Exaggerate Quotes & Sayings

Party-mindedness" was "an almost mystical concept," explained Kopelev. "The indispensable prerequisites were iron discipline and faithful observance of all the rituals of Party life." As one veteran Communist put it, a Bolshevik was not someone who believed merely in Marxism but "someone who had absolute faith in the Party no matter what . . . A person with the ability to adapt his morality and conscience in such a way that he can unreservedly accept the dogma that the Party is never wrong - even though it's wrong all the time." Stalin did not exaggerate when he boasted: "We Bolsheviks are people of a special cut."2 Nadya — Simon Sebag Montefiore

I realised that all one really had to do was just observe. Observe and slightly exaggerate, and you had comedy. Instead of creating a mythical premise for a stupid joke, I found playing off truth got the best result. — Mel Brooks

One physician may gravely exaggerate an illness and give up hope altogether. Another may ignorantly declare that there is no illness and that no treatment is necessary, thus deceiving the patient with false consolation. You may call the first one pessimistic and the second one optimistic. Both are equally dangerous. — Walpola Rahula

Exaggeration is the kissing cousin of both truth and lie. — Khang Kijarro Nguyen

Almost every product promises to change your life: it will make you more beautiful, cleaner, more sexually alluring, and more successful. Born again, as it were. The messages contain promises about the future, unfailingly optimistic, exaggerating, miracle-promising - the same ideology that invites corporate executives to exaggerate profits and conceal losses, but always with a sunny face. The virtual reality of the advertiser and the "good news" of the evangelist complement each other, a match made in heaven. — Sheldon S. Wolin

The only rule I have when writing is to try to tell the truth. That doesn't mean you can't exaggerate, edit, rewrite things to make them more dramatic. But emotional truth is what I look for in writing. — Erica Jong

You and I can handle certain pressures. We don't feel the need to exaggerate or indulge in, quote, unquote, stress. We're survivors. We have perspective. Remember that. — Hilary Reyl

The Bible alone gives a true and faithful account of man. It does not flatter him as novels and romances do; it does not conceal his faults and exaggerate his goodness, it paints him just as he is. — J.C. Ryle

I exaggerate a lot and I get fiction and reality mixed up, but I don't actually ever lie. — Lucia Berlin

I think the 24-hour news cycle has helped exaggerate the differences between the parties. You can always find someone on TV somewhere carping about something. That didn't happen 20 years ago. — George H. W. Bush

I admit that when the facts are not good enough, I always exaggerate them. — Stephen Leacock

Communism? Most people have no idea what it is. I do not exaggerate. Look around this restaurant, ask any of these fine citizens. 'Excuse me, sir, I've been thinking of an idea, a bunch of working people owning the means of their own production. What do you make of that?' You know, he might be all for it. — Barbara Kingsolver

I adore falseness. I don't want you to tell me accurately what happened yesterday. I want you to lie about it, to exaggerate, to entertain me. — Jim Crace

The artist has the liberty to exaggerate, to create in his novel a world more beautiful, more simple, more consoling than ours. — Irving Stone

If I wanted to lie, or if we wanted to lie, if we wanted to exaggerate, I wouldn't use my daughter to do so. I could easily buy other people to do it. — Saud Nasser Al-Saud Al-Sabah

If you would live happily, do not exaggerate life's evils, nor slight her blessings. — Joseph Joubert

It has something to do with the facts and the law and who the judges are. So I think lawyers sometimes exaggerate their role in winning and losing. Lawyers do have a role, and a major role, but they're not the only players in this game. — Floyd Abrams

I've told you a million times, I don't exaggerate. — Charlie Nicholas

Inside accounts of Presidential advisory groups make it clear that the failure to express dissent can have direct, immediate, and severe consequences ... Because so much disagreement remains hidden, our beliefs are not properly shaped by healthy scrutiny and debate. The absence of such argument also leads us to exaggerate the extent to which other people believe the way we do. Bolstered by such a false sense of social support, our beliefs strike us as more resistant to subsequent logical and empirical challenge. — Thomas Gilovich

Never exaggerate, but express your feelings with moderation. — Teresa Of Avila

My good qualities are under your protection, and you are to exaggerate them as much as possible; and, in return, it belongs to me to find occasion for teasing and quarreling with you as often as may be ... — Jane Austen

When you make movies based on real life, you try to exaggerate it. — Matthew Lawrence

Most of our fears are borrowed. Since that's the case, we should get busy returning them. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

They always use the word 'insult' with me, but I don't hurt anybody. I wouldn't be sitting here if I did. I make fun of everybody and exaggerate all our insecurities. — Don Rickles

