Pedantic Quotes:

There are surely worse things than being wrong, and being dull and pedantic are surely among them.

- Mark Kac

topic: Dull, Pedantic, Being Wrong

Television turned out to be exactly as bad as the most irritating and pedantic intellectuals of the '50s said it was going to be.

- Fran Lebowitz

topic: Television, Said, Pedantic

For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

topic: Writing, Opposites, Giving, Pedantry, Pedantic

A good designer must rely on experience, on precise, logic thinking; and on pedantic exactness. No magic will do.

- Niklaus Wirth

source: Interview with Carlo Pescio, www.eptacom.net. June 1997.

topic: Death, Thinking, Design, Exactness, Pedantry

Nothing is as peevish and pedantic as men's judgments of one another.

- Desiderius Erasmus

topic: Men, Criticism, Pedants, Pedantry, Pedantic

Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime, nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

- John Donne

topic: Love, Time, Rags, Curtain Call, Pedantic

'Tis well enough for a servant to be bred at an University. But the education is a little too pedantic for a gentleman.

- William Congreve

topic: College, Gentleman, Littles, Pedantry, Pedantic

We do not need French post-structuralism, whose pedantic jargon, clumsy convolutions, and prissy abstractions have spread throughout academe and the arts and are now blighting the most promising minds of the next generation. This is a major crisis if there ever was one, and every sensible person must help bring it to an end.

- Camille Paglia

topic: Art, Mind, Jargon, Structuralism, Pedantic

Some people are under the impression that all that is required to make a good fisherman is the ability to tell lies easily and without blushing; but this is a mistake.

- Jerome K. Jerome

topic: Mistake, Lying, People, Blushing, Veracity

I believe that science fiction is as profound as you want it to be or it can be very simple entertainment, and I'm all for very simple entertainment. Every now and then we all need to come home, veg-out, watch something and not think too deeply about it. It's what you want it to be. We tend to steer clear of being pedantic; it's entertainment first, otherwise we'd be on a lecture circuit.

- Joe Flanigan

topic: Believe, Home, Simple, Circuits, Pedantry

Facts are what pedantic, dull people have instead of opinions.

- A. A. Gill

source: A.A. Gill (2007). “The Angry Island: Hunting the English”, p.11, Simon and Schuster

topic: People, Dull, Facts, Pedantic

People sometimes think that defining a term is pedantic and useless, but terms need to be defined if they're going to be discussed, even if the terms are only defined for a single conversation. Those involved in the conversation need to know how the terms are being used.

- Pattiann Rogers

source: "A Conversation with Pattiann Rogers". Interview with Carolyn Perry, Wayne Zade, poems.com. 2009.

topic: Pedantic

Conversation! Supple sentences, with first and second meanings and overtones beyond, outrageous challenges with cleverly planned slip-points, rebuttals of elegant brevity; deceptions and guiles, patient explanations of the obvious, fleeting allusions to the unthinkable. As a preliminary, the conversationalist must gauge the mood, the intelligence and the verbal facility of the company. To this end, a few words of pedantic exposition often prove invaluable.

- Jack Vance

topic: Challenges, Deception, Gauges, Rebuttal, Guile

Portraits are to daily faces As an evening west To a fine, pedantic sunshine In a satin vest.

- Emily Dickinson

source: Emily Dickinson, Ralph William Franklin (1999). “The Poems of Emily Dickinson”, p.84, Harvard University Press

topic: Sunshine, Portraits, West, Satin, Pedantic

"Science" is pedantic, arrogant, esoteric and often insane.

- Herbert M. Shelton

source: Herbert M. Shelton (2015). “The Science and Fine Art of Fasting”, p.76, Ravenio Books

topic: Insane, Arrogant, Esoteric, Pedantic

There is scarcely anything more important in the government of men than the exact - I will ever say pedantic - observance of the regular forms by which the guilt or innocence of accused persons is determined.

- Winston Churchill

source: Winston Churchill (2015). “My African Journey”, p.42, Richard Clay & Sons

topic: Men, Guilt, Important, Observance, Pedantic

Busy old fool, unruly Sun, why dost thou thus through windows and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers seasons run?

