It is human to exaggerate the merits of the dead.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Eschew the monumental. Shun the Epic. All the guys who can paint great big pictures can paint great small ones.
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
Exaggeration is a blood relation to falsehood, and nearly as blameable.
—Hosea Ballou (1771–1852) American Theologian
We exaggerate misfortune and happiness alike. We are never either so wretched or so happy as we say we are.
—Honore de Balzac (1799–1850) French Novelist
We overstate the ills of life, and take
Imagination… down our earth to rake … .
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–61) English Poet
Alcohol is perfectly consistent in its effects upon man. Drunkenness is merely an exaggeration. A foolish man drunk becomes maudlin; a bloody man, vicious; a coarse man, vulgar.
—Willa Cather (1873–1947) American Novelist, Writer
Exaggeration misleads the credulous and offends the perceptive.
—Eliza Cook (1818–89) English Author, Poet
‘Tis a rule of manners to avoid exaggeration.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
There is a sort of harmless liars, frequently to be met with in company, who deal much in the marvellous. Their usual intention is to please and entertain: but as men are most delighted with what they conceive to be truth, these people mistake the means of pleasing, and incur universal blame.
—David Hume (1711–76) Scottish Philosopher, Historian
Exaggeration is the inseparable companion of greatness.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
All cartoon characters and fables must be exaggeration, caricatures. It is the very nature of fantasy and fable.
—Walt Disney (1901–66) American Entrepreneur
Camp is a vision of the world in terms of style—but a particular kind of style. It is love of the exaggerated.
—Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American Writer, Philosopher
Exaggeration is in the course of things. Nature sends no creature, no man into the world, without adding a small excess of his proper quality. Given the planet, it is still necessary to add the impulse; so, to every creature nature added a little violence of direction in its proper path, a shove to put it on its way; in every instance, a slight generosity, a drop too much.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
It is the essence of truth that it is never excessive. Why should it exaggerate? There is that which should be destroyed and that which should be simply illuminated and studied. How great is the force of benevolent and searching examination! We must not resort to the flame where only light is required.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
How many may a man of diffusive conversation count among his acquaintances, whose lives have been signalized by numberless escapes; who never cross the river but in a storm, or take a journey into the country without more adventures than befel the knights-errant of ancient times in pathless forests or enchanted castles! How many must he know, to whom portents and prodigies are of daily occurrence; and for whom nature is hourly working wonders invisible to every other eye, only to supply them with subjects of conversation?
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Every vice is only an exaggeration of a necessary and virtuous function.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Nothing makes a fish bigger than almost being caught.
—Unknown
What makes us discontented with our condition is the absurdly exaggerated idea we have of the happiness of others.
—French Proverb
Man is inclined to exaggerate almost everything – except his own mistakes.
—Unknown
To most men their early home is no more than a memory of their early years. The image is never marred. There’s no disappointment in memory, and one’s exaggerations are always on the good side.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
Danger lies in the writer becoming the victim of his own exaggeration, losing the exact notion of sincerity, and in the end coming to despise truth itself as something too cold, too blunt for his purpose—as, in fact, not good enough for his insistent emotion. From laughter and tears the descent is easy to sniveling and giggles.
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) Polish-born British Novelist
There is a pedantry in manners, as in all arts and sciences, and sometimes in trades. Pedantry is properly the over rating any kind of knowledge we pretend to, and if that kind of knowledge be a trifle in itself, the pedantry is the greater.
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Irish Satirist
If you add to the truth, you subtract from it.
—The Talmud Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith
We exaggerate misfortune and happiness alike. We are never as bad off or as happy as we say we are.
—Honore de Balzac (1799–1850) French Novelist
There are people so addicted to exaggeration they can’t tell the truth without lying.
—Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) (1818–85) American Humorist, Author, Lecturer
Some so speak in exaggerations and superlatives that we need to make a large discount from their statements before we can come at their real meaning.
—Tryon Edwards (1809–94) American Theologian, Author
Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Some persons are exaggerators by temperament.—They do not mean untruth, but their feelings are strong, and their imaginations vivid, so that their statements are largely discounted by those of calm judgment and cooler temperament.—They do not realize that “we always weaken what we exaggerate.”
—Tryon Edwards (1809–94) American Theologian, Author
To a small man every greater is an exaggeration.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Leave a Reply