And so, given the musical sensibilities Hatcher treasured in his earthly life, it is hard to exaggerate the severity of his torture at standing naked in his tiny kitchen in Hell as former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover sings a Bee Gees disco song backed by a full studio orchestra and Robin and Maurice. — Robert Olen Butler

The conflict has become like a Middle East version of the Thirty Years' War in Germany four hundred years ago. Too many players are fighting each other for different reasons for all of them to be satisfied by peace terms and to be willing to lay down their arms at the same time. Some still think they can win and others simply want to avoid a defeat. In Syria, as in Germany between 1618 and 1648, all sides exaggerate their own strength and imagine that temporary success on the battlefield will open the way to total victory. Many Syrians now see the outcome of their civil war resting largely with the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. In this, they are probably right. — Patrick Cockburn

We exaggerate the difference between documentary and fiction. I think that on some level a fiction film is also a documentary on the actors. You can't wash away your life's history, which is written on your face, unless you get a facelift. — Pirjo Honkasalo

Sadly, it seems that I have the proclivity to create plenty of devils, but most of the time I don't even go looking for angels. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

I'm a bit of an abstract figure that people can project their fantasies on; it's pretty much what we all are, otherwise we wouldn't be stars, and people wouldn't be interested. But people project things on you that have nothing to do with what you really are, or they see a little something and then exaggerate it. And you can't really control that. — Salma Hayek

I think that is the big danger in keeping a diary: you exaggerate everything. — Jean-Paul Sartre

The only private language I know is self-exaggeration. I think I've grown a second self in this room. It's the self-important fool that keeps the writer going. I exaggerate the pain of writing, the pain of solitude, the failure, the rage, the confusion, the helplessness, the fear, the humiliation. The narrower the boundaries of my life, the more I exaggerate myself. If the pain is real, why do I inflate it? Maybe this is the only pleasure I'm allowed. — Don DeLillo

If girls were going after me, I would not only admit it, but I would probably exaggerate about the swarming masses. I can flirt and have fun, but at the end of the day, I'm not Tom Cruise. Girls are not falling all over me. — Joshua Jackson

Update your belief! If necessary, throw it to the bin! Don't exaggerate your belief! Remember that your belief is not that much important; the important thing is what the science, what the reason and the truth say! And remember also that with the earthquake of knowledge many beliefs have collapsed and again many more will collapse! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Exaggeration! was ever any virtue attributed to a man without exaggeration? was ever any vice, without infinite exaggeration? Do we not exaggerate ourselves to ourselves, or do we recognize ourselves for the actual men we are? Are we not all great men? Yet what are we actually, to speak of? We live by exaggeration. — Henry David Thoreau

One should not exaggerate the importance of trifles. Life, for instance, is much too short to be taken seriously. — Nicolas Bentley

Post-Modern space is historically specific, rooted in conventions, unlimited or ambiguous in zoning and irrational or transformational in its relation of parts to whole ... ... . ... skew or distorted spaces, created by sharp angles which exaggerate perspective ... . ... always keep a mental coordinate system no matter how free- form and baroque they become. The reference plane is always an implied frontality, and the route through the building or the curvilinear elements then relate to this conceptual cage — Charles Jencks

It is possible, of course, that I may exaggerate about them. I certainly hope that I do; for where there is no exaggeration there is no love, and where there is no love there is no understanding. It is only about things that do not interest one, that one can give a really unbiassed opinion; and this is no doubt the reason why an unbiassed opinion is always valueless. — Oscar Wilde

Our national myths often exaggerate the role of the individual heroes and understate the importance of collective effort. — Robert D. Putnam

Everyone thinks his family is strange," Del said, scratching Scootie behind the ears, "but it's just that ... because we're closer to the people we love, we tend to see them through a magnifying glass, through a thicker lens of emotion, and we exaggerate their eccentricities. — Dean Koontz

As stories are told and retold, they evolve. They come to emphasize individuals, not organizations; to celebrate a flash of insight over stepwise improvements; and to exaggerate obstacles while downplaying institutional support. — Chip Heath

The mother must teach her son how to respect and follow the rules. She must teach him how to compete successfully with the other boys. And she must teach him how to find a woman to take care of him and finish the job she began of training him how to live in a family. But no matter how good a job a woman does in teaching a boy how to be a man, he knows that she is not the real thing, and so he tends to exaggerate the differences between men and women that she embodies. — Frank Pittman

To exaggerate is to weaken. — Jean-Francois De La Harpe

Stories matter. Stories are how we make sense of the world, which doesn't mean that those stories can't be stupid and simplistic and full of lies. Stories can exaggerate and offend and they always, always matter. — Laurie Penny

