The most insignificant people are the most apt to sneer at others. They are safe from reprisals. And have no hope of rising in their own self esteem but by lowering their neighbors. — William Hazlitt
Between friends differences in taste or opinion are irritating in direct proportion to their triviality. — W. H. Auden
The smaller the mind the greater the conceit. — Aesop
Short Being Petty Quotes
Only small minds want always to be right. — Louis XIV
To take revenge halfheartedly is to court disaster; either condemn or crown your hatred. — Pierre Corneille
Hanging onto resentment is letting someone you despise live rent-free in your head. — Ann Landers
To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves. — Alexander Pope
Revenge, we find, the abject pleasure of an abject mind. — Juvenal
Bitterness is the coward's revenge on the world for having been hurt. — Zora Neale Hurston
A patronizing disposition always has its meaner side. — George Eliot
Being angry and resentful of someone is like letting them live rent-free in your head. — George Foreman
Exemplary persons are steadfast in the face of adversity, while petty persons are engulfed by it. — Confucius
Petty Quotes
You must realize that if you are going to reach the heights you have been called to reach, you may elicit some criticism from those who are jealous, petty or angry because they were left behind. — T. D. Jakes
There are long periods when life seems a small, dull round, a petty business with no point, and then suddenly we are caught up in some great event which gives us a glimpse of the solid and durable foundations of our existence. — Queen Elizabeth II
Buy me a drink, sing me a song; take me as I come, cause I can't stay long. — Tom Petty
Do something you really like, and hopefully it pays the rent. As far as I'm concerned, that's success. — Tom Petty
Go after what you really love and find a way to make that work for you, and then you'll be a happy person. — Tom Petty
We must become bigger than we have been: more courageous, greater in spirit, larger in outlook. We must become members of a new race, overcoming petty prejudice, owing our ultimate allegiance not to nations but to our fellow men within the human community. — Haile Selassie
A petty thief is put in jail. A great brigand becomes a ruler of a Nation. — Zhuangzi
For a long time, I've loved the kind of characters who are boastful yet petty. — Akira Toriyama
Pettiness Quotes
Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out - it's the grain of sand in your shoe. — Robert W. Service
It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive. — W. Somerset Maugham
Remember, always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty. Always remember, others may hate you. But those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself. — Richard M. Nixon
But like infection is the petty thought: it creeps and hides, and wants to be nowhere--until the whole body is decayed and withered by the petty infection... Thus spoke Zarathustra. — Friedrich Nietzsche
For Star Trek proves, as faulty as individual episodes could be, is that the much-maligned common man and common woman has an enormous hunger for brotherhood. They are ready for the twenty-third century now, and they are light-years ahead of their petty governments and their visionless leaders. — Gene Roddenberry
How sweet the morning air is! ...How small we feel with our petty ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great elemental forces of Nature! — Arthur Conan Doyle
Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of heaven on a Country. As nations can not be rewarded or punished in the next world they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes & effects providence punishes national sins, by national calamities. — George Mason
It is certain that satirical poems were common at Rome from a very early period. The rustics, who lived at a distance from the seat of government, and took little part in the strife of factions, gave vent to their petty local animosities in coarse Fescennine verse. — Thomas B. Macaulay
Yeah and it's over before you know it It all goes by so fast Yeah the bad nights take forever And the good nights don't ever seem to last — Tom Petty
Be reflective...and stay away from the theater as much as you can. Stay out of the theatrical world, out of its petty interests, its inbreeding tendencies, its stifling atmosphere, its corroding influence. Once become — Minnie Maddern Fiske
If someone is being unkind or petty or jealous or distant or weird, you don't have to take it in. You don't have to turn it into a big psychodrama about your worth. That behavior so often is not even about you. Don't own other people's crap. — Cheryl Strayed
Ultimately there can be no freedom for self unless it is vouchsafed for others; there can be no security where there is fear, and a democratic society presupposes confidence and candor in the relations of men with one another and eager collaboration for the larger ends of life instead of the pursuit of petty, selfish or vainglorious aims. — Felix Frankfurter
The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. — David Foster Wallace
If you're going to be a wannabe, make sure you 'wannabe' something great. The most shocking thing about wannabes, is they largely want to be something irrelevant, vein, or just plain petty. — Andrew Williams
The real purpose of the martial arts must be to purge oneself of petty ambitions and desire, to obtain control of one’s own character. — Morihei Ueshiba
Do not be caught by the sensational in nature, as a coarse red-faced sunset, a garrulous waterfall, or a fifteen thousand foot mountain... avoid prettiness - the word looks much like pettiness - and there is but little difference between them. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
I thought I might teach philosophy but the atmosphere of a college faculty repelled me; the few islands of greatness seemed to be washed by seas of pettiness and mediocrity. — I. F. Stone
