No engineer can go upon a new work and not find something peculiar, that will demand his careful reflection, and the deliberate consideration of any advice that he may receive; and nothing so fully reveals his incapacity as a pretentious assumption of knowledge, claiming to understand everything. - John Bloomfield Jervis
People like us are dead to society unless we’re pretentious, tell people what they want to hear, take off our clothes, or pretend to be like them. - Donna Lynn Hope
Too large a proportion of recent "mathematical" economics are mere concoctions, as imprecise as the initial assumptions they rest on, which allow the author to lose sight of the complexities and interdependencies of the real world in a maze of pretentious and unhelpful symbols. - John Maynard Keynes
If anyone stops us, as long as we mumble something pretentious about the glory of death, we should be fine. - Derek Landy
The assholes are always puzzled when the order of the universe is restored, when they are held accountable for their cowardly, pretentious, loveless ways. - Carol Kepnes
Heresy is usually quite sophisticated, actually has a meaning, and is to be taken very seriously. It is therefore to be carefully distinguished from turgid, pretentious, badly-written Bullsgeshichte, to use the technical German theological term. - Carl R. Trueman
Egotorial: An editorial in broadcasting or print media where the subject matter is secondary to the superficial, pretentious, antagonistic, or materialistic ego of the author. - Grant McLachlan
The downside to being better than everyone is that people seem to think you are pretentious.
I used the word 'prose' in the Trans-Siberian in the early Latin sense of prosa dictu. Poem seemed to me too pretentious, too narrow. Prose is more open, popular. - Blaise Cendrars
Egotorial: An editorial in broadcasting or print media where the subject matter is secondary to the superficial, pretentious, or materialist ego of the author. - Grant McLachlan
Commercial comedy's often set up to feature an ironist makingdevastating sport of someone who's naive or sentimental or pretentious orpompous. - David Foster Wallace
I remember growing up, saying you’re an artist it sounds pretentious but now it’s one of the only dignified things that you can call yourself. - Marilyn Manson
A novel is no different than graffiti in a bathroom stall, it's just more pretentious. - Christy Leigh Stewart
It's the work itself that's important to me.' Miranda is aware of how pretentious this sounds, but is it still pretentious if it's true? - Emily St. John Mandel