Today, we exaggerate the differences between left-liberal egalitarianism and libertarian individualism because almost everyone shares their common indefinite attitude. In philosophy, politics, and business, too, arguing over process has become a way to endlessly defer making concrete plans for a better future. — Peter Thiel

"Best in the world," "lowest price in existence, " etc are at best claiming the expected. But superlative of that sort are usually damaging. They suggestion looseness of expression, a tendency to exaggerate, a careless truth. They lead readers to discount all the statements that you make — Claude C. Hopkins

It is impossible to exaggerate how unprepared the medical community in West Africa was for this crisis. Prior to the Ebola outbreak Liberia had approximately fifty doctors in the entire country. Many clinics and hospitals had no electricity or running water. — Nancy D. Sheppard

Am I really so bad-mannered, conceited, headstrong, pushing, stupid, lazy, etc., etc., as they all say? Oh, of course not. I have my faults, just like everyone else, I kniw that, but they thoroughly exaggerate everything. — Anne Frank

Young girls like the excess of any quality. Without knowing, they want to suffer, to suffer they must exaggerate; they like to have loud chords struck on them. — Elizabeth Bowen

And as a general rule, which may make all creditors who are inclined to be severe pretty comfortable in their minds, no men embarrassed are altogether honest, very likely. They conceal something; they exaggerate chances of good luck; hide away the reals state of affairs; say that things are flourishing when they are hopeless; keep a smiling face (a dreary smile it is) upon the verge of bankruptcy
are ready to lay hold of any pretext for delay, or of any money, so as to stave off the inevitable ruin a few days longer. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Most people have some appreciation of mathematics, just as most people can enjoy a pleasant tune; and there are probably more people really interested in mathematics than in music. Appearances suggest the contrary, but there are easy explanations. Music can be used to stimulate mass emotion, while mathematics cannot; and musical incapacity is recognized (no doubt rightly) as mildly discreditable, whereas most people are so frightened of the name of mathematics that they are ready, quite unaffectedly, to exaggerate their own mathematical stupidity — G.H. Hardy

An easy way to find your own style is to exaggerate yourself a bit and then find a balance. — Johan Lindeberg

It's a small closet."...
"It's a walk-in the size of Rhode Island," he teased...
"Isn't that just like a man to exaggerate the size of something? — Avery Flynn

You know people exaggerate that all is wild in Jamaica. I think that sometimes people fire a shot to try to make you nervous. They are not trying to hurt you. — Michael Manley

My name is Bruce Feiler, and I'm an explainaholic. I first heard this word used to describe Isaac Asimov, and I knew instantly that I suffered from the same condition. It's the incurable desire to tell, shape, share, occasionally exaggerate, often elongate, and inevitably bungle a good story. — Bruce Feiler

I am often accused of being childish. I prefer to interpret that as child-like. I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things. I tend to exaggerate and fantasize and embellish. I still listen to instinctual urges. I play with leaves. I skip down the street and run against the wind. I never water my garden without soaking myself. It has been after such times of joy that I have achieved my greatest creativity and produced my best work. — Leo Buscaglia

I make it a rule never to weigh or measure a fish I've caught, but simply to estimate its dimensions as accurately as possible, and then, when telling about it, to improve these figures by roughly a fifth, or twenty percent. I do this mainly because most people believe all fishermen exaggerate by at least twenty percent, and so I allow for the discounting my audience is almost certain to apply. — Ed Zern

If you use the term 'over-exaggerate,' you know the definition neither of 'exaggerate' nor of 'over. — Rodney Ulyate

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of performing these small ceremonies regularly, and being as nearly accurate as possible with regard to the times. You must not mind stopping in the middle of a crowded thoroughfare - lorries or no lorries - and saying the Adorations; and you must not mind snubbing your guest - or your host - if he or she should prove ignorant of his or her share of the dialogue. It is perhaps because these matters are so petty and trivial in appearance that they afford so excellent a training. They teach you concentration, mindfulness, moral and social courage, and a host of other virtues. — Aleister Crowley

We don't have the capacity to exaggerate God's goodness. We can distort it, or even misrepresent it, but we can never exaggerate it. — Bill Johnson

Part of the role of photography is to exaggerate, and that is an aspect that I have to puncture. I do that by showing the world as I really find it. — Martin Parr

Most of life is so dull that there is nothing to be said about it, and the books and talks that would describe it as interesting are obliged to exaggerate, in the hope of justifying their own existence. Inside its cocoon of work or social obligation, the human spirit slumbers for the most part, registering the distinction between pleasure and pain, but not nearly as alert as we pretend. There are periods in the most thrilling day during which nothing happens, and though we continue to exclaim, "I do enjoy myself", or , "I am horrified," we are insincere. — E. M. Forster

