Sentimentality Quotes

• There is no more subtle dissolvent of morals than sentimentality.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Moral, Subtle

  Woodrow Wilson, Woodrow Wilson Foundation, Princeton University (1974). “The papers of Woodrow Wilson”

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• I don't trust sentimentality in men; it goes with tyranny; you can't have one without the other.

  Caitlin Thomas

  Men, Tyranny, Don't Trust

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• If there is anybody I detest, it is weak-minded sentimentalists-all those melancholy people who, out of an excess of sympathy for others, miss the thrill of their own essence and drift through life without identity, like a human fog, feeling sorry for everyone.

  John Cheever

  Sorry, Fog, Essence

  John Cheever, Blake Bailey (2009). “John Cheever: Collected Stories and Other Writings”

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• Through all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of something-an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I heard somewhere a long time ago. For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man's, as though there was more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air. But they made no sound and what I had almost remembered was uncommunicable forever.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Struggle, Men, Air

  F. Scott Fitzgerald (2007). “The Great Gatsby”, p.127, Broadview Press

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• Sentimentality is a form of fatigue.

  Leonora Carrington

  Form, Fatigue

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• A sentimentalist is simply one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it.

  Oscar Wilde

  Emotional, Luxury, Feelings

  Oscar Wilde, Moira Muldoon (2005). “The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings”, p.348, Simon and Schuster

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• Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it.

  Timothy Keller

  Love, Marriage, Giving

  Timothy Keller (2011). “The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God”, p.31, Penguin

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• Sentimentality is unearned emotion.

  James Joyce

  Sentimental, Emotion

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• Sentimentality is a superstructure covering brutality.

  Carl Jung

  Covering, Brutality, Sentimental

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• Sentimentality about nature denatures everything it touches.

  Jane Jacobs

  Jane Jacobs (2016). “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”, p.447, Vintage

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• Sentimentalists are they who seek to enjoy without incurring the Immense Debtorship for a thing done.

  George Meredith

  Done, Enjoy, Immense

  George Meredith (1922). “The Complete Works of George Meredith”, p.473, Library of Alexandria

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• Sentimentality, the ostentatious parading of excessive and spurious emotion, is the mark of dishonesty, the inability to feel.

  James A. Baldwin

  Inability, Emotion, Dishonesty

  "Everybody’s Protest Novel". Essay by James A. Baldwin (1949), as quoted in "Uneasy Rider" by Alexandra Schwartz, www.newyorker.com. November 9, 2015.

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• The barrenest of all mortals is the sentimentalist.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Sentimental, Sentiments, Mortals

  Thomas Carlyle, Henry Duff Traill (2010). “The Works of Thomas Carlyle”, p.9, Cambridge University Press

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• In dread fear of sentimentality, another thing true is not said-that for its staff the paper is a source of pride and, I do believe, an object of affection and-yes, love.

  Arthur Ochs Sulzberger

  True Love, Believe, Pride

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• Beware of manufacturing a God of your own: a God who is all mercy, but not just. Such a God is an idol of your own.

  J. C. Ryle

  Idols, Mercy, Manufacturing

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

  Graham Greene

  Relationship, Communication, Sentimental

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• In deep sadness there is no place for sentimentality.

  William S. Burroughs

  Grief, Sadness, Deep Sadness

  "Queer: A Novel". Book by William S. Burroughs, 1985.

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• I believe the reason I love painting so much is that it forces one to be objective.

  Max Beckmann

  Believe, Objectivity, Painting

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• Sentiment is intellectualized emotion; emotion precipitated, as it were, in pretty crystals by the fancy.

  James Russell Lowell

  Fancy, Crystals, Emotion

  James Russell Lowell (1857). “Literary essays; Among my books, My study windows, Fireside travels”, p.252

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• Sentimentality is a failure of feeling.

  Wallace Stevens

  Feelings, Emotion

  1957 Opus Posthumous, Aphorisms,'Adagia'.

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• I didn't want to be on the losing side. I was fed up with Jewish weakness, timidity and fear. I didn't want any more Jewish sentimentality and Jewish suffering. I was sickened by our sad songs.

  Lionel Blue

  Song, Suffering, Sides

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• Sentimentality is the only sentiment that rubs you the wrong way.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Way, Sentimental, Sentiments

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• I think cynicism lasts. Sentimentality ages, dates quickly.

  Alexander Payne

  Thinking, Age, Lasts

  "Alexander Payne: Life after Sideways" by Simon Hattestone, www.theguardian.com. January 13, 2012.

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• When I talked to my medical friends about the strange silence on this subject in American medical magazines and textbooks, I gained the impression that here was a subject tainted with Socialism or with feminine sentimentality for the poor.

  Alice Hamilton

  Silence, Textbooks, Magazines

  Alice Hamilton, (2013). “Exploring the Dangerous Trades - The Autobiography of Alice Hamilton, M.D.”, p.93, Read Books Ltd

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• There is nothing I hate more than sentimentality.

  Max Beckmann

  Hate, I Hate, Appetizers

  Max Beckmann, Barbara Copeland Buenger (1997). “Self-Portrait in Words: Collected Writings and Statements, 1903-1950”, p.183, University of Chicago Press

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