Pretension Quotes

126 Pretension quotes by 104 unique authors

Fighting battles is like courting girls: those who make the most pretensions and are boldest usually win. — Rutherford B. Hayes
Pornographers are the enemies of women only because our contemporary ideology of pornography does not encompass the possibility of change, as if we were the… — Angela Carter
I cannot avoid condemning all those who, from self-conceit have the pretension to imitate great artists of the past. If their powers of emotion be… — Jean-Georges Noverre
No, I make no pretension to patriotism. So long as my voice can be heard on this or the other side of the Atlantic, I… — Frederick Douglass
To despise theory is to have the excessively vain pretension to do without knowing what one does, and to speak without knowing what one says. — Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle
Pretension almost always overdoes the original, and hence exposes itself. — Hosea Ballou
The highest knowledge can be nothing more than the shortest and clearest road to truth; all the rest is pretension, not performance, mere verbiage and… — Charles Caleb Colton
Nothing more can be attempted than to establish the beginning and the direction of an infinitely long road. The pretension of any systematic and definitive… — Georg Simmel
The television critic, whatever his pretensions, does not labour in the same vineyard as those he criticizes; his grapes are all sour. — Frederic Raphael
The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same… — H. L. Mencken
It may be just one facet of your personality, or it may not even be a facet but only a pretension. You can show this… — Rajneesh
Nearly everywhere monarchs raised themselves further above the level of the greatest nobles and buttressed their new pretensions to respect and authority with cannons and… — John Roberts
The mark of the man of the world is absence of pretension. He does not make a speech; he takes a low business-tone, avoids all… — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Where there is much pretension, much has been borrowed; nature never pretends. — Johann Kaspar Lavater
I wondered why people consider escapism so bad, even the escapism on display right then. At first it might appear unseemly, but in the end… — Saadat Hasan Manto
Most good writing is clear, vigorous, honest, alive, sensuous, appropriate, unsentimental, rhythmic, without pretension, fresh, metaphorical, evocative in sound, economical, authoritative, surprising, memorable, and light. — Ken Macrorie
Elegance must be the right combination of distinction, naturalness, care and simplicity. Outside this, believe me, there is no elegance. Only pretension. — Christian Dior
When we are aware of our inner-growth potential yet have no pretensions about ourselves, when we are vulnerable, then we can change. — Amit Goswami
They're innocent movies, and they're fun movies and there were no pretensions about 'em. — Alex Winter
We must cultivate and defend particularity, individuality, and irregularity-life. Human beings do not have a future in the collectivism of bureaucratic states or in the… — Octavio Paz
These are no ordinary claims; and it seems hardly possible for a rational being to regard them with even a subdued interest; much less to… — Simon Greenleaf
Franco-American relations have been, and always will be, both conflictual and excellent. The U.S. finds France unbearable with its pretensions; we find the U.S. unbearable… — Jacques Chirac
Perhaps I had better inform my Protestant readers that the famous Dogma of Papal Infallibility is by far the most modest pretension of the kind… — George Bernard Shaw
Your worst and most dangerous enemy is the person that injures you under the pretensions of friendship. — Norm MacDonald
The place where God has supremely destroyed all human arrogance and pretension is the cross. — D. A. Carson

Who Wrote These Pretension Quotes

104 authors contributed a total of 126 Pretension Quotes, led by these top contributors: