Petty

Famous quotes containing the word petty:

“A petty bureaucrat always watches his superior’s countenance, just as a boatman trims his sails according to the force of the wind.”
—Chinese proverb.

“He is not a true man of science who does not bring some sympathy to his studies, and expect to learn something by behavior as well as by application. It is childish to rest in the discovery of mere coincidences, or of partial and extraneous laws. The study of geometry is a petty and idle exercise of the mind, if it is applied to no larger system than the starry one.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

“I hated the idleness, the stupidity, the respectability, the petty unselfishness.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)