Pretension Quotes - page 2

Any form of card-case, beyond the most battered and unassuming, is surely an aesthetic and social travesty. To withdraw, say, a silver case from the pocket before removing a card is surely to trumpet a ludicrous gaucheness and maladroit pretension. It is impossible for the intended recipient of the card to view the case as anything other than a misjudged piece of peacockery; unfeasible to avoid a brief inner commentary along the lines of oh, he's bought one of those... he decided this would make the act of handing over a card a signal of his success as a businessman and a certain refined elegance as a gentleman... probably picked it out himself... please God it was a Father's Day gift from a child who knew no better. (Derren Brown)

The world is his who can see through its pretension. What deafness, what stone-blind custom, what overgrown error you behold, is there only by sufferance,--by your sufferance. See it to be a lie, and you have already dealt it its mortal blow.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have to say that my husband and my children are so tough, there really is no space for pretension.

Miuccia Prada

There is so much vulgarity in the everyday, that when somebody has the pretension to do something extraordinary for the community, then you have to suffer.

Santiago Calatrava

What makes me mad is arrogance, pretension, putting on airs.

David Duchovny

I cannot avoid condemning all those who, from self-conceit have the pretension to imitate great artists of the past. If their powers of emotion be weak, their powers of expression will be likewise.

Jean-Georges Noverre

I forgive all personal weaknesses except egomania and pretension.

Herb Kelleher

We are in a position of financial and social power, and we could be agents of change in our society. Without pretension, I believe we could be a nice little gardener who takes care of the garden, and hopefully our neighbor will do the same. Then, maybe we'll achieve a better world.

Guy Laliberte

I don't think couture will die. But it should have no pretension that it will conquer the world. It's not something that will disappear because all you need is a thread and a needle to start making something couture.

Olivier Theyskens

Pretension is a poor joke that you play on yourself. Snap out of it. Recognise your strengths, work on your weaknesses. Real achievement is liking what you see in the mirror every morning.

Virat Kohli

But it is said that the writer of that book was inspired. Examine therefore candidly what evidence there is of his having been inspired. The pretension is entitled to your inquiry, because millions believe it. (Thomas Jefferson)

Optimism is the parent of despair, while pessimism allows the mind to accustom itself to the inevitable disappointments of human existence by degrees, just as some drugs induce a state of tolerance. Pessimists, moreover, have the better sense of humour, for they have a livelier apprehension of pretension and absurdity. In a meritocracy, furthermore, those who fail must either indulge in elaborate mental contortions to disguise reality from themselves or sink into a deep melancholy.

Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)

I would make the profession of every man, the rule by which to fashion his crest or coat of arms!... To the petifogger (sic), three links of a convict's chain, with the Penitentiary in the distance! To the Bank Director a Widow's Coffin, with a weeping Orphan on either side by way of heraldic supporters! Pah! There is no single word of contempt in the whole language, too bitter, to express my opinion of this magnificent Pretension - the Aristocracy of the Quaker City!

George Lippard

Be thorough in all you do and remember that although ignorance often may be innocent, pretension is always despicable.

William Ewart Gladstone

I come from an Irish working-class background but went to a posh school, and any type of pretension was quickly mocked at home. I've always had a keen eye for pretension.

Stephen Mangan

Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.

Margot Fonteyn

I have not the slightest pretension to call my verses poetry; I write now and then for no other purpose than to relieve depression or to improve my English.

Alfred Nobel

There really is an ideological, secular aggressiveness that gives cause to worry. Recently in Sweden a Protestant parson was put into jail for one month because - referring to biblical texts - he preached about homosexuality. Laicism is not any longer that element of neutrality that opens fields of freedom for everybody. It's now turning into an ideology, which – with the help of politics – forces itself into the public and leaves no space for the Christian and Catholic conception – thereby turning it into a merely private and essentially mutilated concern. In this sense a fight has really begun in which we have to defend the religious freedom against the pretension of an ideology, that acts as if it were the only voice of reason – whereas it is only the expression of "a certain” rationalism.... A society that is not at all concerned with God destroys itself. We saw that in the totalitarian experiments of the last century.

Pope Benedict XVI

To despise theory is to have the excessively vain pretension to do without knowing what one does, and to speak without knowing what one says.

Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle

The middle class is so funny, it's the class I know best, and it's the class where you find the most pretension, so that's what makes the middle classes so funny.

J. K. Rowling

Philosophers and scientists confidently offer up traits said to be uniquely human, and the monkeys and apes casually knock them down -- toppling the pretension that humans constitute some sort of biological aristocracy among the beings on Earth. (Carl Sagan)

And if pretension for a time deceive, And prove me one too ready to believe, Far less my shame, than if by stubborn act, I brand as lie, some great colossal Fact.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

If fallacies come knocking at my door, I'd rather feed, and shelter full a score, Than hide behind the black portcullis, doubt, And run the risk of barring one Truth out.And if pretension for a time deceive, And prove me one too ready to believe, Far less my shame, than if by stubborn act, I brand as lie, some great colossal Fact.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Let's not be naive, we're not talking about a simple political battle; it is a destructive pretension against the plan of God. We are not talking about a mere bill, but rather a machination of the Father of Lies that seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God.

Pope Francis

The world is his who can see through its pretension.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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