Pathetic Fallacy Quotes

As a nihilist, I recognize that meaning does not exist. If we exterminate ourselves as a species, and vaporize our beautiful world, the universe will not cry with us (a condition called the pathetic fallacy). No gods will intervene. It will just happen and then - and then the universe will go on. We will not be remembered. We will simply not be. ~ Vjay Prozak

Too often critics have taken as the sole and crucial matter of fantasy the preoccupation of Tolkien, the quest for a remedy to the world's pain that will not destroy innocence with the temptations of power. Impressive and popular as The Lord of the Rings is, it manages its landscapes, vast green-leaved or slag-heaped vistas of pathetic fallacy and implied morality, far better than its people; it leaves the impression that important issues have been turned by sleight of hand and Georgian prettiness into questions of good and bad practice in urban planning and rural conservation. After all, the Grail is only worth seeking if you can believe in a god who put it there to help those who help themselves, in an Avalon to which burned-out heroes can retire with dignity. There is another great Matter for fantasy, one of more obvious resonance for the creative artist - the reconciliation of faerie and humanity; of the passion, power and wit of a world of sensuality, magic, and danger with the requirements of kind and ordinary life. ~ Roz Kaveney

Her lips trembled, and so did his. It was never known which lips were the first to move towards the other lips; but they kissed tremblingly, and then they moved apart.
The rain was dashing against the window-panes as if an angry spirit were within it, and behind it was the great swoop of the wind; it was one of those moments in which both the busy and the idle pause with a certain awe. ~ George Eliot

All violent feelings have the same effect. They produce in us a falseness in all our impressions of external things, which I would generally characterize as the pathetic fallacy. ~ John Ruskin

Then the creatures of the high air answered to the battle, foretelling the destruction that would be done that day; and the sea chattered of the losses, and the waves gave heavy shouts keening them, and the water-beasts roared to one another, and the rough hills creaked with the danger of the battle, and the woods trembled mourning the heroes, and the grey stones cried out at their deeds, and the wind sobbed telling them, and the earth shook, foretelling the slaughter; and the cries of the grey armies put a cloak over the sun, and the clouds were dark; and the hounds and the whelps and the crows, and the witches of the valley, and the powers of the air, and the wolves of the forests, howled from every quarter and on every side of the armies, urging them against one another. ~ Lady Augusta Gregory

When I saw the sun bears at the Oakland Zoo, I immediately was drawn to them. Not to be ornery, but regarding what you said about the speaker identifying with the bear: I'm not sure it's exactly right to say that the speaker feels that the bear must share his sadness, or whatever else he is feeling. That would be classic pathetic fallacy, which is certainly generative for poetry, but here the speaker appears actually to be rejecting that idea. ~ Matthew Zapruder

In ridiculing a pathetic human fallacy, which seeks explanation where none need be sought and which multiplies unnecessary assumptions, one should not mimic primitive ontology in order to challenge it. Better to dispose of the needless assumption altogether. This holds true for everything from Noah's flood to the Holocaust. ~ Christopher Hitchens

The twentieth century has built up a powerful set of intellectual shortcuts and devices that help us defend ourselves against moments when clouds suddenly appear to think. ~ Charles Baxter

For some days, now, the termperature had wavered between freezing and thawing and it was difficult to tell whether the sediment thickening the atmostphere was rain or sleet or smog. Through the murk the dull red eye of a sun that had scarcely been able to drag itself above roof level all day was sinking blearily beneath the horizon, spreading a rusty stain across the snow-covered surfaces. Read pathetic fallacy weather. ~ David Lodge

Trying to think inside Finn's head was like committing what our English master called Pathetic Fallacy, the attribution of human emotions to boulders or trees. ~ Meg Rosoff

You're hurt, she commented. And I care? Okay. It's official. I'm my own species now: pathetic-deathwish-osaurus ... I sooo hear extinction calling me. ~ Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

Birch fallacy is the assumption that you can infer subjective intention from objective consequence: we lost China to the Communists, therefore the President of the United States and the Secretary of State wished China to go to the Communists. ~ William F. Buckley, Jr.

