Impudence Quotes & Sayings

When Fashion hath once Established, what Folly or craft began, Custom makes it Sacred, and 'twill be thought impudence or madness, to contradict or question it. — John Locke

Nothing pleases a woman quite so well as to look so sweet that a man wants to kiss her, and then abuse him for his impudence. — E.W. Howe

Folly often goes beyond her bounds, but impudence knows none. — Ben Jonson

Satiation, like any state of vitality, always contains a degree of impudence, and that impudence emerges first and foremost when the sated man instructs the hungry one. — Anton Chekhov

It strikes me that the power or capability of a man in getting rich is in inverse proportion to his reflective powers and in direct proportion to his impudence. — Paul Sochaczewski

Laurence could make no real quarrel with the aims, which were natural and just; but England was at war, after all, and he was conscious, as Temeraire was not, of the impudence in demanding concessions from their own Government under such circumstances: very like mutiny. Yet — Naomi Novik

I'd never understood whether the vogue for apologising is a sign of humility of impudence: you do something you shouldn't have done, then you apologise and wash your hands of it. — Umberto Eco

I do not believe that since man was in the habit of living on this planet anyone has ever lived possessed of the impudence of Jay Gould. — Jay Gould

Long live impudence. It was my guardian angel in this world. — Albert Einstein

Do it, my fellow Americans! Do it for every adolescent
anomic skank genius cloistered in his room, getting cranked,
rabidly humping his sampler as he confects some heretical,
monstrous persona for himself and dreams of an orgiastic,
blood-soaked apocalypse. Yes, the /impudence!/ We have
/nothing/ in this life of suffocating obligation but our
own motherfucking impudence! For God's sake, give us this
day our motherfucking big-dick impudence!! — Mark Leyner

But twice-two-makes-four is for all that a most insupportable thing. Twice-two-makes-four is, in my humble opinion, nothing but a piece of impudence. Twice-two-makes-four is a farcical, dressed-up fellow who stands across your path with arms akimbo and spits at you. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The exhibition has now become no more than a bazaar where mediocrity spreads itself out with impudence. The exhibitions are useless and dangerous ... they ought to be abolished. — Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

The coarse impudence of Rhett Butler. But, if he possessed — Margaret Mitchell

What so pure, which envious tongues will spare?
Some wicked wits have libell'd all the fair,
With matchless impudence they style a wife,
The dear-bought curse, and lawful plague of life;
A bosom serpent, a domestic evil,
A night invasion, and a mid-day devil;
Let not the wise these sland'rous words regard,
But curse the bones of ev'ry living bard. — Alexander Pope

That little hypocrites and half-crazed people dare to imagine that on their account the laws of nature are constantly broken; such an enhancement of every kind of selfishness to infinity, to impudence, cannot be branded with sufficient contempt. And yet Christianity owes its triumph to this pitiable flattery of personal vanity. — Friedrich Nietzsche

A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day. — Bill Watterson

The true artist and the sane collector never will tolerate insincerity and impudence. — Walter J. Phillips

I haven't got as much money as some folks, but I've got as much impudence as any of them, and that's the next thing to money. — Josh Billings

This late afternoon, they stood shoulder to shoulder at the masthead, watching the dockhands tie up the boat. Though she was four years younger and a girl, they were nearly the same height, Gina and Salvo. Gina was actually taller. No one could figure out where she got the height; her parents and brothers were not tall. Look, the villagers would say. Two "piccolo" brothers and a "di altezza" sister. Oh, that's because we have different fathers, Gina would reply dryly. Salvo would smack her upside the head when he heard her say this. Think what you're saying about our mother, he would scold, crossing himself and her at her impudence. — Paullina Simons

Lust is inseparably accompanied with the troubling of all order, with impudence, unseemliness, sloth, and dissoluteness. — Plato

The impudence of the sinner displeases God as much as the modesty of the penitent gives him pleasure. — Saint Bernard

Audacity is an insolent form of boldness, especially when imprudent or unconventional. It implies a degree of impudence, but also fearlessness and intrepid daring. — Mike Cernovich

Shortly after you left the room, Bushell came over and spoke to your father. I was not near enough to hear what he said, but Maria Lucas told me afterwards that he had been -' (she smiled) 'amazingly impertinent.'
'Peter actually spoke to Papa?'
'He did. According to Maria, he had the impudence to criticise Mr Bennet for his treatment of you. I must say it gives me the most favourable idea of his character. — Jennifer Paynter

I don't say 'Tis impossible for an impudent man not to rise in the world, but a moderate merit with a large share of impudence is more probable to be advanced than the greatest qualifications without it. — Mary Wortley Montagu