One thing must be avoided at all costs: narrow-mindedness, pedantry, dull pettiness. — Bruno Schulz
'Free Fallin'' is a very good song. Maybe it would be one of my favorites if it hadn't become this huge anthem. But I'm grateful that people like it. — Tom Petty
I cannot watch the city of Chicago be destroyed by petty politics and bad government. — Harold Washington
What I've learned about marriage: You need to have each other's back; you have to be a kind of team going through life. — Tom Petty
One who aspires to greatness should read and study, pursuing the True Way with such a firm resolve that he is perfectly straightforward and open, rises above the superficialities of conventional behavior, and refuses to be satisfied with the petty or commonplace. — Yoshida Shoin
The nearer we come to the full military suppression of the bourgeoisie, the more dangerous becomes to us the high flood of petty-bourgeois Anarchism. And the struggle against these elements cannot be waged with propaganda and agitation alone. ... The struggle must also be waged by applying force and compulsion. — Vladimir Lenin
The Hindu marriage may be described as the union of two families. In this union, there is no room for petty ambitions and personal ego-trips. What is involved is love for the entire family that one is marrying into. — Dada Vaswani
I want to play a real man in all my films, and I define manhood simply:
men should be tough, fair, and courageous, never petty,
never looking for a fight, but never backing down from one either. — John Wayne
There would be very little to dislike in other people if we refused to bring to them all of our own judgements and petty grievances. — Gerald Jampolsky
The art of giving orders is not to try to rectify the minor blunders and not be swayed by petty doubts. — Sun Tzu
Sisters are the worst. And they are the best. A sister can be awful and complicated and loving and protective and petty and competitive, and when you die she is the person you want beside you holding your hand. Somebody's gotta organize the potluck after the service and you know your husband's not gonna be up to the job. — Cathy Lamb
Never be petty. Do not feed resentments against anyone. I prefer good-hearted sinners to so called good people who are intolerant and devoid of compassion. Being spiritual is to have an open mind, understand and forgive, and be friends with everyone. — Paramahansa Yogananda
The study of geometry is a petty and idle exercise of the mind, if it is applied to no larger system than the starry one. Mathematics should be mixed not only with physics but with ethics; that is mixed mathematics. — Henry David Thoreau
I don't want to be a politician. I don't like politics. It's petty; it fights dirty. — John Mellencamp
Chickenshit refers to behavior that makes military life worse than it need be: petty harassment of the weak by the strong; open scrimmage for power and authority and prestige; sadism thinly disguised as necessary discipline; a constant 'paying off of old scores'; and insistence on the letter rather than the spirit of ordinances. — Paul Fussell
Girls can be so petty and jealous. I swear they're worse than guys sometimes. Except they're all quiet about it. They sugarcoat it or else they talk behind each other's backs. It's seriously twisted. — Melody Carlson
I think for it to be hip to be idealistic is weird, you know? I mean, even all the best rebels to me, had some sense of hope in them. — Tom Petty
The man of petty ambition if invited to dinner will be eager to be set next his host. — Theophrastus
I hate the uneducated and the ignorant. I hate the pompous and the phoney. I hate the jealous and the resentful. I hate the crabbed and mean and the petty. I hate all ordinary dull little people who aren't ashamed of being dull and little. — John Fowles
If there is one realm in which it is essential to be sublime, it is in wickedness. You spit on a petty thief, but you can't deny a kind of respect for the great criminal. — Denis Diderot
We are the benefactors of too much sacrifice and blood, sweat and tears to allow petty differences and trivial discrepancies to continue to separate and divide US, while we are being used, exploited and conquered. — T.I.
I get cranky real easily. So the honor of it and the wonder of it all and everything has a hard time overcoming the petty annoyances; I mean, that's simply the reality of being alive, I guess. — Frank Stella
I do not see why I should be polite to tyrants, who slobber of humanitarianism and think only of their own petty interests. — Paul Feyerabend
You cannot have a good character today and at the same time have a small mind and a little heart. You cannot have a good character today and be merely a petty reformer. — A. Powell Davies
I don't think it's a good attitude in your life to feel that you have to be rich to have self-esteem. — Tom Petty
Vexations may be petty, but they are vexations still. — Michel de Montaigne
The pettiness of a mind can be measured by the pettiness of its adoration or its blasphemy. — Andre Gide
At its best, entertainment is going to be a subjective thing that can't win for everyone, while at worst, a particular game just becomes a random symbol for petty tribal behavior. — John Carmack
Should there be cameras everywhere in outdoor streets? My personal view is having cameras in inner cities is a very good thing. In the case of London, petty crime has gone down. They catch terrorists because of it. And if something really bad happens, most of the time you can figure out who did it. — Bill Gates
There may be something petty in a refined taste; it easily degenerates into effeminacy. It does not consider the broadest use. It is not content with simple good and bad, and so is fastidious and curious or nice only. — Henry David Thoreau
Artists should be aware that petty stroking could be the source of arrested productivity. An artist's job includes the avoidance of premature closure by the begged or gratuitous approval of others. — Robert Genn
In Conclusion
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