Most Overrated Quotes & Sayings

Affection as medicine is highly overrated ... a person who is as sick with depression as I most certainly was cannot possibly be rescued through the power of anyone's love. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

I don't mean to make a big deal out of sobriety, by the way. Of all the modes of human consciousness available to the modern consumer I consider it to be the most overrated. — Michael Chabon

You rely too much on brain. The brain is the most overrated organ. — Woody Allen

Perhaps the most overrated virtue in our list of shoddy virtues is that of giving. Giving builds up the ego of the giver, makes him superior and higher and larger than the receiver. Nearly always, giving is a selfish pleasure, and in many cases it is a downright destructive and evil thing. One has only to remember some of our wolfish financiers who spend two-thirds of their lives clawing fortunes out of the guts of society and the latter third pushing it back. It is not enough to suppose that their philanthropy is a kind of frightened restitution, or that their natures change when they have enough. Such a nature never has enough and natures do not change that readily. I think that the impulse is the same in both cases. For giving can bring the same sense of superiority as getting does, and philanthropy may be another kind of spiritual avarice. — John Steinbeck

Consistency is the most overrated of all human virtues ... I'm someone who changes his mind all the time. — Malcolm Gladwell

The most overrated tool: a pasta maker. Why make it when you can buy it? It's a lot of work! — Ina Garten

I always thought problem solving was greatly overrated - and that the most important thing was problem creation. — Chuck Close

Thinking is the most overrated human activity. — Wendell Berry

Self-awareness is the most overrated trick in the book. More than ambition, more than free will, more than getting on to the property ladder early. Right now I should be at the Little Hills, you probably just call them the Hills, right? — David Louden

The director is the most overrated artist in the world. He is the only artist who, with no talent whatsoever, can be a success for 50 years without his lack of talent ever being discovered. — Orson Welles

What is the most overrated skill for an entrepreneur? The most overrated skill is skill. Luck is more important. The entrepreneur gets credit for being this genius, when really he was just at the right place at the right time. — Ken Hendricks

The Stones are not the world's greatest band. Not even the world's second greatest band. What they are is the world's most overrated band. And it wasn't Keith or Mick who wrote "Wild Horses". It was Gram Parsons. — Jo Nesbo

My irritation with Niles was growing, though. I had always thought the quiet man was the most overrated form of human life. — Pat Conroy

Suffering for your art is most definitely overrated but I do get a certain, I don't know, satisfaction from being able to deal with my paranoia and insecurity. — Beth Gibbons

Most of the time, feelings just seem to get in the way. They're a luxury for the idle, a bourgeois concept. Feelings are overrated. — Nick Cave

Perseverance is the most overrated of traits, if it is unaccompanied by talent; beating your head against a wall is more likely to produce a concussion in the head than a hole in the wall. — Sydney J. Harris

but he had a great respect for money, and much overrated its value as a means of doing even what he called good: religious people generally do -- with a most unchristian dulness. We are not told that the Master made the smallest use of money for his end. When he paid the temple-rate, he did it to avoid giving offence; and he defended the woman who divinely wasted it. — George MacDonald

Speaking to the subject is the most overrated thing in journalism, — David Remnick

Rating systems work perfectly for players who play only in round robin closed events. I think most of them are overrated. Organizers invite same people over and over because they have the same rating and their rating stays high. — Alexander Khalifman

I think walks are overrated unless you can run ... If you get a walk and put the pitcher in a stretch, that helps. But the guy who walks and can't run, most of the time they're clogging up the bases for somebody who can run. — Dusty Baker

In contradistinction to the underestimation in the field of rocket science and the aerospace industry, Parsons' accomplishments in the arcane sciences have been highly overrated and grossly exaggerated. As a magician he was essentially a failure. As a Thelemite he learned the hard way what was required. He loved Crowley's 'Law' but couldn't adhere to it - though he tried harder than most. He violated the rules, undertook unauthorized and unorthodox magical operations, and claimed the grade of Magister Templi without first completing all the grades below it. He couldn't handle working under authority - his ego was too big. His record of failure is valuable in that regard. He was a great promulgator of thelemic ideals in his essays, but as an idealist his elitism ruined his work. Indeed, some would say he was guilt of hubris, which the gods always punish. — John Carter

I think Les Moonves is the most highly overrated person in television. — Donald Trump

I've become convinced that genius is a vastly overrated commodity. I think this country is full of geniuses, guys and gals so bright they make your average card carrying MENSA member look like Fucko the Clown. And I think that most of them are teachers, living and working in small town obscurity because that's the way they like it. — Stephen King

Happiness is good, but well-overrated: what we hate most are the very motivators that put us in gear. A man drifts along with little to contribute until something agitates him enough to make a difference, whether for himself or for his communities. — Criss Jami

Next to hot chicken soup, a tattoo of an anchor on your chest, and penicillin, I consider a honeymoon one of the most overrated events in the world. — Erma Bombeck

Confidence is overrated. It's when we're uncomfortable and looking for answers that we learn and grow the most. — Barbara Corcoran

New ideas are one of the most overrated concepts of our time. Most of the important ideas that we live with aren't new at all. — Andy Rooney

Remembering is the most overrated thing. Forgetting is far superior. — Tom Rachman

According to Sarah, who had gone two years ago, prom was famous for being an overpriced disappointment where most people had no fun. — Cammie McGovern

The most overrated ingredients are garlic and extra-virgin olive oil. With garlic, it's personal; I have never been that big of a fan of its flavor. As for extra-virgin olive oil, I do use it quite often but its ubiquity serves to overshadow many wonderful oils like pistachio, walnut, argan and even grapeseed. — Lela Rose

Criticism, for a book, is a truthful, unfaked badge of attention, signaling that it is not boring; and boring is the only very bad thing for a book. Consider the Ayn Rand phenomenon: her books Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead have been read for more than half a century by millions of people, in spite of, or most likely thanks to, brutally nasty reviews and attempts to discredit her. The first-order information is the intensity: what matters is the effort the critic puts into trying to prevent others from reading the book, or, more generally in life, it is the effort in badmouthing someone that matters, not so much what is said. So if you really want people to read a book, tell them it is "overrated," with a sense of outrage (and use the attribute "underrated" for the opposite effect). — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I would have ten children. I think they are the most fascinating, and it's the only thing in the world that hasn't been overrated. — Deidre Hall

Faith is the surrender of the mind, it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other animals. It's our need to believe and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me ... Out of all the virtues, all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated — Christopher Hitchens

The most overrated underrated player in baseball. — Lawrence Ritter

Your least favorite virtue, or nominee for the most overrated one? Faith. Closely followed - in view of the overall shortage of time - by patience. — Christopher Hitchens

I don't play the lottery. I don't care what my horoscope says. I think most things about the world could be improved if people thought more about what they're doing. When someone gets upset with their computer, I tend to side with the computer. I think art is overrated, and bridges are underrated. In fact, I don't understand why bridges aren't art. It seems to me they're penalized for having a use. If I make a bridge that ends in midair, that's a sculpture. But put it between two landmasses and let it ferry two hundred thousand cars per day and it's infrastructure. That makes no sense. — Max Barry