'Pity without rigor would be cowardly egotism, mere…

That is mere sentimentality that lies abed by day and thinks itself white, far from the tan and callus of experience.

— Henry David Thoreau

A solitary ascetic is a symbol of the most cowardly egotism; a hermit who flees from his brothers instead of helping them to carry…

— H. P. Blavatsky

Obedience indeed is only the pitiful and cowardly egotism of him who thinks that he can do something better than reason.

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

My Chinese side comes out in my dancing. There's a certain in-the-moment sentimentality, an appreciation for the smallest details.

— Yuan Yuan Tan

Never was an age more sentimental, more devoid of real feeling, more exaggerated in false feeling, than our own.

— Anonymous

Sentimentality - that's what we call the sentiment we don't share.

— Graham Greene

Sentiment, crystallized, grows into sentimentality. It lost all spontaneity, which was the essence of feeling. It was dated--old-fashioned.

— Margaret Ayer Barnes

Only with great care. For thousands, carols will be their only link with a church. At the same time, sentimentality is perhaps the single…

— Jeremy Begbie

Being ill makes you feel what well people call sentimental, but what you feel is nonetheless genuine whatever they call it.

— Elizabeth Goudge

“Sentimentalist” is the abuse with which people counter the accusation that they are cruel, thereby implying that to be sentimental is worse than to…

— Brigid Brophy

I can't think of another attitude to have toward an audience than a hopeful and positive one. And if that includes such unfashionable things…

— Robert Palmer

British culture is very cynical sometimes of overt displays of sentimentality, and I think that becomes almost a suspicion of emotion, or a suspicion…

— Matt Haig

“The Germans are sentimental. Their word Heimweh . The English say homesick; the same in plain Swedish. Hemsjuk . Leave it to the Germans…

— Cynthia Ozick

It's counterproductive. The problem with sentimentality is that it kills the emotion.

— Jean-Pierre Dardenne

Sentiment is the mightiest force in civilization; not sentimentality, but sentiment. Women will bring this into politics. Home, sweet home, is as powerful on…

— Judith Ellen Foster