- John Donne

topic: Love, Running, Fool, Unruly, Curtain Call

Why is it that the less one has to say the more one says it in the most pompous and pedantic way possible?... Is it to fool the world or just to fool themselves?

- Carlos Ruiz Zafon

topic: World, Way, Fool, Pompous, Pedantic

He had fought back with every weapon in his arsenal, being alternatively obtuse, evasive and pedantic, for it was wonderful how you could obscure an emotional issue by appearing to seek precision.

- J. K. Rowling

source: J.K. Rowling (2012). “The Casual Vacancy”, p.99, Hachette UK

topic: Emotional, Issues, Weapons, Pedantic

I am aware of the technical distinction between ‘less’ and ‘fewer’, and between ‘uninterested’ and ‘disinterested’ and ‘infer’ and ‘imply’, but none of these are of importance to me. ‘None of these are of importance,’ I wrote there, you’ll notice – the old pedantic me would have insisted on “none of them is of importance”. Well I’m glad to say I’ve outgrown that silly approach to language

- Stephen Fry

topic: Silly, Language, Distinction, Uninterested, Pedantic

The perpetual charm of Arabia is that the traveler finds his level there simply as a human being; the people's directness, deadly to the sentimental or pedantic, likes the less complicated virtues ...

- Freya Stark

topic: People, Arabia, Levels, Pedantic

The attitude of foreign to English musicians is unsympathetic, self-opinionated and pedantic. They believe that their tradition is the only one (this is specially true of the Viennese) and that anything that is not in accordance with that tradition is "wrong" and arises from insular ignorance.

- Ralph Vaughan Williams

source: "R.V.W.: A Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams". Book by Ursula Vaughan Williams, p. 243, letter to Lord Kennet (1941), 1964.

topic: Attitude, Believe, Ignorance, Unsympathetic, Pedantic

Just as in habiliments it is a sign of weakness to wish to make oneself noticeable by some peculiar and unaccustomed fashion, so, in language, the quest for new-fangled phrases and little-known words comes from a puerile and pedantic ambition.

- Michel de Montaigne

source: Michel de Montaigne (1925). “The essays of Montaigne”

topic: Fashion, Ambition, Wish, Pedantic

People formerly seemed unable to evaluate a woman's c.v. or to accept a range of personal and communicative styles from the exuberant and confident to the sober and pedantic. It's much better than it was, and a number of male philosophers have been extraordinarily helpful in detecting and criticising everyday sexism in the profession.

- Catherine Wilson

topic: Numbers, People, Everyday, Pedantic

In fact, on one occasion, a rather pedantic experimental psychologist was telling him about a long, complicated experiment he had done, incorporating all the proper controls and using considerable technical virtuosity. When he saw Crick's exasperated expression he said, "but Dr. Crick, we have got it right - we know it's right," Crick's response was, "The point is not whether it's right. The point is: does it even matter whether its right or wrong?"

- Vilayanur S. Ramachandran

topic: Pain, Expression, Long, Incorporating, Virtuosity

If form is mechanically applied, it may indeed result in work that is conventional, if not pedantic or stupid. But form used well can become the very vehicle of freedom, of discovering the creative surprises that liberate mind-at-play.

- Stephen Nachmanovitch

source: Stephen Nachmanovitch (1991). “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art”, p.84, Penguin

topic: Stupid, Play, Creative, Pedantic

To substitute judgments of fact for judgments of value is a sign of pedantic and borrowed criticism.

- George Santayana

source: George Santayana (2012). “The Sense of Beauty”, p.14, Courier Corporation

topic: Criticism, Facts, Judgment, Pedantic

Slothful, feeble, pretentious, pedantic, elitist - these are some of the epithets that eventually become associated with the absent minded scholar, the poor sighted reader, the book worm, the nerd.

- Alberto Manguel

source: "A History of Reading". Book by Alberto Manguel, 1996.

topic: Book, Nerd, Poor, Epithet, Absent Minded

Devising a vocabulary for gardening is like devising a vocabulary for sex. There are the correct Latin names, but most people invent euphemisms. Those who refer to plants by Latin name are considered more expert, if a little pedantic.

