Prig Quotes & Sayings

Prig and philistine, Ph.D. and C.P.A., despot of English 218c and big shot of the Kiwanis Club-how much, at bottom, they both hate Art, and how hard it is to know which of them hates it the more. — Louis Kronenberger

God is British to the bone, and every fellow here knows it. You can't exploit him to save yourself, you blaspheming cadaverous-prig; you disgusting shambles of porcelain-skin, unwholesome-fat and puny-bones. Your blatant disregard for God's word shan't earn you any favours here! — Joss Sheldon

If you will think about what you ought to do for other people, your character will take care of itself. Character is a by-product, and any man who devotes himself to its cultivation in his own case will become a selfish prig. — Woodrow Wilson

He followed her down the corridor. "Don't walk away from me. I'd like some answers here. Whose invitation did I just accept, and what does that slimy prig want of you? And why do I come in third in your affections behind the slimy prig and a squashed beetle?"
-Logan — Tessa Dare

In choosing, moreover, for his father an amiable man of fifty-two, who had already lost an only son, and for his mother a woman of thirty-eight, whose first and only child he was, little Jon had done well and wisely. What had saved him from becoming a cross between a lap dog and a little prig, had been his father's adoration of his mother, for even little Jon could see that she was not merely just his mother, and that he played second fiddle to her in his father's heart: What he played in his mother's heart he knew not yet. — John Galsworthy

Corpus bones, I thought. To be wedded to this perfumed prig with his mouth in a knot and a frown always on his face! — Karen Cushman

Someone who is determinedly trying to show God how good he or she is is likely to become an insufferable prig. — N. T. Wright

The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition. Thus we have two great types
the advanced person who rushes us into ruin, and the retrospective person who admires the ruins. He admires them especially by moonlight, not to say moonshine. Each new blunder of the progressive or prig becomes instantly a legend of immemorial antiquity for the snob. This is called the balance, or mutual check, in our Constitution. — G.K. Chesterton

The lingering laughter fled from his eyes as he realized that he'd given himself away. "Where's Fiddle now?"
"Safe and cared for. Safer than you'll be if you don't answer my questions."
Ping.
He managed not to laugh, but it looked like a hard fight.
"Dung," Makenna muttered. the knight's expression changed to startled disapproval. A prig, as he? Maybe she could use that.
"I said you should let me handle this," Cogswhallop told her. "I'd have meant it. — Hilari Bell

You're a solemn prig, Prendick, a silly ass! You're always fearing and fancying. We're on the edge of things. I'm bound to cut my throat tomorrow. I'm going to have a damned Bank Holiday tonight. — H.G.Wells

Discord is to be forced to be in harmony with others. One's own life - that is the important thing. As for the lives of one's neighbours, if one wishes to be a prig or a Puritan, one can flaunt one's moral views about them, but they are not one's concern. Besides, individualism has really the higher aim. Modern morality consists in accepting the standard of one's age. I consider that for any man of culture to accept the standard of his age is a form of the grossest immorality. — Oscar Wilde

Any part of the piggy Is quite all right with me Ham from Westphalia, ham from Parma Ham as lean as the Dalai Lama Ham from Virginia, ham from York, Trotters Sausages, hot roast pork. Crackling crisp for my teeth to grind on Bacon with or without the rind on Though humanitarian I'm not a vegetarian. I'm neither crank nor prude nor prig And though it may sound infra dig Any part of the darling pig Is perfectly fine with me. — Noel Coward

Ellie fought the urge to stamp her foot. "I meant it this time. Do you accept my apology?"
"It appears," he said, raising his eyebrows, "that you might do me bodily harm if I do not."
"Ungracious prig," she muttered. "I am trying to apologize."
"And I," he said, "am trying to accept. — Julia Quinn

What arouses the indignation of the honest satirist is not, unless the man is a prig, the fact that people in positions of power or influence behave idiotically, or even that they behave wickedly. It is that they conspire successfully to impose upon the public a picture of themselves as so very sagacious, honest and well-intentioned. — Claud Cockburn

The stiff-backed prig, with his dandified airs and West End swagger. — William Makepeace Thackeray

[T]he pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and back-biting, the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. This is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But of course, it is better to be neither. — C.S. Lewis

A cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to Hell than a prostitute. — C.S. Lewis

