Pettiness is a common human trait that involves being excessively concerned with small, unimportant matters. Many quotes have been shared to highlight the negative effects of pettiness on individuals and society. These quotes urge people to rise above petty behavior and focus on more meaningful aspects of life. They emphasize the importance of being mature and understanding, rather than engaging in trivial disputes.
Between friends differences in taste or opinion are irritating in direct proportion to their triviality. — W. H. Auden
Frequently the more trifling the subject, the more animated and protracted the discussion. — Franklin Pierce
Do no evilness because it is a small one; do not leave a small deed undone because it is just a petty one. — Sayings
Though the bribe be small, yet the fault is great. — Edward Coke
The smaller the mind the greater the conceit. — Aesop
Courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the grateful and appreciating heart. — Henry Clay
Little men with little minds and little imaginations go through life in little ruts, smugly resisting all changes which would jar their little worlds. — Zig Ziglar
Life is full of many minor annoyances, and few matters of real consequence. — Harvey Penick
Small causes are sufficient to make a man uneasy, when great ones are not in the way: for want of a block he will stumble at a straw. — Jonathan Swift
For a long time, I've loved the kind of characters who are boastful yet petty. — Akira Toriyama
A chief petty officer taught me shorthand, which got me promoted to yeoman first class. — Jack Adams
A noble heart cannot suspect in others the pettiness and malice that it has never felt. — Jean Racine
If you're not getting older, you're dead. — Tom Petty
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to day — William Shakespeare
I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things. — Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Pettiness Image Quotes
Pettiness And Jealousy Quotes
Noble hearts are neither jealous nor afraid because jealousy spells doubt and fear spells pettiness. — Honore de Balzac
The shackles and the chains, the violence and aggression, the pettiness and scorn, the jealousy and hatred, the tempest and discord. — Joe Walsh
Like families, competitors can bring out the worst as well as the best in each other. Like romance, competition has many faces, some of them ugly. In addition to showing me my grace and graciousness, the mirror of sports has reflected back to me my jealousy, pettiness, and arrogance. — Mariah Nelson
Stay free of petty jealousies, live by no man's code, and hold your judgment for yourself, lest you wind up on this road. — Bob Dylan
Is it freedom to be a slave to the senses, to anger, to jealousies and a hundred other petty things that must occur every day in human life? — Swami Vivekananda
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
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
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
Being Petty Quotes
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
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
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
Petty Tyrants Quotes
In a republic, that paradise of debility, the politician is a petty tyrant who obeys the laws. — Emile M. Cioran
The nation is in a death-struggle. It must either become one vast slaveocracy of petty tyrants, or wholly the land of the free. — Angelina Grimke
Slavery discourages arts and manufacturing ...[and] every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. — George Mason
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
The end of despots is always odd?exhilarating to those who suffered their tyrannies, and to those who hold despotism in contempt, and anti-climatic at the same time, the discovery that these tyrants were petty, frightened men after all. — Fouad Ajami
That slow poison [slavery] is daily contaminating the minds and morals of our people. Every gentlemen here is born a petty tyrant, practiced in acts of despotism and cruelty. — George Mason
Shakespeare wrote great poetry and preposterous plays. Who really cares, for example, which petty tyrant rules Milan? Or who succeeds to the throne of Denmark? Or why the barons ganged up on Richard II? — Edward Abbey
Remember this practical piece of advice: Never come into the theatre with mud on your feet. Leave your dust and dirt outside. Check your little worries, squabbles, petty difficulties with your outside clothing -- all the things that ruin your life and draw your attention away from your art -- at the door. — Konstantin Stanislavisky
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. — Richard Dawkins
Remember this practical piece of advice: Never come into the theatre with mud on your feet. Leave your dust and dirt outside. Check your little worries, squabbles, petty difficulties with your outside clothing - all the things that ruin your life and draw your attention away from your art - at the door. — Constantin Stanislavski
The Art of Peace is medicine for a sick world. There is evil and disorder in the world, because people have forgotten that all things emanate from one source. Return to that source and leave behind all self-centered thoughts, petty desires, and anger. Those who are possessed by nothing possess everything. — Morihei Ueshiba
Socialism violates at least three of the Ten Commandments: It turns government into God, it legalizes thievery and it elevates covetousness. Discussions of income inequality, after all, aren't about prosperity but about petty spite. Why should you care how much money I make, so long as you are happy? — Ben Shapiro
Man is always inclined to regard the small circle in which he lives as the center of the world and to make his particular, private life the standard of the universe and to make his particular, private life the standard of the universe. But he must give up this vain pretense, this petty provincial way of thinking and judging. — Ernst Cassirer
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
Our mission has been the protection of the wage-worker, now; to increase his wages; to cut hours off the long workday, which was killing him; to improve the safety and the sanitary conditions of the workshop; to free him from the tyrannies, petty or otherwise, which served to make his existence a slavery. — Samuel Gompers
They who have no central purpose in their life fall an easy prey to petty worries, fears, troubles, and self-pitying, all of which are indications of weakness, which lead, just as surely as deliberately planned sins (though by a different route), to failure, unhappiness, and loss, for weakness cannot persist in a power evolving universe. — James Allen
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
Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh- I really think that requires spirit! — Jean Webster
I often think about how, if we were all placed in an apocalyptic situation, you'd realize quickly how stupid, petty things just don't matter anymore. Who you love is who you love, and it doesn't matter. Survival is your primary focus. — Alycia Debnam Carey
Great wisdom is generous; petty wisdom is contentious. Great speech is impassioned, small speech cantankerous. — Zhuangzi
I think watching the TV news is bad for you. It is bad for your physical health and your mental health. — Tom Petty
People in Parliament occupy themselves with private animosities and petty quarrels, and think little of the national interest. It is impossible to credit the serene indifference with which they consider events outside their own country. — William III of England
Mankind accepts good fortune as his due, but when bad occurs, he thinks it was aimed at him, done to him, a hex, a curse, a punishment by his deity for some transgression, as though his god were a petty storekeeper, counting up the day's receipts. — Sheri S. Tepper
The petty man is eager to make boasts, yet desires that others should believe in him. He enthusiastically engages in deception, yet wants others to have affection for him. He conducts himself like an animal, yet wants others to think well of him. — Xunzi
Forgiveness is an embrace, across all barriers, against all odds, in defiance of all that is mean and petty and vindictive and cruel in this life. — Kent Nerburn
I don't understand the ones that have no sense of hope and invest in hate. That's not gonna work out, you know? It's a waste of your time! — Tom Petty
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
In Conclusion
These quotes about pettiness often remind us that holding grudges and seeking revenge is a waste of time and energy. They encourage us to prioritize forgiveness and understanding, as these qualities lead to personal growth and stronger relationships. By letting go of pettiness, we can focus on what truly matters, such as personal happiness, empathy, and making a positive impact on the world.
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Citation
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