- Diane Ackerman

source: Diane Ackerman (2002). “Cultivating Delight: A Natural History of My Garden”, G K Hall & Company

topic: Sex, Latin, Vocabulary, Devising, Euphemism

A lot of political music to me can be rather pedantic and corny, and when it's done right - like Bruce Springsteen or Jackson Browne or great satire from Randy Newman, there's nothing better.

- Bonnie Raitt

topic: Political, Done, Corny, Randy, Newman

It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest. I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.

- Edmund Burke

source: Edmund Burke (1963). “Edmund Burke: Selected Writings and Speeches”, p.201, Transaction Publishers

topic: Drawing, Ideas, People, Indictment, Pedantic

I think topical songwriting is a real gift, and it's hard not to be pedantic and show up with the sledgehammer message.

- Mary Chapin Carpenter

source: Source: therumpus.net

topic: Real, Thinking, Messages, Pedantic

Some people feel that it's controversial if I say that because my dad is known as a political artist. But I don't really believe that he was a political artist. I think some of his songs were political, and I think they were incredible because he was able to make art that was political and that wasn't pedantic. But I think he was unique in being able to do that.

- Sean Lennon

source: "Sean Lennon speaks". Interview with Joel Amos, www.sheknows.com. March 22, 2010.

topic: Song, Art, Dad, Pedantic

I think when people try to use their art for political views, I think they're art becomes smaller, less interesting. And so for me, as an artist, I'm trying to speak about things in a universal way and not be pedantic or small-minded and try to convince other people of my political views. But having said that, every day I live in sort of complete terror because of what I read in the newspaper and what is going on in the world. I'm constantly, as I think many of us are, overwhelmed by the sort of, mass psychosis that's occurring.

- Sean Lennon

source: "Sean Lennon speaks". Interview with Joel Amos, www.sheknows.com. March 22, 2010.

topic: Art, Thinking, Psychosis, Pedantic

We think that play and fairytales belong to childhood - how shortsighted that is! As though we would want at any time in our life to live without play and fairytales! We give these things other names, to be sure, and feel differently about them, but precisely this is the evidence that they are the same things, for the child too regards play as his work and fairy tales as his truth. The brevity of life ought to preserve us from a pedantic division of life into different stages - as though each brought something new.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

topic: Children, Thinking, Play, Brevity Of Life, Pedantic

Without rules you can't have anything, but you don't want to just be pedantic or obsessive. The painting is finished when it's working. The overall balance is right. Balance shouldn't be confused with design. There has to be restless jostle and aggression and a bit of dynamism, not just pat-ness or settled-ness or immediate pleasing-ness.

- Matthew Collings

topic: Confused, Design, Balance, Dynamism, Pedantic

You will think me very pedantic, gentlemen, but holiday though it may be, I have not the smallest interest in any holiday, except as it celebrates real and not pretended joys.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

source: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Ernest Spiller, Alfred Riggs Ferguson, Joseph Slater, Jean Ferguson Carr (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: English traits”, p.176, Harvard University Press

topic: Real, Holiday, Thinking, Pedantic

I've been accused of being a little pedantic here and there, but I don't buy that criticism. I'm telling it like I see it. You don't have to buy it. You don't have to like it. You don't have to listen to it at all. I'm not trying to convince people of things, other than the fact that I'm trying to make as vivid as I can my own feelings and experiences.

- Bruce Cockburn

source: Source: progressive.org

topic: People, Feelings, Trying, Pedantic

My self . . . is a dramatic ensemble. Here a prophetic ancestor makes his appearance. Here a brutal hero shouts. Here an alcoholic bon vivant argues with a learned professor. Here a lyric muse, chronically love-struck, raises her eyes to heaven. Her papa steps forward, uttering pedantic protests. Here the indulgent uncle intercedes. Here the aunt babbles gossip. Here the maid giggles lasciviously. And I look upon it all with amazement, the sharpened pen in my left hand.

- Paul Klee

topic: Uncles, Hero, Eye, Pedantic

To write a genuine familiar or truly English style is to write as anyone would speak in common conversation, who had a thorough command and choice of words, or who could discourse with ease, force, and perspicuity, setting aside all pedantic and oratorical flourishes.

- William Hazlitt

source: William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1270, Delphi Classics

topic: Writing, Choices, Style, Pedantic