Quotessence
Home / Topics / Ostentatious Quotes

Ostentatious Quotes

Browse 48 quotes about Ostentatious.

Related topics

Men

Ostentatious Quotes

“The new High King of Faerie lounges on his throne, his crown resting at an insouciant angle, his long, villainously scarlet cloak pinned at his shoulders and sweeping the floor. An earring shines from the peak of one pointed ear. Heavy rings glitter along his knuckles. His most ostentatious decoration, however, is his soft, sullen mouth. It makes him look every bit the jerk that he is.”

Holly BlackThe Folk Of The AirCardan GreenbriarCardanKingJerkThe Wicked KingOstentatiousLoungingHigh King
Book:The Wicked King
Create image

“Sumone Yiden Smiff was a businessman of note. Was, past tense. Through years of sweat and swearing and amazingly smart (or lucky) deals he’d built up a mining empire that spanned the sum of known space. At 74 years, he had reached the apex of a career stretching half a century. His companies mined precious commodities like Impervium, Obstinatium and Bitanium. He wasn’t really famous, or ostentatious. In fact he only ever made the cover of Fortune One Billion once, twenty-five years ago. He’d never married, had lots of children – light-years apart, apparently.”

YearsChildrenKnownCenturyMarriedSmartTenseFamousMiningPreciousEmpireOstentatiousOnceNoteAgoApparentlyBitaniumImperviumSumone
Book:Dead Man's Hammer
Create image

“Hypocrites act by virtue.... They frame many counterfeits of her, with which they make an ostentatious parade, in all public assemblies, and processions; but the original of what they counterfeit, and which may indeed be said to have fallen from heaven, they produce so seldom, that it is cankered by the rust of sloth, and useless from non-application.”

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

“The extravagant and ostentatious lifestyles that pass for charisma in a time when almost anybody talks about charisma but if you think about it there's precious little to be seen.”

IfsThinkingLittlesLifestyleCharismaExtravagantOstentatious
Book:Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: The Work of a Legendary Critic: Rock'N'Roll as Literature and Literature as Rock 'N'Roll
Create image

“Recognising that an ostentatious cult of heroism and state service served an important propaganda function for the British elite does not mean, of course, that we should dismiss it as artificial or insincere. All aristocracies have a strong military tradition, and for many British patricians the protracted warfare of the period was a godsend. It gave them a job, and, more important, a purpose, an opportunity to carry out what they had been trained to do since childhood: ride horses, fire guns, exercise their undoubted physical courage and tell other people what to do.”

PeopleShouldMeanDoeImportantStatesJobsPurposeCoursesOpportunityStrongFireChildhoodMilitaryPeriodsExerciseGunTraditionFunctionHorseBritishPropagandaElitesArtificialHeroismWarfareCultAristocracyBritish HistoryInsincereOstentatiousPhysical Courage
Author:Linda Colley
Create image

“Always run to the short way; and the short way is the natural: accordingly say and do everything in conformity with the soundest reason. For such a purpose frees a man from trouble, and warfare, and all artifice and ostentatious display.”

MenWayReasonRunningPurposeNaturalTroubleAtheismConformityDisplayWarfareArtificeOstentatious
Book:Stoic Six Pack: Meditations of Marcus Aurelius The Golden Sayings Fragments and Discourses of Epictetus Letters from a Stoic and The Enchiridion
Create image

“There is nothing so difficult to describe as happiness. Whether some feeling of envy enters into the mind upon hearing of it, or whether it is so calm, so unassuming, so little ostentatious in itself, that words give an imperfect idea of it, I know not. It is easier to enjoy it, than define it. ... and is oftener found at home, when home has not been embittered by dissensions, suspicions and guilt, than any where else upon earth. Yes, it is in home and in those who watch there for us.”