People exaggerate Corruption in Nigeria. It is not
even our first or second problem, maybe the third — Atiku Abubakar

Raziel's sixty feet tall?"
"Actually, he's only fifty-nine feet tall, but he likes to exaggerate," said Magnus.
Isabelle clicked her tongue in annoyance. "Valentine raised an angel in his cellar. I
don't see why you need all this space - "
"Because Valentine is just WAY MORE AWESOME than me, — Cassandra Clare

I suggest that what artists do in all media can be summarized as deliberately performing the operations that occur instinctively during a ritualized behaviour: they simplify or formalize, repeat (sometimes with variation), exaggerate, and elaborate in both space and time for the purpose of attracting attention and provoking and manipulating emotional response. — Ellen Dissanayake

Separation of function is not to be despised, but neither should it be exalted. Separation is not an unbreakable law, but a convenience for overcoming inadequate human abilities, whether in science or engineering. As D'Arcy Thompson, one of the spiritual fathers of the general systems movement, said: As we analyze a thing into its parts or into its properties, we tend to magnify these, to exaggerate their apparent independence, and to hide from ourselves (at least for a time) the essential integrity and individuality of the composite whole. We divided the body into its organs, the skeleton into its bones, as in very much the same fashion we make a subjective analysis of the mind, according to the teaching of psychology, into component factors: but we know very well that judgement and knowledge, courage or gentleness, love or fear, have no separate existence, but are somehow mere manifestations, or imaginary coefficients, of a most complex integral.10 The — Gerald M. Weinberg

Common people tend to term any kind of bizarre phenomenon as "paranormal" or "supernatural". They often exaggerate it as the work of the Gods. Behind this belief is nothing but primitive ignorance. Social progress means that people must (a necessity, not a luxury) align their beliefs and behavior to new knowledge and understanding of nature. — Abhijit Naskar

The man with but one idea in his head is sure to exaggerate that to top-heaviness, and thus he loses his equilibrium. — Aaron Hill

Speech: 1. Tell the truth. Don't lie or turn the truth upside down. 2. Don't exaggerate. 3. Be consistent. This means no double-talk: speaking about something in one way to one person and in an opposite way to another for selfish or manipulative reasons. — Thich Nhat Hanh

In both cases, it is the prejudice, not the condition, that does the harm. It may be, as some would have it, that blacks are inherently inferior to whites or that homosexuals are all, by definition, sick. So what? Even if either condition truly is inherently undesirable, no manner of social pressure will turn blacks into whites or gays into straights. Social pressure will only exaggerate the handicap. It is still the prejudice, more than the condition, that does the harm. — Andrew Tobias

You don't want to exaggerate any feature noticeably. I think only truly beautiful women can exaggerate and they usually don't have to. — Diane Von Furstenberg

Legends exaggerate. — Toba Beta

I watched our friends' wary, intelligent faces droop at our tale. Their shock was a mere shadow of our own, resembling more the goodwilled imitation of that emotion, and for this reason it was a temptation to exaggerate, to throw a rope of superlatives across the abyss that divided experience from its representation by anecdote. — Ian McEwan

There is no credit to being a comedian, when you have the whole Government working for you. All you have to do is report the facts. I dont even have to exaggerate. — Will Rogers

We place such demands on our partners, and become so unreasonable around them, because we have faith that someone who understands obscure parts of us, whose presence solves so many of our woes, must somehow also be able to fix everything about our lives. We exaggerate the other's powers in a curious sort of homage - heard in adult life decades down the line - to a small child's awe at their own parents' apparently miraculous capacities. To — Alain De Botton

I blend memories. I blend them into one that's funny. I exaggerate to clarify. — Tim Allen

To ensure that we are leading with our feet firmly planted on the soil of what is, we must live by the seven commandments of current reality:
Thou shalt not pretend.
Though shalt not turn a blind eye.
Thou shalt not exaggerate.
Thou shalt not shoot the bearer of bad news.
Thou shalt not hide behind the numbers.
Thou shalt not ignore constructive criticism.
Thou shalt not isolate thyself.
Attempting to lead while turning a blind eye to reality is like treading water: It can only go on for so long, eventually you will sink. As a next generation leader, be willing to face the truth regardless of how painful it might be. And if you don't like what you see, change it. — Andy Stanley

The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the feeble-minded and insane classes, coupled as it is with steady restriction among all the thrifty, energetic and superior stocks constitutes a national and race danger which is impossible to exaggerate. I feel that the source from which the stream of madness is fed should be cut off and sealed before another year has passed. — Winston Churchill

