Exaggeration

“ They are gross, like the joy of Worcester sauce on the palate. Now, if there is one point common to all classics, it is the absence of exaggeration. The balanced sanity of a great mind makes impossible exaggeration, and, therefore, distortion. ”

“ Who that claims there is exaggeration is fitted by his lack of prejudice to do the work of separation?
Is it not true that the claim of exaggeration is merely an assumption, and based entirely upon preconceived theories of critics whose opinions vary with their prejudices? ”

“ The easy exaggeration which is a distinctive feature of American humour, and about which so much has been said and written, has its counterpart in sober and truth-telling England, though we are always amazed when we find it there, and fall to wondering, as we never wonder at home, in what spirit it was received. There are two kinds of exaggeration; exaggeration of statement, which is a somewhat primitive form of humour, and exaggeration of phrase, which implies a dexterous misuse of language, a skilful juggling with words. ”

“ In the old times, when poets and dry-goods salesmen were the only people who exaggerated, there was something clever and distingue about a reputation for "a tendency to over, rather than to under-estimate the mere bald facts." But everybody exaggerates nowadays. The art of exaggeration is no longer regarded as an "extra" in the modern bill of education; it is an essential requirement, held to be most needful for the battle of life. ”

“ Why this exaggeration—is it necessary for the public? We think not, or if they require such excitement, let our artist, like a true painter as he is, teach them better things.*
* A gentleman (whose wit is so celebrated that one should be very cautious in repeating his stories) gave the writer a good illustration of the philosophy of exaggeration. ”

“ Exaggerated history is poetry, and truth referred to a new standard. To a small man every greater is an exaggeration. He who cannot exaggerate is not qualified to utter truth. No truth, we think, was ever expressed but with this sort of emphasis, so that for the time there seemed to be no other. Moreover, you must speak loud to those who are hard of hearing, and so you acquire a habit of shouting to those who are not. By an immense exaggeration we appreciate our Greek poetry and philosophy, and Egyptian ruins; our Shakespeares and Miltons, our Liberty and Christianity. ”

“ Exaggeration is employed. The plain food of truth must be seasoned by here throwing in a circumstance, and there suppressing one. An emphatic tone, a nod, or a gesture, intimate far more than the lips dare express. ”

“ It often requires an exaggeration to bring the truth into prominence. And, in any case, the exaggerations of the novelists in this respect have as a rule been modest compared to the exaggerations of the poets. ”

“ It is too difficult to speak, as ought to be spoken, of this ungenerous and gratuitous afterthought—too difficult to keep clear of what, at least, will be thought exaggeration; too difficult to do justice to what they feel to be undoubtedly true ”

“ But there was always this saving reflection to be made, that the man who could be guilty of such extravagances for the sake of making an impression might be guilty of exaggeration, or inventing what astonished you ”

“ The obvious exaggeration of this estimate proves more conclusively than anything that it is the consequence, not of common sense, but of suggestion. The more trivial, the lower, the emptier a phenomenon is, if only it has become the subject of suggestion, the more supernatural and exaggerated is the significance attributed to it. ”

“ Or, it is in excess, exaggeration, pushing an act out of its true proportion. Exaggeration floods the stream out of its channel. Wrong motive or wrong relationship sends a bad stream into a good channel. ”

“ Exaggeration is their forte—in this they excel. Their towering minds soar above common comprehension and common sense, and their fertile imaginations are ever ready to conjure up spectres, ghosts and hobgoblins ”

“ How wearisome the grammarian, the phrenologist, the political or religious fanatic, or indeed any possessed mortal whose balance is lost by the exaggeration of a single topic. It is incipient insanity. Every thought is a prison also. ”

“ That’s nonsense,’ he corrected himself, ‘and I hate exaggeration, though I am guilty of it a hundred times a day. But we are learners, and, whether our class is high or low makes little difference to the fact that there is much to learn. ”

“ 'Tis a rule of manners to avoid exaggeration. ”

“ We all immediately detect exaggeration in an exposition of Mormonism or a patriotic speech from Paraguay. We all require sobriety on the subject of the sea serpent. But the moment we begin to believe a thing ourselves, that moment we begin easily to overstate19 it; and the moment our souls become serious, our words become a little wild. And certain moderns are thus placed towards exaggeration. They permit any writer to emphasize doubts, for instance, for doubts are their religion, but they permit no man to emphasize dogmas. ”

“ It is a great mistake to suppose that exaggeration makes a person more agreeable, or that it adds to the importance of her statements. The value of a person's words is determined by her habitual use of them. ”

“ The enlarging of a simple statement by particularity of description, the use of epithets, etc., for rhetorical effect; diffuse narrative or description, or a dilating upon all the particulars of a subject. Exaggeration is a species of amplification. ”

“ The exaggeration of facts should certainly be avoided; and a person can overcome this tendency in himself, if, when he finds that he is making a misstatement, he will correct himself, and give a true version. ”

“ We aim above the mark to hit the mark. Every act hath some falsehood of exaggeration in it.” That reality has constantly given the lie to these high illusions of a pure and noble social life, who would deny? ”

“ Simple exaggeration does not suffice to produce the effect desired, for if all the details of the picture be equally exaggerated, it may present a disagreeable likeness, but it does not produce that deep sense of the ridiculous which arises from an incongruous classification of the details. ”

