Pompous People Quotes & Sayings

On the other hand, Protestantism's shedding away of authority, as evidenced by my mother's proclamation that I needn't go to church or listen to a preacher to achieve salvation, inspires self-reliance - along with a dangerous disregard for expertise. So the impulse that leads to democracy can also be the downside of democracy - namely, a suspicion of people who know what they are talking about. It's why in U.S. presidential elections the American people will elect a wisecracking good ol'boy who's fun in a malt shop instead of a serious thinker who actually knows some of the pompous, brainy stuff that might actually get fewer people laid off or killed. — Sarah Vowell

I hate elitists. I hate conceited people. I hate pompous people. — Neil Cavuto

It has been a failure of such monumental proportions that political apathy is no longer considered fashnionable or even safe, among millions of people who only two years ago thought that anybody who disagreed openly with the goverment was either paranoid or subversive. Political candidates in 1974, at least, are going to have to deal with an angry, disillusioned electorate that is not likely to settle for flag-waving and pompous bullshit. — Hunter S. Thompson

As a young man, he was already rather pompous and full of himself, concerned with what he would write and with his early (and, later, perennial) hatred of Ireland and the Irish. When he had still written only a few poems, he asked his brother Stanislaus: "Don't you think there is a certain resemblance between the mystery of the Mass and what I am trying to do? I mean that I am trying in my poems to give people some kind of intellectual pleasure or spiritual enjoyment by converting the bread of daily life into something that has a permanent artistic life of its own ... for their mental, moral, and spiritual uplift." When he was older his comparisons may have been less eucharistic and more modest, but he was always convinced of the extreme importance of his work, even before it existed. — Javier Marias

People who do not know how to laugh are always pompous and self-conceited. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Some of my favorite characters that I've played have been very pompous because I love making fun of pompous people. — Kevin Kline

I rarely interacted much with anyone back then who wasn't retarded. When I did, it struck me how pompous and impatient they were, always measuring their words, twisting things around. Everybody was so obsessed with being understood. It made me sick. — Ottessa Moshfegh

The Pope replied, What can you preach to the people? If on humility, you yourselves are the proudest of the world, puffed up, pompous and sumptuous in luxuries. If on poverty, you are so covetous that all the benefices in the world are not enough for you. If on chastity - but we will be silent on this, for God knoweth what each man does and how many of you satisfy your lusts. — Barbara W. Tuchman

I think it would be pompous to say I am an underrated actor. I don't think it is for me to think and decide; it is for people to decide. But I am glad I am underrated than being overrated - that is something I would find hard to digest. — Randeep Hooda

There are so few people who can really take hold of art and sort of eat and chew it up. Somehow it's got to be held special, sacred in a corner, and if you don't do the same thing with it, if you're not equally reverential, serious, and pompous about it, well, then you're not a great artist. Who needs that? — Twyla Tharp

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

A good sense of humour is the sign of a healthy perspective, which is why people who are uncomfortable around humour are either pompous (inflated) or neurotic (oversensitive). Pompous people mistrust humour because at some level they know their self-importance cannot survive very long in such an atmosphere, so they criticise it as "negative" or "subversive." Neurotics, sensing that humour is always ultimately critical, view it as therefore unkind and destructive, a reductio ad absurdum which leads to political correctness. Not that laughter can't be unkind and destructive. Like most manifestations of human behaviour it ranges from the loving to the hateful. The latter produces nasty racial jokes and savage teasing; the former, warm and affectionate banter, and the kind of inclusive humour that says, "Isn't the human condition absurd, but we're all in the same boat. — John Cleese

People have got to let their bodies breathe a little bit more. That's the great thing about being a pompous, jumped-up rock god. There's plenty of air around you. — Robert Plant

We must admit that simply knowing the contents of the Bible is not a sure route to spiritual growth. There is an aweful assumption in evangelical churches that if we can just get the Word of God into people's heads, then the Spirit of God will apply it to their hearts. That assumption is aweful, not because the Spirit never does what the assumption supposes, but because it excused pastors and leaders from the responsibility to tangle with people's lives. Many remain safely hidden behind pulpits, hopelessly out of touch with the struggles of their congregations, proclaiming the Scriptures with a pompous accuracy that touches no one. Pulpits should provide bridges, not barriers, to life-changing relationships. — Larry Crabb

