Precocious Quotes

• I've noticed that the children of other nations always seem precocious. That's because the strange manners of their elders have caught our attention most and the children echo those manners enough to seem like their parents.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Children, Echoes, Parent

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• What might be taken for a precocious genius is the genius of childhood. When the child grows up, it disappears without a trace. It may happen that this boy will become a real painter some day, or even a great painter. But then he will have to begin everything again, from zero.

  Pablo Picasso

  Time, Zero, Children

  Pablo Picasso (1972). “Picasso on art: a selection of views”, Viking Adult

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• Precocious talents mature slowly if at all.

  Gore Vidal

  Talent, Mature, Ifs

  Gore Vidal (1982). “The second American revolution and other essays (1976-1982)”, Random House Inc

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• Wines are like people. Some are perfect but boring, some are precocious but fail to live up to their promise, and some may be flawed, but the way they may develop is endlessly fascinating.

  Michael Broadbent

  Wine, People, Perfect

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• The grim fact is that we prepare for war like precocious giants, and for peace like retarded pygmies.

  Lester B. Pearson

  Peace, Clever, War

  Speech, Toronto, Canada, 14 Mar. 1955

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• I basically was a precocious little kid.

  Michael Ironside

  Kids, Littles, Little Kid

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• One of the troubles of our times is that we are all, I think, precocious as personalities and backward as characters.

  W. H. Auden

  Character, Thinking, Personality

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• Well-being and happiness never appeared to me as an absolute aim. I am even inclined to compare such moral aims to the ambitions of a pig.

  Albert Einstein

  Happiness, Ambition, Pigs

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• When I was still a rather precocious young man, I already realized most vividly the futility of the hopes and aspirations that most men pursue throughout their lives.

  Albert Einstein

  Men, Futility Of Life, Young

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• When I was a fairly precocious young man I became thoroughly impressed with the futility of the hopes and strivings that chase most men restlessly through life. Moreover, I soon discovered the cruelty of that chase, which in those years was much more carefully covered up by hypocrisy and glittering words than is the case today. By the mere existence of his stomach everyone was condemned to participate in that chase. The stomach might well be satisfied by such participation, but not man insofar as he is a thinking and feeling being.

  Albert Einstein

  Men, Thinking, Covered Up

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• It is practically an axiom in psychiatry that precocious intellect combined with physical weakness can give rise to many unpleasant character traits - avarice, delusions of grandeur , and obsessive masturbation, to name just a few.

  Sam Savage

  Character, Names, Giving

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• They are not callow like the young of most birds, but more perfectly developed and precocious even than chickens. The remarkably adult yet innocent expression of their open and serene eyes is very memorable. All intelligence seems reflected in them. They suggest not merely the purity of infancy, but a wisdom clarified by experience. Such an eye was not born when the bird was, but is coeval with the sky it reflects. The woods do not yield another such a gem.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Eye, Memorable, Sky

  Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.147, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Jen came first, and then they wanted to cast somebody that would... Kevin liked the idea of having a kind of The Ghost of That Character kind of haunt the movie in a way throughout, by having Raquel look so much like her. And also, it was sort of serendipity. I mean, she was also the best actress. I mean, as you can see Raquel has a pretty appealing, engaging kind of precocious, sparkly quality that's... it was just luck really that she happened to the film.

  Ben Affleck

  Character, Mean, Ideas

  "Talking with the guy who gets Jersey Girl". Interview with Steve Head, ca.ign.com. March 24, 2004.

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• I was very precocious when I was young. I went to college at 16, and I graduated at 20. I wanted to be a writer, but I was more interested in experience than in applying myself intellectually.

  Rachel Kushner

  College, Young, Wanted

  "Rachel Kushner: 'I know what it feels like to crash a motorcycle at 140mph'". Interview with Rachel Cooke, www.theguardian.com. June 8, 2013.

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• Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
  Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious!
  If you say it loud enough you'll always sound precocious.
  Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

  Julie Andrews

  Sound, Enough, Loud

  Song: Super-Cali-Fragil-Istic-Expi-Ali-Docious

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• Around my eighth or ninth year I became interested in the world's religions. I was mathematically retarded but theologically precocious. I began to correspond with seikhs in India. After about the third letter they would ask about job opportunities in America.

  Jean Houston

  Jobs, Opportunity, Years

  "Jean Houston PhD Awakening Human Potential". Interview with David Welch, www.awaken.com. April 3, 2015.

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• I was a precocious child.

  Pippa Evans

  Children

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• Jesus: a wine-guzzling vagrant and precocious socialist.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Jesus, Wine, Atheism

  Barbara Ehrenreich (2010). “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America”, p.68, Macmillan

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• In broad outline and in detail, the life of Jesus as portrayed in the gospels corresponds to the worldwide Mythic Hero Archetype in which a divine hero's birth is supernaturally predicted and conceived, the infant hero escapes attempts to kill him, demonstrates his precocious wisdom already as a child, receives a divine commission, defeats demons, wins acclaim, is hailed as king, then betrayed, losing popular favor, executed, often on a hilltop, and is vindicated and taken up to heaven.

  Robert M. Price

  Jesus, Kings, Children

  Opening Statement on Mars Hill Forum at Unitarian Church, Monclair, New Jersey, www.mars-hill-forum.com. January 11, 1997.

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• I've always been a late bloomer in some ways, and extremely precocious in other ways. When I was twenty I was living in New York and working a job and could barely bother to be a college student and had my own apartment, but I couldn't possibly get married before I was thirty-nine.

  Meghan Daum

  Jobs, New York, College

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• I was very precocious. I was pleased with myself. I thought I was very good-looking and I thought I was very clever - and I was.

  Robert Boothby, Baron Boothby

  Clever, Looking Good, Very Good

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• I hate all children of precocious talent.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Children, Hate, Talent

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• I was precocious enough to watch the news and read the papers, and I can remember October 1956, the simultaneous crisis in Hungary and Suez, very well. And getting a sense that the world was dangerous, a sense that the game was up, that the Empire was over.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Games, Watches, News

  Christopher Hitchens (2017). “Christopher Hitchens: The Last Interview: and Other Conversations”, p.42, Melville House

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• When I pretended to be precocious, people started the rumor that I was precocious. When I acted like an idler, rumor had it I was an idler. When I pretended I couldn't write a novel, people said I couldn't write. When I acted like a liar, they called me a liar. When I acted like a rich man, they started the rumor I was rich. When I feigned indifference, they classed me as the indifferent type. But when I inadvertently groaned because I was really in pain, they started the rumor that I was faking suffering. The world is out of joint.

  Osamu Dazai

  Pain, Liars, Writing

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• I'm 48, which is a bit of a shock to me. Why only last year I thought I was a precocious young thing!

  Douglas Adams

  Years, Lasts, Shock

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". BBC Online chat, www.imdb.com. November 8, 2000.

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