Quotessence
Home / Topics / Ostentation Quotes

Ostentation Quotes

Browse 56 quotes about Ostentation.

Related topics

MenPeople

Ostentation Quotes

“Human life is fragile: we live in the space between one breath and the next. We often try to maintain an illusion of permanence, through what we do, say, wear, buy, and how we enjoy ourselves and who and how we love. Yet it is an illusion that is constantly being undermined by change and death. We can use diamonds in whatever way we like. They are empty things, pretty as water, yet within them—if we want to see it—there is blood, dust, love, curses, and suffering. There is desire to make someone happy, there is admiration, there is ostentation…and there is a company’s profit curve.”

IfsWayWantTryingHumansUseLife IsDesireSufferingNextEnjoyWaterSpaceCompanyBloodIllusionEmptyBreathsProfitDustHuman LifeCurseAdmirationFragileDiamondCurvesPermanenceSpace BetweenOstentationLife Is FragileMake Someone Happy
Author:Victoria Finlay
Create image

“It is the duty of all who make philosophy the entertainment of their lives, to turn their thoughts to practical schemes for the good of society, and not pass away their time in fruitless searches, which tend rather to the ostentation of knowledge than the service of life.”

PhilosophyTurnsLife PhilosophyDutyEntertainmentPracticalsSchemesPassing AwayOstentation
Book:The Tatler. The Guardian. The Freeholder. The Whig-examiner. The lover. Dialogues upon the usefulness of ancient medals. Remarks on several parts of Italy, etc. The present state of the war. The late trial and conviction of Count Tariff. The evidences of the Christian religion. Essay on Virgil's Georgics. Poems on several occasions. Translations from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Notes on some of the foregoing stories in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Poemata. Rosamond. Cato. The drummer
Create image

“Economic analysis is the first principle of Marxism. Professors who were genuine leftists would have challenged the entire economics-driven machinery of American academe the wasteful multidepartmental structure, the divisive pedantry of overspecialization, the cronyism and sycophancy in recruitment and promotion, the boondoggling ostentation of pointless conferences, the exploitation of graduate students and part-time teachers, the subservience of faculty to overpaid administrators, the mediocrity and folly of the ruling cliques of the Modern Language Association.”

FirstsLanguagePrinciplesTeacherEconomicModernStudentsEconomicsStructureDrivenGenuineAnalysisFollyFacultyProfessorsMediocrityAssociationGraduatesExploitationRulingConferencesMachineryPromotionMarxismPointlessLeftistsAdministratorsPart TimeCliqueRecruitmentGraduate StudentsPedantryOstentationSubservienceCronyismModern Languages
Book:Vamps & Tramps: New Essays
Create image

“That an author's work is the mirror of his mind is a position that has led to very false conclusions. If Satan himself were to write a book it would be in praise of virtue, because the good would purchase it for use, and the bad for ostentation.”

IfsWritingMindBookUseWould BeVirtuePositionPraiseMirrorsConclusionSatanAuthorshipOstentation
Book:Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
Create image

“Plants do everything animals do, but slowly. They migrate, communicate, deceive, stalk their food and, with an ostentation of styles and perfumes to put the animal kingdom to shame, they make love. It's just that catching them in flagrante delicto might require time-lapse photography.”

MightAnimalStylePhotographyShamePlantCommunicateKingdomsDeceivingMaking LovePerfumeCatchingStalkingLapsesAnimal KingdomOstentationMigrateTime Lapse
Author:Barbara Kingsolver
Create image

“As you see in a pair of bellows, there is a forced breath without life, so in those that are puffed up with the wind of ostentation, there may be charitable words without works.”

MayWindBreathsPairsCharitableOstentation
Book:The Works of Joseph Hall DD Successively Bishop of Exeter and Norwich: With Some Account of His Life and Sufferings
Create image

“[Warfare is] maleness in its absurdest extremes. Here is to be studied the whole gamut of basic masculinity, from the initial instinct of combat, through every form of glorious ostentation, with the loudest accompaniment of noise.”

MenWholeFormInstinctExtremesNoiseGloriousCombatWarfareMasculinityInitialsOstentationMaleness
Book:Collected Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Short Stories, Novels, Poems and Essays: The Yellow Wallpaper, What Diantha Did, Women and Economics, The Crux, Moving the Mountain, Herland and other works from the prominent American feminist, sociologist and novelist
Create image

“His manners were less pure, but his character was equally amiable with that of his father. Twenty-two acknowledged concubines, and a library of sixty-two thousand volumes, attested the variety of his inclinations, and from the productions which he left behind him, it appears that the former as well as the latter were designed for use rather than ostentation.”

WellsTwoCharacterUseFatherLeftBehindsHistoryThousandPureTwentiesLibraryProductionsFormerVarietyMannersLatterSixtyVolumeInclinationLeft BehindRoman EmpireAmiableTwenty TwoOstentationConcubines
Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Create image

“In San Francisco, vulgarity, "bad taste," ostentation are regarded as a kind of alien blight, an invasion or encroachment from outside. In Los Angeles, there is so much money and power connected with ostentation that is no longer ludicrous: it commands a kind of respect. For if the mighty behave like this, then quiet good taste means that you can't afford the conspicuous expenditures, and you become a little ashamed of your modesty and propriety.”