My job is to find the politicians and the presidents and the pompous people who are telling other people how to live, powerful, visible creatures and ... go at them. — Craig Ferguson

Mythographer was suggested by the man who made my website, actually. I do write a lot about myth and I do feel it's a bit pompous to state it that way, but it does distinguish me from other writers. When it was first on the web, people began to use it in an ironical and satirical way. Now, however, people tend to use it straight. — Marina Warner

We admire people who work hard, who are objective and thorough. We detest office politicians, toadies, bullies, and pompous asses. We abhor ruthlessness. The way up our ladder is open to everybody. In promoting people to top jobs, we are influenced as much by their character as anything else. — David Ogilvy

People everywhere brag and whimper about the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty; the shiftless loquacious father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests; bullying school masters; the English and the terrible things they did to us for eight hundred long years.
Above all
we were wet. — Frank McCourt

Gold is gold everywhere, fungible and indifferent. But when a disk of gold is stamped by a coiner with certain pompous words and the picture of a King, it takes on added value
seigneurage. It has that value only in that people believe that it does
it is a shared phant'sy. — Neal Stephenson

The reason people hate America is because they don't like being treated like garbage by arrogant, pompous, hypocritical, self-righteous, duplicitous, imperialist political and bureaucratic hacks. — Jacob G. Hornberger

The English language is under assault by stupid people who use words they don't understand, and is defended by pompous asses who like to correct those people. We're not sure who to side with. — Tim Cameron

It's the same with people who say, 'Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger.' Even people who say this must realize that the exact opposite is true. What doesn't kill you maims you, cripples you, leaves you weak, makes you whiny and full of yourself at the same time. The more pain, the more pompous you get. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you incredibly annoying. — Rob Sheffield

There are more pompous, arrogant, self-centered, mediocre-type people running corporate America who should be sent out on some postal route delivering mail. — Joe Jamail

What I am talking about is the arrogance of the few pompous pissants who really think they're something special because they have a little money, a little privileged knowledge, or because they know the right people. They can be the most arrogant bastards of all. I doubt there's much chance of them misunderstanding me this time. I think they'll know who they are, if and when they read this. So how now brown cow. I'll just sit back and wait for them to start howling again. David Barker August 1984 — David Barker

He felt people were never intentionally beastly or malicious, but they were pompous and foolish; awful decisions were made by men divorced from their own humanity. — Glen David Gold

Anyone moderately familiar with the rigours of composition will not need to be told the story in detail; how he wrote and it seemed good; read and it seemed vile; corrected and tore up; cut out; put in; was in ecstasy; in despair; had his good nights and bad mornings; snatched at ideas and lost them; saw his book plain before him and it vanished; acted people's parts as he ate; mouthed them as he walked; now cried; now laughed; vacillated between this style and that; now preferred the heroic and pompous; next the plain and simple; now the vales of Tempe; then the fields of Kent or Cornwall; and could not decide whether he was the divinest genius or the greatest fool in the world. — Virginia Woolf

Douglas, you have an incredible capacity for missing the point. Will you listen to me, just for once? The debate does not matter. It's not about the issues. Albie might have been naive or ridiculous or pompous or all of those things, but you apologized. You said you were embarassed by him. You took the side of a bunch of arms-dealers! Bloddy bastard arms-dealers against your son - our son - and that was wrong, it was the wrong thing to do, because in a fight you side with the people you love. That's just how it is. — David Nicholls

Some call-in moderators are neutral and courteous. Then there's Rush Limbaugh, who is funny and pompous and a scapegoater and hatemonger. His popularity could cause you to draw some terrible conclusions about the state of mind of the American people. It helps to remember that Bill Cosby is popular, too. — Donella Meadows

From the beginning of time, we've told stories, Shamans and Medicine People, and not to be pompous about it, but I feel like that is the lineage I take down and where I come from. There is magic to storytelling. — Lynn Collins

...the leader must 1) avoid getting swamped in detail; 2) not be petty; 3) not be pompous; 4) know how to select people to fit the task; 5) trust others to do a job without the leader's meddling; 6) be capable of clear decisions; 7) inspire confidence. — J. Oswald Sanders