KnowsGivingMindLittlesIdeasFeelingsHomeEarthHappinessFoundEnjoyDifficultWatchesEasierGuiltCalmHearingEnvyImperfectSuspicionDissensionUnassumingOstentatious
Book:The Works of Lady Caroline Lamb: Glenarvon (1816)
Create image

“The manly pride of the Romans, content with substantial power, had left to the vanity of the East the forms and ceremonies of ostentatious greatness. But when they lost even the semblance of those virtues which were derived from their ancient freedom, the simplicity of Roman manners was insensibly corrupted by the stately affectation of the courts of Asia.”

FormLostLeftHistoryVirtueGreatnessPrideCourtSimplicityAncientEastVanityMannersAsiaCeremonyManlyRoman EmpireSemblanceOstentatious
Book:History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Create image

“Architecture is, to a certain extent, a sensual gratification. It addresses itself to the eye, and affords the best scope for the parade of barbaric pomp and splendour. It is the form in which the revenues of a semi-civilized people are most likely to be lavished. The most gaudy and ostentatious specimens of it, and sometimes the most stupendous, have been reared by such hands. It is one of the first steps in the great march of civilization.”

PeopleFirstsHas BeensSometimesHandsEyeFormCertainStepsCivilizationArchitectureSensualAddressesMarchCivilizedFirst StepsRevenueScopeGratificationParadesBarbaricSplendourGaudyOstentatious
Book:History of the Conquest of México
Create image

“I know that many of you do wear such a cross of Christ, not in any ostentatious way, not in a way that might harm you at your work or recreation, but a simple indication that you value the role of Jesus Christ in the history of the world, that you are trying to live by Christ's standards in your own daily life.”

KnowsWorldWayTryingMightValuesJesusChristSimpleRolesStandardsJesus ChristCrossesHarmDaily LifeLive ByWorld HistoryIndicationRecreationOstentatious
Author:Keith O'Brien
Create image

“As I glanced at the phraseology of the research report, dull and unfathomable to outsiders like me, I thought that if you have the ambition to become a villain, the first thing you should do is learn to be impenetrable. Don’t act like Blofeld—monocled and ostentatious. We journalists love writing about eccentrics. We hate writing about impenetrable, boring people. It makes us look bad: the duller the interviewee, the duller the prose. If you want to get away with wielding true, malevolent power, be boring.”

PeopleIfsWantShouldWritingFirstsLooksHateAmbitionResearchBoringLike MeJournalistDullProseReportsGet AwayVillainOutsidersUnfathomableOstentatious
Book:Jon Ronson's Adventures With Extraordinary People
Create image

“There's nothing worse than an ostentatious shot or some lighting that draws attention to itself, and you might go, 'Oh, wow, that's spectacular.' Or that spectacular shot, a big crane move, or something. But it's not necessarily right for the film — you jump out, you think about the surface, and you don't stay in there with the characters and the story.”

ThinkingCharacterStoriesBigsMightFilmMovingAttentionDrawsShotsSurfaceWowSpectacularLightingCranesOstentatious
Author:Roger Deakins
Create image

“Moral sentences appear ostentatious and tumid, when they have no greater occasions than the journey of a wit to his home town: yet such pleasures and such pains make up the general mass of life; and as nothing is little to him that feels it with gre”

FeelsLittlesHomePainPleasureMoralGreaterJourneyMoralityMassTownsSentencesWitOccasionsHome TownOstentatious
Book:Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Johnson's Diary of a Journey Into North Wales
Create image

“For me it's a dedication to your real interests. It's an ability to be open-minded. Without an open-minded mind, you can never be a great success. The great artists have been open-minded, even though they may seem, like Picasso, to be very directed, you can be directed and open-minded at the same time. I think you have to be really intensely serious about your work, but not so serious that you can't see the lightness that may also involve your life. You have to have that lightness too. You have to not be so heavy-handed and so ostentatious. It's very important not to be.”

ThinkingMindMayHas BeensImportantRealSeemsArtistInterestAbilitySeriousHeavyBeing RealDedicationGreat ArtOpen MindOpen MindedGreat ArtistGreat SuccessLightnessOstentatious
Author:Martha Stewart
Create image