It is impossible to exaggerate the wide, and widening, gulf between the American attitude on the Iraq war and the view from our friends across the Atlantic. — Nick Clooney

Find what you're best at and exaggerate it. — Steve Vai

We massively exaggerate the exotic risks we can least control and massively undervalue the mundane risks we can control. — David L. Katz

It is impossible to exaggerate how much better the formula es denkt in mir is than cogito ergo sum, which lets us in for pure subjectivism. — Gabriel Marcel

Precisely because white denial has long trumped claims of racism, people of color tend to underreport their experiences with racial bias rather than exaggerate them. — Tim Wise

No doubt Carlyle has a propensity to exaggerate the heroic in history, that is, he creates you an ideal hero rather than another thing ... Yet what were history if he did not exaggerate it? How comes it that history never has to wait for facts, but for a man to write it? The ages may go on forgetting the facts never so long, he can remember two for every one forgotten. The musty records of history, like the catacombs, contain the perishable remains, but only in the breast of genius are embalmed the souls of heroes. — Henry David Thoreau

The fabric of a mighty state, which has been reared by the labours of successive ages, could not be overturned by the misfortune of a single day, if the fatal power of the imagination did not exaggerate the real measure of the calamity. — Edward Gibbon

I guess when I first started speaking with an American accent, there's a tendency to create a caricature of the accent because you just exaggerate the pieces that stand out to you. — Radha Mitchell

Many Spirit-filled authors have exhausted the thesaurus in order to describe God with the glory He deserves. His perfect holiness, by definition, assures us that our words can't contain Him. Isn't it a comfort to worship a God we cannot exaggerate? — Francis Chan

I think it's very funny that someone would exaggerate to make himself look worse. — David Leavitt

Don't exaggerate. Just give your natural bitchy selves full rein — Stieg Larsson

It's nonsense to say money doesn't buy happiness, but people exaggerate the extent to which more money can buy more happiness. — Daniel Kahneman

Because so much disagreement remains hidden, our beliefs are not properly shaped by healthy scrutiny and debate. The absence of such argument also leads us to exaggerate the extent to which other people believe the way we do. — Thomas Gilovich

I do not think I exaggerate the importance or the charms of pedestrianism, or our need as a people to cultivate the art. I think it would tend to soften the national manners, to teach us the meaning of leisure, to acquaint us with the charms of the open air, to strengthen and foster the tie between the race and the land. No one else looks out upon the world so kindly and charitably as the pedestrian; no one else gives and takes so much from the country he passes through. — John Burroughs

All passions exaggerate; and they are passions only because they do exaggerate. — Nicolas Chamfort

Meditation gives you the wherewithal to pause, observe how easily the mind can exaggerate the severity of a setback, and resist getting drawn into the abyss. — Richard Davidson

People exaggerate the value of things they haven't got everybody worships truth and unselfishness because they have no experience with them — George Bernard Shaw

I exaggerate
There is a lie in my truth
Look! My soul is blue — A.A. Patawaran

Little had changed after independence. Jomo Kenyatta's face hung in a framed portrait in every shop where Queen Elizabeth's had been. Some schools were built, some streets renamed. But educated people are a liability in a dictatorship: all the schools were underfunded, few of them succeeded. A great deal of foreign money was given to the government and most of it ended up in the pockets of politicians, some of whom were assassinated. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the fatness of corrupt African politicians. — Paul Theroux

Indeed, so far from being humorous, the male American is the most abnormally serious creature who ever existed.. It is only fair to admit that he can exaggerate, but even his exaggeration has a rational basis. It is not founded on wit or fancy; it does not spring from any poetic imagination. — Oscar Wilde

Anglers ... exaggerate grossly and make gentle and inoffensive creatures sound like wounded buffalo and man-eating tigers. — Roderick Haig-Brown

What did you tell them?"
"I don't recall. I think I mentioned your discipline and ability to follow orders. I may have said something about you being a team player."
Derek emitted a strangled cough.
"Why?" I demanded.
"It seemed like a good idea at the time." Curran resumed hammering.
"I'm sorry," I said into the phone, sticking me finger into my other ear so I could hear. "His Majesty tends to exaggerate things. I'm not a team player. I'm undisciplined and I have a problem with authority. Also, the Beast Lord can't hammer for shit."
On the roof Derek was laughing his head off. — Ilona Andrews

We can exaggerate about many things; but we can never exaggerate our obligation to Jesus, or the compassionate abundance of the love of Jesus to us. All our lives long we might talk of Jesus, and yet we should never come to an end of the sweet things that might be said of Him. — Frederick William Faber