IfsKindMeanLittlesTasteQuietConnectedCommandAliensBehaveAshamedLos AngelesModestySan FranciscoInvasionGood TasteVulgarityProprietyExpendituresBad TasteEncroachmentMoney And PowerBlightOstentation
Book:i lost it at the movies
Create image

“By interpreting freedom as the propagation and immediate gratification of needs, people distort their own nature, for they engender in themselves a multitude of pointless and foolish desires, habits, and incongruous stratagems. Their lives are motivated only by mutual envy, sensuality, and ostentation.”

PeopleNeedsDesireNatureFreedomHabitEnvyFoolishSensualityMutualMotivatedMultitudesGratificationPointlessInterpretingStratagemPropagationOstentationImmediate Gratification
Book:The Karamazov Brothers
Create image

“Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood.”

WritingEndsSpeakLanguageSpeechUnderstoodEnglish LanguageFew WordsOstentationWritten LanguageWriting WordsLanguage WordsPlain LanguageWords You Speak
Book:Fruits of Solitude: In Reflections and Maxims Relating to the Conduct of Human Life
Create image

“To conclude, therefore, let no man upon a weak conceit of sobriety or an ill-applied moderation think or maintain that a man can search too far, or be too well studied in the book of God's word, or the book of God's works, divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endeavor an endless progress or proficience in both; only let men beware that they apply both to charity, and not to swelling; to use, and not to ostentation; and again, that they do not unwisely mingle or confound these learnings together.”

ThinkingMenWellsBookPhilosophyUseTogetherProgressWeakCharityIllEndlessDivinityEndeavorModerationConceitSobrietySwellingOstentation
Book:The Works of Francis Bacon: Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Albans, and Lord High Chancellor of England
Create image

“He loved possessions, not masses of them, but a select few that he did not part with.They gave a man self-respect. Not ostentation but quality, and the love that cherished the quality. Possessions reminded him that he existed, and made him enjoy his existence. It was as simple as that. And wasn' t that worth something? He existed.”

PeopleIfsMenWorldMadeSelfCertainEnjoySimpleExistenceQualitySecurityMassPossessionSelf RespectSelectOstentation
Author:Patricia Highsmith
Create image

“Do you think it is a vain hope that one day man will find joy in noble deeds of light and mercy, rather than in the coarse pleasures he indulges in today -- gluttony, fornication, ostentation, boasting, and envious vying with his neighbor? I am certain this is not a vain hope and that the day will come soon.”

ThinkingMenLightTodayJoyCertainPleasureOne DayMercyDeedsNobleNeighborVainBoastIndulgeEnviousIndulge InGluttonyCoarseOstentationNoble Deeds
Book:The Brothers Karamazov
Create image

“Professional standards, the standards of ambition and selfishness, are always sliding downward toward expense, ostentation, and mediocrity. They tend always to narrow the ground of judgment. But amateur standards, the standards of love, are always straining upward toward the humble and the best. They enlarge the ground of judgment. The context of love is the world.”

WorldLifeLove IsAmbitionJudgmentStandardsHumbleSelfishnessExpensesMediocrityOstentation
Book:What Are People For?: Essays
Create image

“Whatever is done without ostentation, and without the people being witnesses of it, is, in my opinion, most praiseworthy: not that the public eye should be entirely avoided, for good actions desire to be placed in the light; but notwithstanding this, the greatest theater for virtue is conscience.”

PeopleInspirationalShouldDoneLightEyeActionDesireOpinionVirtueConscienceTheaterWitnessAvoidedPublic EyePraiseworthyGood ActionsOstentation
Book:Thoughts of Cicero, on the following subjects, viz. I. Religion, II. Man ... XII. Miscellaneous thoughts. Published in Latin and French by the Abbé d'Olivet; to which is now added, an English translation, with notes. [By Alexander Wishart.]
Create image

“The experience of the ages that are past, the hopes of the ages that are yet to come, unite their voices in an appeal to us;– they implore us to think more of the character of our people than of its numbers; to look upon our vast natural resources, not as tempters to ostentation and pride, but as means to be converted by the refining alchemy of education into mental and spiritual treasures; ...and thus give to the world the example of a nation whose wisdom increases with its prosperity, and whose virtues are equal to its power.”

PeopleThinkingWorldGivingLooksMeanCharacterAgePastSpiritualNationsVoiceNaturalNumbersEducationVirtueExamplePrideEqualResourcesIncreaseProsperityTreasureAppealsLook UpAlchemyNatural ResourcesRefiningOstentation
Author:Horace Mann
Create image

“I have always taken as the standard of the mode of teaching and writing, not the abstract, particular, professional philosopher, but universal man, that I have regarded man as the criterion of truth, and not this or that founder of a system, and have from the first placed the highest excellence of the philosopher in this, that he abstains, both as a man and as an author, from the ostentation of philosophy, i. e., that he is a philosopher only in reality, not formally, that he is a quiet philosopher, not a loud and still less a brawling one.”

MenWritingFirstsStillsPhilosophyRealityTakenTeachingParticularQuietHighestStandardsUniversalExcellencePhilosopherLoudAbstractFoundersCriteriaOstentation
Author:Ludwig Feuerbach
Create image