Fable
The mountain and the squirrel
Had a quarrel,
And the former called the latter, "little prig ":
Bun replied,
"You are doubtless very big;
But all sorts of things and weather
Must be taken in together
To make up a year,
And a sphere.
And I think it no disgrace
To occupy my place.
If I'm not so large as you,
You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry.
I'll not deny you make
A very pretty squirrel track;
Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;
If I cannot carry forests on my back,
Neither can you crack a nut. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is easier to make a saint out of a libertine than out of a prig. — George Santayana

Man is a deeply illogical being, and must be ruled illogically. Whatever that frigid prig Bentham may say, there are innumerable motives that have nothing to do with utility. — Patrick O'Brian

Yes. But I let you leave again, last year after you were crowned. And all those nights I brought you to Wonderland in your dreams, even though it pained me for you to abandon our dreamscapes and return to the mortal realm, I let you go each morning to live your reality there. It may not seem much when compared to your mortal's gallantry. But for me - self-seeking, arrogant prig that I am - that is the sincerest form of sacrifice. Letting you go. Do you not see that? — A.G. Howard

That dowdy little prig is that good in bed. — Catherine Coulter

Smarmy little prig," Will snarled, leaning father forward, as if he longed to reach through the magical portal and strangle Gabriel. "When I get him alone ... "
"I ought to go in with her instead," Gabriel went on. "I can look out for her a bit more. Instead of simply looking out for myself."
"Hanging's too good for him," agreed Jem, who looked as if he were trying not to laugh.
"Tessa knows Will," protested Charlotte. "She trusts Will."
"I wouldn't go that far," muttered Tessa. — Cassandra Clare

A prig is a fellow who is always making you a present of his opinions. — George Eliot

A full-dressed ecclesiastic is a sort of go-cart of divinity; an ethical automaton. A clerical prig is, in general, a very dangerous as well as contemptible character. The utmost that those who thus habitually confound their opinions and sentiments with the outside coverings of their bodies can aspire to, is a negative and neutral character, like wax-work figures, where the dress is done as much to the life as the man, and where both are respectable pieces of pasteboard, or harmless compositions of fleecy hosiery. — William Hazlitt

It may not seem much when compared to your mortal's gallantry. But for me - self-seeking, arrogant prig that i am - that is the sincerest form of sacrifice. Letting you go. — A.G. Howard

All U.S. irony is based on an implicit "I don't really mean what I say." So what does irony as a cultural norm mean to say? That it's impossible to mean what you say? That maybe it's too bad it's impossible, but wake up and smell the coffee already? Most likely, I think, today's irony ends up saying: "How very banal to ask what I mean." Anyone with the heretical gall to ask an ironist what he actually stands for ends up looking like a hysteric or a prig. And herein lies the oppressiveness of institutionalized irony, the too-successful rebel: the ability to interdict the question without attending to its content is tyranny. It is the new junta, using the very tool that exposed its enemy to insulate itself.
This is why our educated teleholic friends' use of weary cynicism to try to seem superior to TV is so pathetic. — David Foster Wallace

A moment later, Cat hurtled back into the room as if chased by demons. She stationed herself in front of Raisa, a knife in either hand, all of her genteel patina swept away. "Cuffs! Look sharp! It's him, the whey-faced, gutter-swiving, prig-napping bastard! He's here!"
Han looked as mystified as Raisa. "Who's here? — Cinda Williams Chima

Dearest, I don't like you a bit," Anthony interrupted again. "I think you're a very detestable, selfish pig and prig. But I'm often wildly in love with you, and so I see you're not. But I'm sure your only chance of salvation is to marry me. — Charles Williams

The transition from libertine to prig was so complete. — F Scott Fitzgerald

I don't think I shall ever find peace till I make up my mind about things,' he said gravely. He hesitated. 'It's very difficult to put into words. The moment you try you feel embarrassed. You say to yourself: "Who am I that I should bother myself about this, that, and the other? Perhaps it's only because I'm a conceited prig. Wouldn't it be better to follow the beaten track and let what's coming to you come?" And then you think of a fellow who an hour before was full of life and fun,and he's lying dead; it's all so cruel and meaningless. It's hard not to ask yourself what life is all about and whether there's any sense to it or whether it's all a tragic blunder of blind fate. — W. Somerset Maugham

A prig always finds a last refuge in responsibility. — Jean Cocteau