“ What is exaggeration to one class of minds and perceptions, is plain truth to another. That which is commonly called a long-sight, perceives in a prospect innumerable features and bearings non-existent to a short-sighted person. ”

“ In the actual fact they combine and, as it were, counteract one another and the result is something different from either taken alone, but when we abstract them we release them from each other’s modifying influence and the result is an exaggeration of one or other tendency which does not really represent anything which actually occurs but can be used, in combination with the contrary exaggeration, to explain the actual fact which may be described as being like what would result from a combination of these two abstractions. ”

“ I am not given to exaggeration, and when I say a thing I mean it. ”

“ There is first the psychological fact that inexactness of statement, exaggeration, unreality in speech, are sure to react upon the mental habit of the person himself, and upon the estimate in which his statements are held by others. ”

“ It is necessary to acknowledge the primitive character of some facts of our mind, and not attempt to explain every thing; but we must guard against exaggeration in this respect, which is only the more dangerous when covered with the cloak of modesty. ”

“ As very often happens in cases of this kind each extreme is largely responsible for the other. Neglect prepares the way for exaggeration; exaggeration leads to further neglect. Moreover, in the case before us, both tendencies are strengthened by the very difficulty in which the subject is involved. ”

“ Exaggeration is, indeed, the bane of a work that, from first page to last, bears evidence of the drawback of extreme youth on the part of the author. We have been pleased to notice some indications of humour in the conversation of Sancho Panza. ”

“ If we did not unduly insist upon—that is to say, emphasise and exaggerate—the part which concerns us for the time, we should never get to understand anything; the proper way is to exaggerate first one view and then the other, and then let the two exaggerations collide, but good-temperedly and according to the laws of civilised mental warfare. ”

“ Exaggeration in public speaking is always blameable, and in the preacher particularly objectionable: it is generally resorted to for the purpose of increasing the impression, but seldom produces that effect ”

“ A wish to forestall the accusation of exaggeration or inaccuracy imposes the painful obligation of citing specific instances of the tendency described. Who are the leading public men of this country, and what have they written? ”

“ Even poetry, you know, is in one sense an infinite brag and exaggeration. ”

“ Originating in a correct idea of certain effects of light, the most absurd exaggerations may become accepted as beautiful and natural by an imitative public devoid of personal judgment, by the aid of suggestion. These deplorable effects of suggestion may last a long time till their nullity or their absurdity causes them gradually to disappear. ”

“ Exaggerations are easy, particularly when we want to get at the source of a misunderstanding because of the illegibility of the style. Our task consists, first of all, in getting at the correctness of what has been said or written, otherwise we have nothing whatever to go by. Only when that is quite impossible may we assume misunderstandings and seek them out. The procedure then must be necessarily linguistic and psychological and requires the consultation of experts in both fields. ”

“ Exasperation is physical, the itch inside the thumb, the transient wish for suffering. Like a dog growling, or the Arab stabbing up between the bloody hoofs, we turn the gaze back to savagery, and with a shrug cast off the painted blanket of our civilisation. ”

“ In the justifying of the paradox, in the extricating of the real truth from the apparent falsehood of the statement, in the answer to the appeal made here to the imagination,—an appeal and challenge which, unless it be responded to, the proverb must remain unintelligible to us,—in all this there is a process of mental activity, oftentimes so rapidly exercised as scarcely to be perceptible, yet not the less carried on with a pleasurable excitement. ”

“ In your expurgation, of the popular errors, you must be sure that the truth they contain, is in some form as strongly, as effectively composed in your text, or the popular error is truer and better than the truth with which you would replace it. ”

“ We might think that we could add and subtract attributes until words and faculties failed us, until, in the one direction, we were reduced to a single point, in fact, to the ludicrous itself—while in the other we are lost in a boundless expanse. To be satisfied with our definition, we must form a narrower estimate of the number of instances, and a higher one of our powers of discrimination. ”

“ Men under such circumstances in general err from an inaccuracy or deficiency of statement, proceeding from the confusion and uncertainty of a mind oppressed and agitated by the burthen of important affairs, or difficult and intricate circumstances. ”

“ But in so treating it, I bore in mind that excision is the best safeguard against decay, that time throws away as rag and bobtail the political specifications thought to be precious, and that we must at once, and in the nobler sense, romanticize such dry facts as we mean shall live. ”

“ The distinction is as important as it is real. Eccentricity is a conscious aberration from the common course of life; it consists in peculiarities in reasoning, words, and actions, which are wilfully indulged, in defiance of popular sentiment. ”

“ And this difficulty is much further complicated by the fact that words themselves tend in the process to harden and petrify, and in their hardening to form, as it were, solid blocks of accretion which resist and materially distort the subtle and evasive play of the human psychology behind them. ”

“ This world, too, is certainly a world of incongruities, and the more I see of it, the more I am biased in that way of reflection; and if any one will take the trouble to look at things as they are, abstractedly, and observe how good, bad and indifferent, black, white and blue, are jumbled together, he will not deny me his assent. ”

“ Even worse, abstract terms, which from century to century have become more abstract and therefore further removed from experience, more difficult to understand, less adaptable and more deceptive, especially in all that relates to human life and society. ”