Top 30 Pretension Quotes

Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.

I come from very common stock, and I’ve always been uncomfortable with pretension and all the forms it can take, including disingenuous broadcasting.

Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.

Pretension is a poor joke that you play on yourself. Snap out of it. Recognise your strengths, work on your weaknesses. Real achievement is liking what you see in the mirror every morning.

We are in a position of financial and social power, and we could be agents of change in our society. Without pretension, I believe we could be a nice little gardener who takes care of the garden, and hopefully our neighbor will do the same. Then, maybe we’ll achieve a better world.

We’re a phenomenally snobby society, and it’s such a rich seam. The middle class is so funny: it’s the class I know best, and it’s the class where you find the most pretension, so that’s what makes the middle classes so funny.

I actually want to write a treatise in defence of pretension. I think the word ‘pretension’ has become like the word ‘ironic’ – just this catch-all term to distance people from interesting experiences and cultural engagement and possible embarrassment.

There is so much vulgarity in the everyday, that when somebody has the pretension to do something extraordinary for the community, then you have to suffer.

I have to say that my husband and my children are so tough, there really is no space for pretension.

The Rolling Stones have been the best of all possible worlds: they have the lack of pretension and sentimentality associated with the blues, the rawness and toughness of hard rock, and the depth which always makes you feel that they are in the midst of saying something. They have never impressed me as being kitsch.

Arkansas, the state Bill Clinton loves and that loves him back, is a place with just no pretension at all.

I have not the slightest pretension to call my verses poetry; I write now and then for no other purpose than to relieve depression or to improve my English.

In every commercial state, notwithstanding any pretension to equal rights, the exaltation of a few must depress the many.

My family is vital to me – just the sense of being surrounded by no pretension.

The Tories have long since abdicated any pretension of principled global leadership.

What makes me mad is arrogance, pretension, putting on airs.

The middle class is so funny, it’s the class I know best, and it’s the class where you find the most pretension, so that’s what makes the middle classes so funny.

Even for southerners, Arkansans are amazingly friendly and extend hospitality to all strangers with astonishing openness. You couldn’t find a pretension in that state if you hunted from Jonesboro to El Dorado.

Americans are generally very self-sufficient and I think generally averse to pretension, just as I am.

With Fincher, you can take chances and try things. And what happens is that any pretension and preparation you’ve done, all the square, intellectual work, you can’t keep that up for 40 takes. It breaks down, and new things start popping up. This, for me, is the most exciting thing about film-making.

I love everything about Philadelphia, and its food is like the city itself: real-deal, hearty, and without pretension. We’ve always had an underdog vibe as a city, but that just makes us try harder, and I love our scrappiness and scruffiness.

I forgive all personal weaknesses except egomania and pretension.

Science makes no pretension to eternal truth or absolute truth.

I’m responsible for starting a whole new school of pretension.

Music is primal: when it’s done without pretension, you can really feel the shape of someone’s soul.

It’s the time of year when the literati give advice on what we should be reading on our summer holidays. These terrifying lists often leave me appalled at my own ignorance, but also suspicious about the pretension of their advocates.

I come from an Irish working-class background but went to a posh school, and any type of pretension was quickly mocked at home. I’ve always had a keen eye for pretension.

Inside, Penlee House is without pretension. It is a space that knows its limitations and its strengths – and makes the most of them.

Rock n’ roll doesn’t change. All the idiocies and pretension continue.

In economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension and also a deep desire for respectability.