Pomposity Quotes

• That's what's so great about the Internet. It allows pompous blow-hards to connect with other pompous blow-hards in a vast circle-jerk of pomposity.

  Bill Maher

  Blow, Circles, Internet

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• Those who run to long words are mainly the unskillful and tasteless; they confuse pomposity with dignity, flaccidity with ease, and bulk with force.

  Henry Watson Fowler

  Running, Long, Ease

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• A harmless hilarity and a buoyant cheerfulness are not infrequent concomitants of genius; and we are never more deceived than when we mistake gravity for greatness, solemnity for science, and pomposity for erudition.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Mistake, Creativity, Science

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.110

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• I definitely dislike pomposity and artifice. I hope that I'm not that. Once I write a song, it belongs to the world, and the way people perceive it, it's cool.

  Daryl Hall

  Song, Writing, People

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• His pomposity is overshadowed only by his rank stupidity

  Ann Coulter

  Interesting, Stupidity

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• I'm not saying that all college students are subhuman - I'm just saying that if you aim to spend a few years mastering the art of pomposity, these are places where you can be taught by undisputed experts.

  Lester Bangs

  Art, College, Years

  Lester Bangs (2013). “Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: The Work of a Legendary Critic: Rock'N'Roll as Literature and Literature as Rock 'N'Roll”, p.331, Anchor

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• An orotundity, which I define as Nobelitis a pomposity in which one is treated as representative of more than oneself by someone conscious of representing more than himself.

  William Golding

  Conscious, Treated, Representatives

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• Of all human activities, education is the one most likely to give rise to cant, pomposity and fraudulent expertise.

  John Rae

  Education, Giving, Humans

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• I find it incredibly tedious, hate that it murders itself with its own conservative pomposity.

  Fiona Shaw

  Hate, Conservative, Murder

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• Your assumptions about the lives of others are in direct relation to your naïve pomposity. Many people you believe to be rich are not rich. Many people you think have it easy worked hard for what they got. Many people who seem to be gliding right along have suffered and are suffering. Many people who appear to you to be old and stupidly saddled down with kids and cars and houses were once every bit as hip and pompous as you.

  Cheryl Strayed

  Believe, Kids, Thinking

  Cheryl Strayed (2013). “Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Someone Who’s Been There”, p.248, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• In many college English courses the words “myth” and “symbol” are given a tremendous charge of significance. You just ain’t no good unless you can see a symbol hiding, like a scared gerbil, under every page. And in many creative writing course the little beasts multiply, the place swarms with them. What does this Mean? What does that Symbolize? What is the Underlying Mythos? Kids come lurching out of such courses with a brain full of gerbils. And they sit down and write a lot of empty pomposity, under the impression that that’s how Melville did it.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Kids, Writing, Mean

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• Liberals sit from this lofty perch of pomposity, but they are the champions of ignorance. They don't know what they're talking about.

  Rush Limbaugh

  Ignorance, Talking, Champion

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• The middles cleave to euphemisms not just because they're an aid in avoiding facts. They like them also because they assist their social yearnings towards pomposity. This is possible because most euphemisms permit the speaker to multiply syllables, and the middle class confuses sheer numerousness with weight and value.

  Paul Fussell

  Class, Facts, Weight

  Paul Fussell (1992). “Class: A Guide Through the American Status System”, p.160, Simon and Schuster

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• We are not actually in charge of life, yet we behave as if we are the masters of our own destiny. The realization of this fact is quite a hard one. The ridiculousness of our pomposity and presumption can only result in anger or humor.

  Billy Childish

  Destiny, Realization, Facts

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• This was in the sense that if Dada was reacting to the morality and aesthetics of pre-WWI, then we were very much a reaction to the pomposity of rock that existed within music at that time.

  Stephen Mallinder

  Rocks, Morality, Reactions

  Source: www.artdesigncafe.com

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• These religions that are so freighted with their own pomposity are no better than inspired guesses.

  Terence McKenna

  Inspired

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• Well, the film's not only pricking the pomposity of the Church, it's pricking the pomposity, and sometimes you would think fraudulence, of the insurance companies. I had never read anything like this until I was doing the film, but Mark [Joffe, the director] and people showed me stuff where, like a flood, it mattered where the water came from. If you're flooded from above, you get the money; if you're flooded from below, you don't. What's that about?

  Billy Connolly

  Thinking, People, Water

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• Aaron Sorkin whole thing was that he didn't want the pomposity of the presidency in the West Wing. But once we cast Martin Sheen and we realised Martin's incredible accessibility, nothing felt pompous or aloof. If the show is about all the planets, let's end it with the sun.

  Thomas Schlamme

  Incredibles, Pompous, Aloof

  Source: www.empireonline.com

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• People speak with enormous pomposity and arrogance about music.

  Elvis Costello

  People, Arrogance, Speak

  "Elvis Costello: The ESQ&A". Interview with Scott Raab, www.esquire.com. September 17, 2013.

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• I've always been slightly self-conscious as an actor, and I guess that sometimes reads as pomposity. Starting when I was 30, I somehow gave off an impression at an audition that had them mentally put me in a three-piece suit or put an attache case in my hand. If there was a stiff-guy part, the director would brighten up when I came in.

  Charles Kimbrough

  Hands, Self, Guy

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• I know the Muslim psychology. It is all pomposity and bravado. I give you my word that if Islam is ridiculed publicly and systematically, it will be defeated. Shame is a great motivator as well as deterrent. Do not underestimate the power of ridicule. This is serious stuff not a laughing matter.

  Ali Sina

  Giving, Laughing, Psychology

  Source: myislam.dk

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• I'm attacking the pomposity that says this is more valuable than that. I'm sick of that.

  Billy Corgan

  Sick, Attacking, Valuable

  "Billy Corgan Brings The Moths Back To The Flame: The Antiquiet Interview". Interview with Johnny Firecloud, antiquiet.com. June 12, 2012.

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• Absolute virtue is as sure to kill a man as absolute vice is, let alone the dullness of it and the pomposities of it.

  Samuel Beckett

  Men, Vices, Virtue

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• Language is in decline. Not only has eloquence departed but simple, direct speech as well, though pomposity and banality have not.

  Edwin Newman

  Simple, Departed, Speech

  Edwin Newman (1974). “Strictly Speaking: Will america be the Death of English?”

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• There are things about some professional athletes that I cannot stand-the pretense, the egos, the pomposity, the greed.

  Ted Simmons

  Success, Sports, Athlete

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