Forgive me, madam," he said lightly, amused, "but waiting to make love to you again is straining my nerves."
She scoffed but she was quite shaken; he could see it in her expression, in the way she nervously toyed with the buttons on her pelisse.
"How awfully presumptuous of you to think I'd let you."
"You will," he insisted soothingly.
She gaped at him.
"Please continue," he urged. "I'm aching to hear the rest."
"You're as arrogant as usual."
"You missed it, though."
"I absolutely did not," she asserted.
He grinned. "You missed my arrogance almost as much as I missed your impudence, little one."
"That's absurd."
"I love you, Caroline," he softly, quickly replied, catching her off guard with such tenderness. "Move on before I decide I'm finished with this conversation, rip off your clothes, and show you how much. — Adele Ashworth

Wealth, howsoever got, in England makes lords of mechanics, gentlemen of rakes; Antiquity and birth are needless here; 'Tis impudence and money makes a peer. — Daniel Defoe

Want of principle is power. Truth and honesty set a limit to our efforts, which impudence and hypocrisy easily overleap. — William Hazlitt

He would never be any different and now Scarlett realize the truth and accepted it without emotion - that until he died Gerald would always be waiting for Ellen, always listening for her. Her was in some dim borderline country where time was standing still and Ellen was always in the next room. The mainspring of his existence was taken away when she died and with it has gone his bounding assurance, his impudence and his restless vitality. Ellen was the audience before which the blustering drama of Gerald O'Hara had been played Now the curtain had been rung down forever, the footlights dimmed and the audience suddenly vanished, while the stunned old actor remained on his empty stage, waiting for his cues. — Margaret Mitchell

He sometimes took pleasure to try the force of those that came as suitors to him upon business by speaking sharply, though decently, to them, and by that he discovered their spirit and presence of mind; with which he was much delighted when it did not grow up to impudence, as bearing a great resemblance to his own temper, and he looked on such persons as the fittest men for affairs. — Thomas More

How any human being ever has had the impudence to speak against the right to speak, is beyond the power of my imagination. Here is a man who speaks-who exercises a right that he, by his speech, denies. Can liberty go further than that? Is there any toleration possible beyond the liberty to speak against liberty-the real believer in free speech allowing others to speak against the right to speak? — Robert Green Ingersoll

But these are sad times, the 'prentices wanting to be masters, and every little tradesman wanting to be a Senator, and every dirty little urchin thinking he can give
impudence to his betters! — Hope Mirrlees

It just sort of suggested a very specific kind of impudence like this little-man syndrome. Chucky has this Napoleon complex. He's a little guy with a lot of rage and that really pointed us in the direction of exploiting that aspect of his character, which people always seem to enjoy. — David Kirschner

Is there a spot on earth where such a man is unknown, an ominous survival testifying to the eternal fitness of lies and impudence? — Joseph Conrad

The father and mother themselves talk before the children in the most disparaging way about the teacher and the school and they are much more inclined to insult the teachers than to put their offspring across the knee and knock sound reason into him. What the little fellow hears at home does not tend to increase respect for his human surroundings. Here nothing good is said of human nature as a whole and every institution, from the school to the government, is reviled. Whether religion and morals are concerned or the State and the social order, it is all the same; they are all scoffed at. When the young lad leaves school, at the age of fourteen, it would be difficult to say what are the most striking features of his character, incredible ignorance in so far as real knowledge is concerned or cynical impudence combined with an attitude towards morality which is really startling at so young an age. — Adolf Hitler

There are seasons in every country when noise and impudence pass current for worth; and in popular commotions especially, the clamors of interested and factious men are often mistaken for patriotism. — Alexander Hamilton

Because impudence is a vice, it does not follow that modesty is a virtue; it is built upon shame, a passion in our nature, and may be either good or bad according to the actions performed from that motive. — Bernard De Mandeville

And just as he had earlier, during their lunch hour, insinuated the problem of innocence to the formalists - which had incensed them and boosted their immaturity a hundredfold - he was now making an issue of my modern legs. And there I was, listening and lapping it all up - his linking the calves of my legs with those of the new generation - and coming to feel the cruelty of youth toward old calves! And there was also a kind of leg camaraderie with the schoolgirl, plus a clandestine, voluptuous collusion of legs, plus leg patriotism, plus the impudence of young legs, plus leg poetry, plus young-blooded pride in the calf of the leg, and a cult of the calf of the leg. Oh, what a fiendish body part! — Witold Gombrowicz

Villainy, when detected, never gives up, but boldly adds impudence to imposture. — Oliver Goldsmith

I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face. — John Ruskin

Frivolous thinking is due to foreign thought. Japan must no longer let the impudence of the white peoples go unpunished. It is the duty of Japan to fulfill her natural destiny, to cause China to respect the Japanese, to expel Chinese influence from Manchuria, and to follow the way of imperial destiny. — Sadao Araki

