  William James (2015). “Essays in Popular Philosophy: Top Essays”, p.61, 谷月社

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Why are you doing this? (Rafael) Because life’s too short to spend it fighting when you could be holding the one you love. And love’s too rare to squander it with petty concerns. I’m lucky I have Chloe and I have no intention of letting a war I didn’t start rob me of one second of my time with her. Go in peace, Dark-Hunter. (Apollite)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  War, Fighting, Dark

  Sherrilyn Kenyon (2016). “A Hard Day's Night Searcher”, p.331, St. Martin's Press

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Are you mad? (Artemis) Yes, I am. Mad at this world where we are nothing to the gods. Mad at the Fates who put us here for no purpose except to toy with us for their petty amusement. I wish all of the gods were dead and gone. (Acheron)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Fate, Mad, Wish

  Sherrilyn Kenyon (2008). “Acheron: A Dark-Hunter Novel”, p.159, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

  Show source