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Pettiness Quotes

Browse 84 quotes about Pettiness.

Pettiness Quotes

“Odd, don't you think? I have seen war, and invasions and riots. I have heard of massacres and brutalities beyond imagining, and I have kept my faith in the power of civilization to bring men back from the brink. And yet one women writes a letter, and my whole world falls to pieces. You see, she is an ordinary woman. A good one, even. That's the point ... Nothing [a recognizably bad person does] can surprise or shock me, or worry me. But she denounced Julia and sent her to her death because she resented her, and because Julia is a Jew. I thought in this simple contrast between the civilized and the barbaric, but I was wrong. It is the civilized who are the truly barbaric, and the [Nazi] Germans are merely the supreme expression of it.”

WarEvilCivilizationGoodResentmentWwiiBarbarismJewsNazisPettinessOrdinarinessDenunciation
Book:The Dream of Scipio
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“We like to stress the commonness of heroes. Essences seem undemocratic. We feel oppressed by the call to greatness. We regard an interest in glory or perfection as a sign of mental unhealthiness, and have decided that high achievers, who are called overachievers, owe their surplus ambition to a defect in mothering (either too little or too much). We want to admire but think we have a right not to be intimidated. We dislike feeling inferior to an ideal. So away with ideals, with essences. The only ideals allowed are healthy ones -- those everyone may aspire to, or comfortably imagine oneself possessing.”

SuccessDemocracyGreatnessAchievementAmbitionGloryIdealsPerfectionEssenceEqualityJealousyMediocrityHeroesInferiorityIntimidationEgalitarianismPettinessOverachievers
Book:The Volcano Lover
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“The creation of man is evidence for the love of God, the preservation of man is evidence for the patience of God, and Christ is evidence for the forgiveness of God. It is when we are wrapped up in our own little peeves that we begin to displace His benevolence with malevolence.”

LoveGodFaithChristSinCreationGoodnessForgivenessEvidencePatienceSelfishnessHolinessPreservationBenevolenceApologeticsPettinessHoliness Of GodMalevolencePet Peeve
Book:Killosophy
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“You don't have to knock anyone off their game to win yours. It doesn’t build you up to tear others down.”

LoveKindKindnessPositive ThinkingConfidencePositivityMaking A DifferenceInsecurityNegativityHelping PeopleBe The ChangePettinessBeing MeanHurting PeopleSetting An ExampleBuilding People UpBeing LovingBeing The Bigger PersonBuild People UpSpeaking LifeBeing A Positive PersonBuild You UpSpeaking HopeTear Your Down
Book:The Single Woman–Life, Love, and a Dash of Sass: Embracing Singleness with Confidence
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“It's taxing to consider the circumstances that can take an unmarked human canvas and make it rage-filled and petty and lost. It's not fun to have sympathy for the people who are trying to hurt you. But their actions can sometimes make sense: what's easier than trying to get better is trying to break something else down.”

HurtEmpathyRageSympathyPettiness
Book:One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter
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“In this world where too many are willing to see only the light that is visible, never the Light Invisible, we have a daily darkness that is night, and we encounter another darkness from time to time that is death, the deaths of those we love, but the third and most constant darkness is with us everyday, at all hours of every day, is the darkness of the mind, the pettiness and meanness and hatred, which we have invited into ourselves, and which we pay out with generous interest.”

LightHurtCompassionDarknessEmpathyHatredAbuseCrueltyBullyMeannessOdd ThomasPettinessLight Invisible
Book:Brother Odd
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“Pettiness often leads both to error and to the digging of a trap for oneself. Wondering (which I am sure he didn't) 'if by the 1990s [Hitchens] was morphing into someone I didn’t quite recognize”, Blumenthal recalls with horror the night that I 'gave' a farewell party for Martin Walker of the Guardian, and then didn't attend it because I wanted to be on television instead. This is easy: Martin had asked to use the fine lobby of my building for a farewell bash, and I'd set it up. People have quite often asked me to do that. My wife did the honors after Nightline told me that I’d have to come to New York if I wanted to abuse Mother Teresa and Princess Diana on the same show. Of all the people I know, Martin Walker and Sidney Blumenthal would have been the top two in recognizing that journalism and argument come first, and that there can be no hard feelings about it. How do I know this? Well, I have known Martin since Oxford. (He produced a book on Clinton, published in America as 'The President We Deserve'. He reprinted it in London, under the title, 'The President They Deserve'. I doffed my hat to that.) While Sidney—I can barely believe I am telling you this—once also solicited an invitation to hold his book party at my home. A few days later he called me back, to tell me that Martin Peretz, owner of the New Republic, had insisted on giving the party instead. I said, fine, no bones broken; no caterers ordered as yet. 'I don't think you quite get it,' he went on, after an honorable pause. 'That means you can't come to the party at all.' I knew that about my old foe Peretz: I didn't then know I knew it about Blumenthal. I also thought that it was just within the limit of the rules. I ask you to believe that I had buried this memory until this book came out, but also to believe that I won't be slandered and won't refrain—if motives or conduct are in question—from speculating about them in my turn.”

PoliticsFriendshipUnited StatesNew YorkTelevisionEnglandBetrayalLondonJournalismOxfordPettinessArgumentationBill ClintonMother TeresaThe Guardian1990sSidney BlumenthalPresidency Of Bill ClintonDiana Princess Of WalesThe New RepublicMartin Walker ReporterMarty PeretzNightlineUniversity Of Oxford
Author:Christopher Hitchens
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“You are different from the really great man in only one thing: The great man, at one time, also was a very little man, but he developed one important ability: he learned to see where he was small in his thinking, and actions. Under the pressure of some task which was dear to him he learned better and better to sense the threat that comes from his smallness and pettiness. The great man, then, knows when and in what he is a little man.”

ThinkingKnowsMenLittlesImportantDifferentActionAbilityOne ThingTasksPressureThreatDearGreat MenOne TimeReally GreatLittle ManSmallnessPettiness
Author:Wilhelm Reich
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“We need a government, not politics. Because there's too much politics. Of course there should be debate. But there seems to be so much pettiness and not enough good faith. It is civilized to agree to disagree, and this idea is slowly disintegrating. The great statesmen of the past knew this, and I think it helps drive civilization.”

ThinkingNeedsShouldIdeasEnoughHelpingSeemsGovernmentPastCoursesToo MuchCivilizationAgreeDebateCivilizedDisagreeStatesmenGood FaithPettinessAgree To Disagree
Author:Daphne Guinness
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“I have often thought how strange it is that men can at once and the same moment cheerfully consign our sex to lives either of narrowest toil or senseless luxury and vanity, and then sneer at the smallness of our aims, the pettiness of our thoughts, the puerility of our conversation!”

MenMomentsSexStrangeConversationAimLuxuryVanityOur ThoughtsToilSneerSmallnessPettiness
Book:The Duties of Women: A Course of Lectures
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“But the writer who endures and keeps working will finally know that writing the book was something hard and glorious, for at the desk a writer must try to be free of prejudice, meanness of spirit, pettiness, and hatred; strive to be a better human being than the writer normally is, and to do this through concentration on a single word, and then another, and another. This is splendid work, as worthy and demanding as any, and the will and resilience to do it are good for the writer's soul.”

KnowsWritingTryingHumansBookSoulHardSpiritHuman BeingsHatredPrejudiceStriveEndureWorthyResilienceGloriousConcentrationDesksSplendidMeannessSingle WordPettiness
Author:Andre Dubus
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“Pettiness seems to go hand in hand with vindictiveness. The smaller the person, the larger the need for revenge. This may account for the fact that some consensual crimes have stiffer penalties than do most crimes with innocent victims.”

NeedsMayPersonsFactsHandsSeemsCrimeAccountsVictimRevengeInnocentPenaltiesHand In HandPettinessVindictivenessInnocent Victims
Book:Ain't nobody's business if you do: the absurdity of consensual crimes in a free society
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“I think now it's a very odd time in politics. It should be mostly about good governing. We need a government, not politics. Because there's too much politics. Of course there should be debate. But there seems to be so much pettiness and not enough good faith. It is civilized to agree to disagree and this idea is slowly disintegrating. The great statesmen of the past knew this, and I think it helps drive civilization.”

ThinkingEnoughHelpingPastAgreeDebateOddCivilizedDisagreeGood FaithPettiness
Author:Daphne Guinness
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“The sound of distant breakers made her heart ache with melancholy. She was in the mood when the sea has a saddening effect upon the nerves. It is only when we are very happy that we can bear to gaze merrily upon the vast and limitless expanse of water, rolling on and on with such persistent, irritating monotony to the accompaniment of our thoughts, whether grave or gay. When they are gay, the waves echo their gaiety; but when they are sad, then every breaker, as it rolls, seems to bring additional sadness and to speak to us of hopelessness and of the pettiness of all our joys.”

HeartMadeSeemsJoySpeakSoundWaterSeaSadnessEffectsBearsGayWaveMoodGravesMelancholyNervesEchoesRollingOur ThoughtsVery HappyHopelessnessAchePersistentLimitlessIrritatingMonotonyExpansePettinessGaietyHeart AcheSaddening
Author:Baroness Orczy
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