Grandiose Quotes - Page 2

• It is to escape the responsibility for failure that the weak so eagerly throw themselves into grandiose undertakings.

  Eric Hoffer

  Failure, Responsibility, Weak

  Eric Hoffer (1963). “The Ordeal of Change”

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• To our real, naked selves there is not a thing on earth or in heaven worth dying for. It is only when we see ourselves as actors in a staged (and therefore unreal) performance that death loses its frightfulness and finality and becomes an act of make-believe and a theatrical gesture. It is one of the main tasks of a real leader to mask the grim reality of dying and killing by evoking in his followers the illusion that they are participating in a grandiose spectacle, a solemn or lighthearted dramatic performance.

  Eric Hoffer

  Real, Believe, Self

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• There's something so showy about desperation, it takes hard wits to see it's a grandiose form of funk.

  Elizabeth Bowen

  Hope, Expectations, Desperation

  Elizabeth Bowen (1938). “The death of the heart”, Viking Pr

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• Belief in the traditional sense, or certitude, or dogma, amounts to the grandiose delusion, "My current model" -- or grid, or map, or reality-tunnel -- "contains the whole universe and will never need to be revised." In terms of the history of science and knowledge in general, this appears absurd and arrogant to me, and I am perpetually astonished that so many people still manage to live with such a medieval attitude.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Attitude, Reality, Tunnels

  Robert Anton Wilson (1977). “Cosmic trigger: final secret of the illuminati”, New Falcon Pubns

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• Psychopaths have a grandiose self-structure which demands a scornful and detached devaluation of others, in order to ward off their envy toward the good perceived in other people. He will choose you, disarm you with his words, and control you with his presence. He will delight you with his wit and his plans. He will show you a good time but you will always get the bill. He will smile and deceive you, and he will scare you with his eyes. And when he is through with you, and he will be through with you, he will desert you and take with him your innocence and your pride.

  Robert D. Hare

  Eye, Pride, Self

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• I seem to know all the cliches, but not how to put them together in a believable way. Or else these stories are terrible and grandiose precisely because all the cliches intertwine in an unrealistic way and you can't disentangle them. But when you actually live a cliche, it feels brand new, and you are unashamed.

  Umberto Eco

  Together, Stories, Way

  "The Mysterious Flame Of Queen Loana". Book by Umberto Eco, 2005.

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• An individualism which has got beyond the stage of hedonism tends to yield to the lure of the grandiose. It was not man, the individual, nor even the Supreme Being, that Robespierre set up against Christ; it was that Leviathan, the Nation.

  Andre Malraux

  Men, Yield, Leviathan

  "The Voices of Silence". Book by Andre Malraux, Doubleday, Part IV, Chapter I, 1953.

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• One of the most fashionable notions of our times is that social problems like poverty and oppression breed wars. Most wars, however, are started by well-fed people with the time on their hands to dream up half-baked ideologies or grandiose ambitions, and to nurse real or imagined grievances.

  Thomas Sowell

  Dream, Real, War

  Thomas Sowell (2002). “Controversial Essays”, Hoover Inst Press

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• No, dance is not a monster. The stage is monstrous, not in the negative sense but on the grandiose side. And dance is sacred as something emotionally strong happens.

  Sylvie Guillem

  Strong, Monsters, Negative

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• I was attacked the other night for being grandiose. I would just want you to note: Lincoln standing at Council Bluffs was grandiose. The Wright Brothers standing at Kitty Hawk were grandiose. John F. Kennedy was grandiose. I accept the charge that I am grandiose and that Americans are instinctively grandiose.

  Newt Gingrich

  Brother, Night, Want

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• For someone so conflicted, who am I to give advice to anybody? It’s such a funny, grandiose idea

  Florence Welch

  Ideas, Giving, Advice

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• Utopians...consider individual freedom as the stumbling block on which the grandiose idea of mankind's totalization may flounder.

  Thomas Steven Molnar

  Block, Ideas, May

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• He's got lots of money and clearly has grandiose schemes, seeing himself as an important global player. There is a reality to it. Oil is at record prices, and he's willing to spend both in Venezuela and in the region. But the question is, how much influence is he gaining

  Michael Shifter

  Player, Reality, Oil

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• Finally, the most grandiose result of the photographic enterprise is to give us the sense that we can hold the whole world in our heads – as an anthology of images. To collect photographs is to collect the world

  Susan Sontag

  Giving, World, Photograph

  Susan Sontag (2011). “On Photography”, p.5, Macmillan

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• All right, New York City! Welcome to Madison... Square... Jericho! And after tonight, when I become the true, undisputed Intercontinental champion, the Jerichoholics of the Big Apple will throw a celebration party that will make the millennium bash in Times Square look like my sister's seventh birthday party! It'll be a celebration so huge, so grandiose, so spectacular, that it will never, EEEEEEEEVER, be forgotten again!

  Chris Jericho

  New York, Party, Squares

  "Royal Rumble", www.imdb.com. 2000.

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• Do not try to paint the grandiose thing. Paint the commonplace so that it will be distinguished.

  William Merritt Chase

  Trying, Paint, Distinguished

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• A writer should never install himself before a panorama, however grandiose it may be.

  Blaise Cendrars

  May, Should, Panorama

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• I don't make art with grandiose delusions. I do know there are limits to what art is capable of. That makes it all the more appealing to me. And I can do as I will whenever I choose.

  Raymond Pettibon

  Art, Limits, Delusion

  Interview with John O’Connor, www.believermag.com. December 2004/ January 2005.

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• I feel no shame about having paintings be as grandiose and ridiculous as possible.

  Laura Owens

  Ridiculous, Painting, Shame

  Interview with Rachel Kushner, www.believermag.com. May 2003.

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• It might sound dramatic and a little grandiose, but as a Latina, I would like to be someone that gives a voice to my culture.

  Cristela Alonzo

  Voice, Giving, Sound

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• On the other hand, hope is subversive, for it limits the grandiose pretension of the present, daring to announce that the present to which we have all made commitments is now called into question.

  Walter Brueggemann

  Commitment, Hands, Limits

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• The only criticism heard with any frequency of Elton John's first American album, 'Elton John,' was that the production was too grandiose. The melodies were superb, and lyrics frequently very good, and the performances flawless.

  Jon Landau

  Criticism, Albums, Flawless

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• Without sounding too grandiose, the survival of the planet itself is at stake, you have rising sea levels, acidification of the oceans, immigration sparked by climate change, droughts that are much more severe.

  Laurent Fabius

  Change, Ocean, Sea

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• Small steps work—grandiose goals don’t.

  Sonia Choquette

  Goal, Small Steps, Steps

  Sonia Choquette (2010). “Trust Your Vibes: Secret Tools for Six-Sensory Living”, p.16, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• I love that, for Kanye [West], there's no difference between the epic and the personal. That makes him sound like a really grandiose douche - which, I don't think anyone, himself included, could contest - but at the same time, it's really amazing. I love the scope of his perfectionism.

  David Longstreth

  Thinking, Epic, Differences

  Source: pitchfork.com

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