Vapid Quotes

• The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife. You insult her intelligence if you assume that a mere slogan and a few vapid adjectives will persuade her to buy anything. She wants all the information you can give her.

  David Ogilvy

  Giving, Wife, Adjectives

  Confessions of an Advertising Man (1963) ch. 5

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• A lot of music you might listen to is pretty vapid, it doesn't always deal with our deeper issues. These are the things I'm interested in now, particularly at my age.

  Annie Lennox

  Birthday, Issues, Age

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• When I was three years old I was taken with my family to a little town in Western Minnesota, where I lived a more or less vapid and ordinary life until I was ten.

  Mary MacLane

  Taken, Years, Ordinary

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• Youth is a silly, vapid state, Old age with fears and ills is rife, This simple boon I beg of Fate - A thousand years of Middle Life.

  Carolyn Wells

  Stupid, Silly, Fate

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• I view my job as being someone who is supposed to piss people off. I don't want to be just one-of-the-guys. I don't want to be just a smiling face you see on television presenting some vapid kind of easily-digestible garbage.

  Marilyn Manson

  Jobs, Views, People

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• a society in which there is widespread economic insecurity can turn freedom into a barren and vapid right for millions of people.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  People, Insecurity, Poverty

  The Struggle for Human Rights, delivered 28 September 1948, Paris, France

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• I don't mind what the market is, but why is it vapid? If they're such a bunch of idiots, why don't you show them good music instead? They're not going to know the difference.

  Kristin Hersh

  Differences, Mind, Idiot

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• Saying 'I notice you're a nerd' is like saying, 'Hey, I notice that you'd rather be intelligent than be stupid, that you'd rather be thoughtful than be vapid, that you believe that there are things that matter more than the arrest record of Lindsay Lohan. Why is that?' In fact, it seems to me that most contemporary insults are pretty lame. Even 'lame' is kind of lame. Saying 'You're lame' is like saying 'You walk with a limp.' Yeah, whatever, so does 50 Cent, and he's done all right for himself.

  John Green

  Stupid, Real, Believe

  "John Green asks himself "Why is being a nerd bad?" in July 27: How Nerdfighters Drop Insults". www.youtube.com. July 27, 2007.

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• Anonymous blog comments, vapid video pranks and lightweight mash-ups may seem trivial and harmless, but as a whole, this widespread practice of fragmentary, impersonal communication has demeaned personal interaction.

  Jaron Lanier

  Communication, Practice, Video

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• Dictators cause the world’s worst problems: all the collapsed states, and all the devastated economies. All the vapid cases of corruption, grand theft, and naked plunder of the treasury are caused by dictators, leaving in their wake trails of wanton destruction, horrendous carnage and human debris.

  George Ayittey

  Leaving, Naked, World

  "George Ayittey: How to Defeat a Dictator". Interview with Thor Halvorssen, www.huffingtonpost.com.

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• Imagination applied to the whole world is vapid in comparison to imagination applied to a detail.

  Wallace Stevens

  Imagination, Details, World

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “Opus Posthumous: Poems, Plays, Prose”, p.256, Vintage

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• The performance of duty, and not an indulgence in vapid ease and vapid pleasure, is all that makes life worth while.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Ease, Pleasure, Duty

  Theodore Roosevelt (2013). “Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt”, p.127, Simon and Schuster

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• People have nothing to say, but they are afraid of saying nothing, so what they do say comes out flat and vapid and meaningless. The shadow of death is on every face.

  William S. Burroughs

  Shadow Of Death, People, Saying Nothing

  William S. Burroughs (1988). “The Western Lands”, Penguin Group USA

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• Ella was vapid and worthless at least nine-tenths of the time, but when she got really mad, her face became sharp and purposeful. Almost vicious. Like if Barbie were suddenly possessed by Atilla the Hun.

  Francine Pascal

  Mad, Barbie, Nine

  Francine Pascal (2012). “Fearless: Fearless; Sam; Run”, p.200, Simon and Schuster

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• England has never enjoyed a genuine social revolution. Maybe that's what's wrong with that dear, tepid, vapid, insipid, stuffy, little country.

  Edward Abbey

  Country, Littles, Revolution

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.56, RosettaBooks

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• She stared at him in that vapid, intoxicated way employed only by women under a vamp's control. Or the way I sometimes got when faced with cupcakes. Mmm. Cupcakes.

  Kiersten White

  Cupcakes, Way, Sometimes

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• There are few faces that can afford to smile: a smile is sometimes bewitching, in general vapid, often a contortion.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Faces, Sometimes

  Benjamin Disraeli (1871). “Collected Edition of the Novels and Tales”, p.89

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• I wanted to be an actor from a young age, but actually becoming one and seen the ugly side of the world does feel different and sometimes unwelcome. There are shallow, vapid, untalented people zombieing the streets of Hollywood, adding decadence and immorality to an already extravagant business.

  Fran Kranz

  Becoming One, People, Age

  "Interview with Fran Kranz, Star, CBS’s Welcome to the Captain". Interview with Alex Remington, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 5, 2008.

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• I have always had this very strong, call it a feeling, call it a prejudice, call it a conviction ... that the mysteries are not easily available. You have to earn entrance into them. You didn't learn things for too little. You had to pay a price. And I felt that LSD was just blasting superhighways into the mysteries. And what I really didn't like about LSD is that people who were taking it were seeming to become less and less as they took it. They got emptier and more vapid.

  Norman Mailer

  Strong, People, Feelings

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• I think that the ideal of young womanhood as it's seen in pop culture specifically is a really kind of vapid, conceited, concerned with money and looks kind of thing that you'll see in a lot of reality shows. And I think that's really damaging, not just because it's a terrible role model to put forth, but that it also puts across this idea to the American public that this is what young women are like, that this is what all young women in America are like.

  Jessica Valenti

  Conceited, Reality, Thinking

  Source: bigthink.com

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• There is nothing more vulgar than a petty bourgeois life with its halfpence, its victuals, its futile talk, and its useless conventional virtue.

  Anton Chekhov

  Mediocrity, Useless, Virtue

  "Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends: With Biographical Sketch". Book by Anton Chekhov, 1920.

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• Grown-ups desperately need to feel safe, and then they project onto the kids. But what none of us seem to realize is how smart kids are. They don’t like what we write for them, what we dish up for them, because it’s vapid, so they’ll go for the hard words, they’ll go for the hard concepts, they’ll go for the stuff where they can learn something. Not didactic things, but passionate things.

  Maurice Sendak

  Smart, Writing, Kids

  "Maurice Sendak Sheds Moonlight on a Dark Tale". www.nytimes.com. 1993.

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• We imagined ourselves as the Sons of Liberty with a mission to preserve, protect, and project the revolutionary spirit of rock and roll. We feared that the music which had given us sustenance was in danger of spiritual starvation. We feared it losing its sense of purpose, we feared it falling into fattened hands, we feared it floundering in a mire of spectacle, finance, and vapid technical complexity.

  Patti Smith

  Spiritual, Fall, Son

  Patti Smith (2010). “Just Kids”, p.245, A&C Black

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• When friends grow cold, and the converse of intimates languishes into vapid civility and commonplace, these only continue the unaltered countenance of happier days, and cheer us with that true friendship which never deceived hope, nor deserted sorrow.

  Washington Irving

  Cheer, True Friend, Real

  Washington Irving (1840). “The Works of Washington Irving”, p.192

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• The universe couldn't care less about us. I say this very clearly in the film [ "Into the Inferno"]: our planet is "indifferent to scurrying roaches, retarded reptiles and vapid humans alike."

  Werner Herzog

  Roaches, Reptiles, Care

  Source: www.rogerebert.com

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