The bottom of his garden joins the bottom of ours, and of course I had several times seen him, sitting among the scarlet-beans in his little arbour, or working at his little hotbeds. I used to think he stared rather, but I didn't take any particular notice of that, as we were newcomers, and he might be curious to see what we were like. But when he began to throw his cucumbers over our wall
"
"To throw his cucumbers over our wall!" repeated Nicholas in great astonishment.
"Yes, Nicholas, my dear," replied Mrs. Nickleby, in a very serious tone; "his cucumbers over our wall. And vegetable-marrows likewise."
"Confound his impudence!" said Nicholas, firing immediately. "What does he mean by that?"
"I don't think he means it impertinently at all," replied Mrs. Nickleby.
"What!" said Nicholas, "cucumbers and vegetable-marrows flying at the heads of the family as they walk in their own garden and not meant impertinently! — Charles Dickens

The very fact that she never made an impudent answer seemed to Miss Minchin a kind of impudence in itself. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

You must never believe what the newspapers say. I stand aghast at the impudence of the lies they contain, things not only false in fact, but absolutely impossible. — Anna Brownell Jameson

The old maxim ... there are three things necessary to success in life
Impudence! Impudence! Impudence! — William Hazlitt

I always feel when I meet people that I am lower than all, and that they all take me for a buffoon; so I say let me play the buffoon, for you are, every one of you, stupider and lower than I." He longed to revenge himself on every one for his own unseemliness. He suddenly recalled how he had once in the past been asked, "Why do you hate so and so, so much?" And he had answered them, with his shameless impudence, "I'll tell you. He has done me no harm. But I played him a dirty trick, and ever since I have hated him. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Just like a damned man, he thought exasperatedly. She got what she wanted, then curled up and went to sleep.
That was what he was supposed to do, blast and confound her bloody impudence. — Loretta Chase

Well, for cool native impudence and pure innate pride, you haven't your equal — Charlotte Bronte

There are no friends more inseparable than pride and hardness of heart, humility and love, falsehood and impudence. — Johann Kaspar Lavater

Bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense,
But good men starve for want of impudence. — John Dryden

I am saddened by the modern system of advertising. Whatever evidence it offers of enterprise, ingenuity, impudence, and resource in certain individuals, it proves to my mind the wide prevalence of that form of mental degradation which is called gullibility. [An anarchist] — Joseph Conrad

Unbecoming forwardness oftener proceeds from ignorance than impudence. — Sir Fulke Greville

[F]or who ever heard of a Gold-finder that had the Impudence or Folly to assert, from the ill Success of his Search, that there was no such thing as Gold in the World? Whereas the Truth-finder, having raked out that Jakes his own mind, and being there capable of tracing no Ray of Divinity, nor any thing virtuous, or good, or lovely, very fairly, honestly, and logically concludes, that no such things exist in the whole creation. — Henry Fielding

Being myself animated by feelings of affection toward my fellowmen, I am saddened by the modern system of advertising. Whatever evidence it offers of enterprise, ingenuity, impudence, and resource in certain individuals, it proves to my mind the wide prevalence of that form of mental degradation which is called gullibility. — Joseph Conrad

Art almost always has its ingredient of impudence, its flouting of established authority, so that it may substitute its own authority and its own enlightenment. — Ben Shahn

I am prejudiced in favor of him who, without impudence, can ask boldly. He has faith in humanity, and faith in himself. No one who is not accustomed to giving grandly can ask nobly and with boldness. — Johann Kaspar Lavater

Thy impudence has a monstrous beauty, like the hindquarters of an elephant. — James Elroy Flecker

I'm sorry, the message said.
The theft was a violation of privacy. It was an unbelievable act of impudence and disrespect. Not only that, it was - baffling. He was murderous, incandescent with fury. He was older than sin and could not remember when he had last been in such a rage.
He looked at the paper again.
I'm sorry I had to take your penny. Here's another to replace it.
Yep, that's what it said.
One corner of his mouth twitched. He gave himself a deep shock when he burst into an explosive guffaw. — Thea Harrison

I don't do what I'm told, but I might do what you want if you ask me nicely. — Cassandra Clare

The definition of teachers or gurus was unknown to everyone including the teachers in the campus. So the people present in the school campus weren't teachers at all, he thought.
They were just people supposed to act like robots and cram things related to the subjects in the brains of their students. A bit of general imparting of knowledge wasn't allowed and was
considered as impudence. With this brief recap of his past, the wandering mind of Mr. Patil came back to the present. — Ganesh Shiva Aithal

The impudence of Ignorance — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

when a subject corrects his prelate, he ought to do so in a becoming manner, not with impudence and harshness but with gentleness and respect. . . . — Peter Kreeft

We have nothing in this life of suffocating obligation but our motherfucking impudence! — Mark Leyner

