“The narrow-minded and petty sticklers for the formalities which hedge rank and office are the true vulgarians, however observant they be of etiquette.”

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 34

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The narrow-minded and petty sticklers for the formalities which hedge rank and office are the true vulgarians, however …" by John Lancaster Spalding?
John Lancaster Spalding photo
John Lancaster Spalding 202
Catholic bishop 1840–1916

Related quotes

Jiddu Krishnamurti photo

“It seems to me that the real problem is the mind itself, and not the problem which the mind has created and tries to solve. If the mind is petty, small, narrow, limited, however great and complex the problem may be, the mind approaches that problem in terms of its own pettiness. If I have a little mind and I think of God, the God of my thinking will be a little God, though I may clothe him with grandeur, beauty, wisdom, and all the rest of it.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

Sixth Talk in New Delhi (31 October 1956) http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=570&chid=4889&w=%22It+seems+to+me+that+the+real+problem+is+the+mind+itself%22, J.Krishnamurti Online, JKO Serial No. 561031, Vol. X, p. 155
1950s
Context: It seems to me that the real problem is the mind itself, and not the problem which the mind has created and tries to solve. If the mind is petty, small, narrow, limited, however great and complex the problem may be, the mind approaches that problem in terms of its own pettiness. If I have a little mind and I think of God, the God of my thinking will be a little God, though I may clothe him with grandeur, beauty, wisdom, and all the rest of it. It is the same with the problem of existence, the problem of bread, the problem of love, the problem of sex, the problem of relationship, the problem of death. These are all enormous problems, and we approach them with a small mind; we try to resolve them with a mind that is very limited. Though it has extraordinary capacities and is capable of invention, of subtle, cunning thought, the mind is still petty. It may be able to quote Marx, or the Gita, or some other religious book, but it is still a small mind, and a small mind confronted with a complex problem can only translate that problem in terms of itself, and therefore the problem, the misery increases. So the question is: Can the mind that is small, petty, be transformed into something which is not bound by its own limitations?

Robert Silverberg photo

“He didn’t have to observe the niceties of etiquette when talking to a computer.”

Robert Silverberg (1935) American speculative fiction writer and editor

Short fiction, Born with the Dead (1974)

Karl Marx photo

“Is a fixed income not a good thing? Does not everyone love to count on a sure thing? Especially every petty-bourgeois, narrow-minded Frenchman? the 'ever needy' man?”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

(1857/58)
Source: (Bastiat and Carey), pp. 809–810.

Karl Kraus photo
Henry Fielding photo
Lynne Truss photo
David Morrison photo

“Samuelson, however, hedged his personal bets - by putting some of his own money in Berkshire Hathaway.”

William Poundstone (1955) American writer

Part Three, Arbitrage, The Random Walk Cosa Nostra, p. 125
Fortune's Formula (2005)

George Eliot photo
Carl von Clausewitz photo

Related topics