Second Rate Quotes - Page 4

• I suspect that the word (art) was invented by second-rate intelligences to describe the incomprehensible activities of their betters.

  Jack Vance

  Art, Rate, Activity

  "Showboat World" by Jack Vance, DAW Books, (p. 111), 1981.

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• Graham Wallas has reminded us that writing as compared with speaking involves an impression at the second remove and reading an impression at the third remove. The voice of a second-rate person is more impressive than the published opinion of superior ability.

  Harold Innis

  Reading, Writing, Voice

  Harold Adams Innis (2007). “Empire and Communications”, p.31, Rowman & Littlefield

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• There is a rawness and a wonder to life. Pursue it. Hunt for it. Sell out to get it. Don't listen to the whines of those who have settled for a second-rate life and want you to do the same so they won't feel guilty. Your goal is not to live long; it's to live.

  Max Lucado

  Long, Goal, Want

  Max Lucado (1999). “He Still Moves Stones”, p.66, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• I can think of nothing more soul destroying in life than to persist in trying to do a thing you want desperately to do well, and to know that you are at the best second rate.

  Agatha Christie

  Happiness, Success, Thinking

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• Why in the hell do journalists insist on coming up with a second rate Freudian evaluation on my lyrics when 90% of the time they've transcribed the lyrics incorrectly?

  Kurt Cobain

  Evaluation, Hell, Rate

  "Journals". Book by Kurt Cobain, 2002.

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• We admire predators - panthers, lions, tigers, even wolves. Maybe to be naturally thoughtful and hesitant to use violence is to be somehow second rate. To be in the middle of the social food chain. Especially if you're a man. This society thinks real men are violent.

  Marge Piercy

  Real, Men, Thinking

  Marge Piercy (2016). “The Longings of Women: A Novel”, p.351, Open Road Media

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• What depresses me is the inevitable way the second rate forges ahead and the deserving is left behind.

  Ellen Glasgow

  Depressing, Mediocrity, Way

  Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow (1958). “Letters of Ellen Glasgow”

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• Latin America can no longer tolerate being a haven for United States liberals who cannot make their point at home, an outlet for apostles too "apostolic" to find their vocation as competent professionals within their own community. The hardware salesman threatens to dump second-rate imitations of parishes, schools and catechisms -- out-moded even in the United States -- all around the continent. The traveling escapist threatens further to confuse a foreign world with his superficial protests, which are not viable even at home.

  Ivan Illich

  Latin, School, Home

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• I've often found myself preferring second-rate people to supposedly superior people, simply and solely because of their uncontrollable tendency to bang themselves against the sides of life's vast lampshade like fireflies or moths.

  Francoise Sagan

  Firefly, People, Bangs

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• It is always the sign of the second-rate man when the decision merely meets the present situation. It is the left-over in a decision which gives it its greatest value. It is the carry-over in the decision which helps develop the situation in the way we wish it to be developed. The ablest administrators do not merely draw logical conclusions from the array of facts of the past which their expert assistants bring to them; they have a vision of the future.

  Mary Parker Follett

  Past, Men, Visions Of The Future

  Mary Parker Follett (1957). “Dynamic administration: the collected papers of Mary Parker Follett”

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• the whole flavor and quality of the American representative government turns to ashes on the tongue, if one regards that government as simply an inferior and rather second-rate sort of corporation.

  Margaret Halsey

  Government, Quality, Ashes

  Margaret Halsey (1952). “The Folks at Home”

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• But I think that sometimes, when one's behaved like a rather second-rate person, the way I did at breakfast, then in a kind of self-destructive shock one goes and does something really second-rate. Almost as if to prove it.

  Alison Lurie

  Thinking, Self, Doe

  Alison Lurie (2012). “Real People: A Novel”, p.146, Open Road Media

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• Do not let anyone, of any sex, tell you that your intuitions and insights, your wisdom and your understandings, are somehow second-rate or not to be trusted.

  Neale Donald Walsch

  Sex, Understanding, Intuition

  Source: www.enlighteningtimes.com

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• I hope for so much from every book I read. And time and again, I find myself disappointed. I look across my bookshelves and see hundreds of titles which in my memory seem merely mediocre or second-rate. Only occasionally does a novel appear for which I feel a lasting passion, a book that I think could in time become a classic.

  John Boyne

  Memories, Book, Passion

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• Music is of two kinds: one petty, poor, second-rate, never varying, its base the hundred or so phrasings which all musicians understand, a babbling which is more or less pleasant, the life that most composers live.

  Honore de Balzac

  Music, Two, Kind

  "Massimilla Doni" by Honore de Balzac, translated by Clara Bell and James Waring, 1839.

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• No man has come so near our definition of a constitutional statesman - the powers of a first-rate man and the creed of a second-rate man.

  Walter Bagehot

  Men, Definitions, Firsts

  1881 Biographical Studies,'The Character of Sir Robert Peel'.

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• Second-rate knowledge, and middling talents, carry a man farther at courts, and in the busy part of the world, than superior knowledge and shining parts.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Knowledge, Men, Shining

  Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope Earl of Chesterfield (1855). “The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author”, p.421

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• The qualities of a second-rate writer can easily be defined, but a first-rate writer can only be experienced. It is just the thing in him which escapes analysis that makes him first-rate.

  Willa Cather

  Quality, Analysis, Firsts

  Willa Cather (2013). “Not Under Forty”, p.74, Knopf

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• Somebody asked Somerset Maugham about his place in the pantheon of writers, and he said, "I'm in the very front row of the second rate." I'm sort of haunted by that.

  Stephen King

  Pantheon, Said, Rate

  "A Rare Interview with Master Storyteller Stephen King". Interview with Ken Tucker, parade.com. May 25, 2013.

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• The pressure on language to deteriorate does not come merely from below, from the "democratic" lev-elers. It comes also from above, from the fancy jar-gonmongers, idle game players, fashionable coteries for second-rate intellectuals.

  John Simon

  Player, Games, Jars

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• Although most informed balletomanes would place artistry above technique, artistry without a strong technique is a flaccid, bloodless thing indeed, whereas technique without much artistry can still dazzle us in the manner of the circus or sports arena translated to a higher plane. Though the perfect blend of the two elements is the consummation devoutly to be wished, the real enemy of good ballet is not the slight preponderance of one or the other but the prevalence of pantomime--the turning of dance into second-rate theater.

  John Simon

  Sports, Strong, Real

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• Buddha and Christ were second-rate heroes. The greatest men that ever live pass away unknown. They put forth no claims for themselves, establish no schools or systems in their name. They never create any stir but just melt down in love.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Hero, School, Men

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• A fine marksman is with a second rate rifle is far more effective than the reverse.

  Jeff Cooper

  Gun, Rifles, Fine

  Jeff Cooper (1998). “To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth”, p.172, Paladin Press

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• A sweeping statement is the only statement worth listening to. The critic without faith gives balanced opinions, usually about second-rate writers.

  Patrick Kavanagh

  Giving, Listening, Opinion

  Patrick Kavanagh (1973). “Collected Pruse”

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• I knew Id always be a second-rate academic, and I thought, Well, Id rather be a second-rate novelist or even a third-rate one.

  Sarah Waters

  Novelists, Academic, Rate

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