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Petulance Quotes

Browse 17 quotes about Petulance.

Petulance Quotes

“That night, I hated father. He smelt of cabbage. There was cigarette ash all over his trousers. His untidy moustache was yellower and viler than ever with nicotine, and he took no notice of me. He simply sat there in his ugly arm-chair, his eyes half closed, brooding on the Lord knows what. I hated him. I hated his moustache. I even hated the smoke that drifted from his mouth and hung in the stale air above his head. And when my mother came through the door and asked me whether I had seen her spectacles, I hated her too. I hated the clothes she wore; tasteless and fussy. I hated them deeply. I hated something I had never noticed before; it was the way the heels of her shoes were worn away on their outside edges - not badly, but appreciably. It looked mean to me, slatternly, and horribly human. I hated her for being human - like father. She began to nag me about her glasses and the thread-bare condition of the elbows of my jacket, and suddenly I threw my book down. The room was unbearable. I felt suffocated. I suddenly realised that I must get away. I had lived with these two people for nearly twenty-three years. I had been born in the room immediately overhead. Was this the life for a young man? To spend his evenings watching the smoke drift out of his father's mouth and stain that decrepit old moustache, year after year - to watch the worn-away edges of my mother's heels - the dark-brown furniture and the familiar stains on the chocolate-coloured carpet? I would go away; I would shake off the dark, smug mortality of the place. I would forgo my birthright. What of my father's business into which I would step at his death? What of it? To hell with it. ("Same Time, Same Place")”

BourgeoisBourgeoisiePetulance
Book:Weird Shadows From Beyond: An Anthology of Strange Stories
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“Have charity; have patience; have mercy. Never bring a human being, however silly, ignorant, or weak--above all, any little child--to shame and confusion of face. Never by petulance, by suspicion, by ridicule, even by selfish and silly haste--never, above all, by indulging in the devilish pleasure of a sneer--crush what is finest and rouse up what is coarsest in the heart of any fellow-creature.”

HumansHeartChildrenLittlesFacesHuman BeingsPleasureCreaturesWeakMercyShameFellowsCharitySelfishSillyIgnorantConfusionCrushSuspicionFinestRidiculeHasteHaving PatienceSneerDevilishPetulance
Book:Daily Thoughts (EasyRead Super Large 18pt Edition)
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“The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns; The low'ring eye, the petulance, the frown, And sullen sadness, that o'ershade, distort, And mar the face of beauty, when no cause For such immeasurable woe appears; These Flora banishes, and gives the fair Sweet smiles, and bloom less transient than her own.”

GivingEyeFacesFeltCausesSadnessSweetLowsFairsRingsMarsReignWoeTransientSullenFloraSpleenSweet SmilePetulance
Book:William Cowper: The Task and Selected Other Poems
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“Why should I tell you?" he asked, with no small amount of petulance. "If you tell me, I will leave you alone," I said. "And if you don't tell me, I'm going to grab the nearest ghostwritten James Patterson romance novel and I am going to follow you through this store reading it out loud until you relent." Now I could see the fright beneath the defiance.”

IfsShouldSaidRomanceReadingNovelAmountStoresLoudShould IDefianceRomance NovelFrightSmall AmountsEverlasting LovePetulance
Book:Dash & Lily's Book of Dares
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“I know all about the despair of overcoming chronic temptation. It is not serious, provided self-offended petulance, annoyance at breaking records, impatience, etc., don't get the upper hand. No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep picking ourselves up each time...The only fatal thing is to lose one's temper and give up.”

IfsKnowsGivingSelfHandsHappinessFallLosesRecordsSeriousAmountDespairGiving UpOvercomingTemptationEtcTemperOffendedImpatienceAnnoyanceUpper HandPetulance
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“Our attitude toward our own culture has recently been characterized by two qualities, braggadocio and petulance. Braggadocio - empty boasting of American power, American virtue, American know-how - has dominated our foreign relations now for some decades. Here at home - within the family, so to speak - our attitude to our culture expresses a superficially different spirit, the spirit of petulance. Never before, perhaps, has a culture been so fragmented into groups, each full of its own virtue, each annoyed and irritated at the others.”

KnowsTwoDifferentHomeSpiritCultureSpeakAttitudeQualityKnow HowVirtueGroupsEmptyRelationDecadesBoastAnnoyedIrritatedFragmentedForeign RelationsAmerican PowerTwo CulturesPetulance
Author:Daniel J. Boorstin
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“Every old man complains of the growing depravity of the world, of the petulance and insolence of the rising generation. He recounts the decency and regularity of former times, and celebrates the discipline and sobriety of the age in which his youth was passed; a happy age which is now no more to be expected, since confusion has broken in upon the world, and thrown down all the boundaries of civility and reverence.”

MenWorldAgeGrowingGenerationsYouthBrokenDisciplineExpectedComplainingBoundariesConfusionCelebrateFormerRisingThrownOld ManReverenceDecencyCivilitySobrietyDepravityRegularityInsolencePetulance
Author:Lyndon B. Johnson
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“By the consultation of books, whether of dead or living authors, many temptations to petulance and opposition, which occur in oral conferences, are avoided. An author cannot obtrude his service unasked, nor can be often suspected of any malignant intention to insult his readers with his knowledge or his wit. Yet so prevalent is the habit of comparing ourselves with others, while they remain within the reach of our passions, that books are seldom read with complete impartiality, but by those from whom the writer is placed at such a distance that his life or death is indifferent.”

BookPassionAdviceReaderHabitDistanceIntentionWitTemptationCompareInsultOppositionIndifferentConferencesAvoidedLife Or DeathImpartialityConsultationPetulance
Author:Samuel Johnson
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“Stand still, close your eyes and listen; in the silence you can hear the cries of pain and low moans of anguish of animals waiting to die... do everything you can even if today it is just one small thing. There are no excuses for inaction, despair, egotism, or petulance that matter to the animals.”

IfsStillsMatterEyeTodayPainDiesWaitingAnimalSilenceCryDespairLowsExcuseJust OneAnimal RightsAnguishSmall ThingsEgotismInactionNo ExcusesPetulance
Author:Ashley Montagu
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