She was limp and pathetic and woozy and I loved her, I realised, even more because I knew how completely it was doomed. ~ Olivia Sudjic

This very personal relationship, 'value,' has two factors for a human being: first, what he can do with a thing, its use to him . . . and second, what he must do to get it, its cost to him. There is an old song which asserts 'the best things in life are free.' Not true! Utterly false! This was the tragic fallacy which brought on the decadence and collapse of the democracies of the twentieth century; those noble experiments failed because the people had been led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they wanted . . . and get it, without toil, without sweat, without tears. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

You're aunt's just
what is it
down the hall. You know damn well this place isn't soundproofed."
"You'll just have to be quiet." He gave her ribs a deliberate tickle that made her jump and yelp. "Or not."
"Didn't I bang you already today, twice this morning?"
"Darling Eve, you're a pathetic romantic. ~ J.D. Robb

Perfection is a fallacy. Embrace the things you cannot change and fight for those you can. ~ Danielle Bourdon

It's nice to see something more pathetic than I feel right now. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

All humans are the same. It's pathetic when some denounce others for something the first also do. So mend your own business and stop intervening on others' business. ~ Maria Karvouni

Warrington's aim's so pathetic I'd be more worried if he was aiming for the person next to me. ~ J.K. Rowling

This specious fallacy of a theology built on the philosophy of men, instead of the revelation of God, has not only survived the anathema of Christ, but it has since branched out into a multitude of contending schools until confusion has become more confounded, and the name of the Prince of Peace is used as the battlecry for inhuman slaughter. ~ Robert James Lees

Did you love me?" It was a pathetic question asked in a pathetic whisper.

"Oh, Fiona," The lips he pressed against my temple were anything but ecumenical. His hand on my back drifted to my waist. "My feelings for you cannot be reduced to a single word. You are my only temptation. ~ Kerrigan Byrne

Love isn't easy, but it shouldn't be this complicated. I hate the fact that I'm falling in love with him. I hate the fact that once this is over with, I will be just a memory to him, and he will live for thousands of years." Sarah

"Sarah deserves better; a human, not a ghoul who has all these problems. It's pathetic to depend on magic to get rid of your demons." Eric

"Every time I am around Eric, I feel more acutely attracted to him. I don't know if that's part of his powers, but I don't want him having that effect on me." Sarah

"Death affects us in so many ways. When you want to move on from the person you mourn, it feels like you are trying to forget about them." Sarah

"I miss Sarah's laugh, the scent of her, the dimples in her cheeks, her drilling me with questions about everything, and I even miss her getting mad at me for trying to get her to try new stuff. I remember the first night we spent together when I made her jump off the cliff with me. I knew she was mine; I knew I wanted to bond with her. I just regret the fact I didn't do it sooner." Eric ~ J.M. Stoneback

Possibly none at all: it's a fallacy to assume that whatever is is that way for a good Darwinian reason. Just because a desire or practice is widespread or universal doesn't necessarily mean it confers an evolutionary edge. ~ Michael Pollan

People have been made fun of for too long, not because there is anything wrong with them, it's just the people, i have been bullied everyday, people speaking things that aren't even true about me when i turn my back, stop please, i have my rights, i'm not a loser, i'm just trying to blend in the world, and i'm still not good for you? i'm not pathetic, i'm just a guy. ~ Jericho Pasaoa Me

Now against the specialist, against the man who studies only art or electricity, or the violin, or the thumbscrew or what not, there is only one really important argument, and that, for some reason or other, is never offered. People say that specialists are inhuman; but that is unjust. People say an expert is not a man; but that is unkind and untrue. The real difficulty about the specialist or expert is much more singular and fascinating. The trouble with the expert is never that he is not a man; it is always that wherever he is not an expert he is too much of an ordinary man. Wherever he is not exceptionally learned he is quite casually ignorant. This is the great fallacy in the case of what is called the impartiality of men of science. If scientific men had no idea beyond their scientific work it might be all very well - that is to say, all very well for everybody except them. But the truth is that, beyond their scientific ideas, they have not the absence of ideas but the presence of the most vulgar and sentimental ideas that happen to be common to their social clique. If a biologist had no views on art and morals it might be all very well. The truth is that the biologist has all the wrong views of art and morals that happen to be going about in the smart set of his time. ~ G.K. Chesterton

If there was a God up there, He must be laughing His head off at a human race capable of making atomic bombs and building artificial intelligence, but still uncomfortable with their own mortality and unable to sort out what to do with their dead. How pathetic it was to try to relegate death to the periphery of life when death was at the centre of everything. ~ Elif Shafak

Straight people are the most pathetic of all. I've never seen such a miserable group of people in my life. They don't know anything about themselves ~ Sarah Schulman