Be informed, also, that this good and savoury Parish is the home of Hectors, Trapanners, Biters who all go under the general appelation of Rooks. Here are all the Jilts, Cracks, Prostitutes, Night-walkers, Whores, Linnen-lifters, who are like so many Jakes, Privies, Houses of Office, Ordures, Excrements, Easments and piles of Sir-reverence: the whores of Ratcliffe High-way smell of Tarpaulin and stinking Cod from their continuall Traffick with seamen's Breeches. There are other such wretched Objects about these ruined Lanes, all of them lamentable Instances of Vengeance. And it is not strange (as some think) how they will haunt the same Districts and will not leave off their Crimes until they are apprehended, for these Streets are their Theatre. Theft, Whoredom and Homicide peep out of the very Windows of their Souls; Lying, Perjury, Fraud, Impudence and Misery are stamped upon their very Countenances as now they walk within the Shaddowe of my Church. — Peter Ackroyd

To write a novel is fundamentally an act of impudence. To comb one's hair is also an act of impudence, especially when it's done to try to cover a scar running across the top of one's forehead. But combing one's hair is an act of minor impudence, whereas writing is a more serious affair. We mask reality, we hide our fears, we reinvent things that have been said, and above all, the people who said them. Writing a novel implies a certain perversity. It's not something one can do with a tortoiseshell comb. It is perhaps for that reason that they take away my pen at night. Not, as they pretend, to prevent me from accidentally stabbing myself in the throat with it- but to prevent me from killing anyone else. — Paco Ignacio Taibo II

In order to mount to heaven, you used the Inferno to give you momentum. "The further down you gain your momentum," you often used to tell me, "the higher you shall be able to reach. The militant Christian's greatest worth is not his virtue, but his struggle to transform into virtue the impudence, dishonor, unfaithfulness, and malice within him. One day Lucifer will be the most glorious archangel standing next to God; not Michael, Gabriel, or Raphael - but Lucifer, after he has finally transubstantiated his terrible darkness into light. — Nikos Kazantzakis

It sometimes strikes me that the whole of science is a piece of impudence; that nature can afford to ignore our impertinent interference. If our monkey mischief should ever reach the point of blowing up the earth by decomposing an atom, and even annihilated the sun himself, I cannot really suppose that the universe would turn a hair. — Aleister Crowley

What was said by the Latin poet of labor
that it conquers all things
is much more true when applied to impudence. — Henry Fielding

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?
I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. — Frederick Douglass

However modest one may be in one's demand for intellectual cleanliness, one cannot help feeling, when coming into contact with the New Testament, a kind of inexpressible discomfiture: for the unchecked impudence with which the least qualified want to raise their voice on the greatest problems, and even claim to be judges of things, surpasses all measure. The shameless levity with which the most intractable problems (life, world, God, purpose of life) are spoken of, as if they were not problems at all but simply things that these little bigots KNEW! — Friedrich Nietzsche

Twice two is four is, in my opinion, nothing but impudence. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I suppose if there were a part of the world in which mastodon still lived, somebody would design a new gun, and men, in their eternal impudence, would hunt mastodon as they now hunt elephant. Impudence seems to be the word. At least David and Goliath were of the same species, but, to an elephant, a man can only be a midge with a deathly sting. — Beryl Markham

Modern education has devoted itself to the teaching of impudence, and then we complain that we can no longer control our mobs. — John Ruskin

Impudence is the worst of all human diseases. — Euripides

Disciplining a child is easier than disciplining a grown person, and forgiving a child's insolence is easier than forgiving a grown person's impudence. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Lady Catherine quoting Lizzie Bennet:
She had the impudence to reply that, whilst these would be heavy misfortunes, your wife must have such extraordinary sources of happiness necessarily attached to her situation, that she could, upon the whole, have no cause to repine. — Janet Aylmer

True wisdom is plenty of experience, observation, and reflection. False wisdom is plenty of ignorance, arrogance, and impudence. — Josh Billings

Impertinence will intermeddle in things in which it has no concern, showing a want of breeding, or, more commonly, a spirit of sheer impudence. — George Crabbe

It may be a species of impudence to think that the way you understand God is the way God is. (60). — Joseph Campbell

Like a woman, . . . who will submit to the strong man rather than dominate the weakling, thus the masses love the ruler rather than the suppliant, and inwardly they are far more satisfied by a doctrine which tolerates no rival than by the grant of liberal freedom; they often feel at a loss what to do with it, and even easily feel themselves deserted. They neither realize the impudence with which they are spiritually terrorized, nor the outrageous curtailment of their human liberties for in no way does the delusion of this doctrine dawn on them. — Adolf Hitler

It takes great labor to uncover the convincing simple speech of the heart. Poetic candor comes with hard labor, so even does impetuosity and impudence. — Kenneth Rexroth