A quick temper, sharp tongue, and restless spirit were always getting her into scrapes, and her life was a series of ups and downs, which were both comic and pathetic. ~ Louisa May Alcott

All that was good in me thrilled in my heart at that moment, all that I hoped for in the profound, obscure meaning of my existence. Here was the endlessly mute placidity of nature, indifferent to the great city; here was the desert beneath these streets, around these streets, waiting for the city to die, to cover it with timeless sand once more. There came over me a terrifying sense of understanding about the meaning and the pathetic destiny of men. The desert was always there, a patient white animal, waiting for men to die, for civilizations to flicker and pass into the darkness. Then men seemed brave to me, and I was proud to be numbered among them. All the evil of the world seemed not evil at all, but inevitable and good and part of that endless struggle to keep the desert down. ~ John Fante

It's about seeing how much they can get away with not telling you. This is just a test. Thieves start out by taking candy bars, just to see if they can. Then, when they realize how easy it is, they move to cars and jewels and banks. This is a mere trifle compared with what's coming your way. And the bitch of it is, your generation won't ever see it coming. You'll just sit there with your video games and your Mac Classics or whatever while the bastards rob the store blind. And you don't even know you own the damn store. It's pitiful. Fucking pathetic. The beginning of the end of a goddamn failed empire. ~ Cheryl Della Pietra

I'm f**king pathetic when it comes to being an entertainer. People come because they want to see me have a nervous breakdown. ~ Mark Linkous

Idealism without consequences is the pathetic dream of every spoiled brat ~ Otessa Moshfegh

She noted the fallacy of permanence in a world where everything ends and desire that kind of permanence all the same. ~ Hilary Leichter

I love you all, and have done no harm to anyone; and what have you done to me?' - said her charming, pathetic, dead face. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Until I know this sure uncertainty,
I'll entertain the offered fallacy. ~ William Shakespeare

The drug dealers, they sympathize with me. They see me as some sort of pathetic character. ~ Mike Tyson

People say we're all identical, but Jennifer Lopez is an American. She's from New York. She doesn't have an accent. Some of these Latin people - their Spanish is pathetic. They learned it when they became famous as Latinos. ~ Salma Hayek

I got asked by a freelance journalist to jump in front of Princess Diana's funeral. How pathetic is that? That would have been the stupidest thing on the planet. ~ Mark Roberts

The materialist theory of history, that all politics and ethics are the expression of economics, is a very simple fallacy indeed. It consists simply of confusing the necessary conditions of life with the normal preoccupations of life, that are quite a different thing. It is like saying that because a man can only walk about on two legs, therefore he never walks about except to buy shoes and stockings. ~ G.K. Chesterton

I walked inside Macy's and faced the pathetic spectacle of a department store full of shoppers, none of whom were shopping for themselves. Without the instant gratification of a self-aimed purchase, everyone walked around in the tactical stupor of the financially obligated. ~ Rachel Cohn

Until he had come up with a name, he was too pathetic to look at
a real idiot. But now that he had some label like graviconcentrate, he thought that he understood everything and life was a breeze. ~ Arkady Strugatsky

It pains me physically to see a woman victimized, rendered pathetic, by fashion. ~ Yves Saint-Laurent

I stand so abruptly that Leiza startles.

"If Violet wants to find me, I'll be outside chopping wood," I tell her, causing her to choke back a sound that suspiciously resembles a smothered laugh.

When I eye her, she's the picture of seriousness, nodding once again. "Of course, Alpha," she says so graciously.

Tearing my shirt over my head, I toss it to the ground. Leiza's phone rings, and she puts it aside.

"A vampire is calling me. That can't be good," she says as she meets my eyes, almost asking for permission to answer Shera's call.

"They're trying to reach me. Not you. They can kiss my ass. I need a minute to deal with this."

"I thought you were tired and going to get some sleep," Leiza states, and then swallows down whatever else is on the tip of her tongue.

"I'm no longer tired," I point out dryly.

Another nod from Leiza, and I walk out shirtless to go chop some fucking wood for the fireplace Violet rarely ever uses.

There's an axe wedged into one of the piles of wood near the chopping block, making this simpler than expected, so I get to work.

Before I can even make one small pile, Damien is wheeling into the driveway, barely putting the brake on, before he hops out.

His eyes narrow on me, and then his brow furrows. It's when his lips start to twitch that I bristle, feeling a little too transparent.

"Didn't realize you'd gotten this pathetic ~ Kristy Cunning