Pretension is a claim or aspiration to a particular status or quality.

Quotes

• True glory strikes root, and even extends itself; all false pretensions fall as do flowers, nor can anything feigned be lasting.
  • Cicero, as quoted in Great Catches; or, Grand Matches (1861) by Eleanor Frances Blakiston, p. 82

• Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions. Intellect, will, taste, and passion co-operate just as they do in practical affairs; and lucky it is if the passion be not something as petty as a love of personal conquest over the philosopher across the way.
  • William James, in The Sentiment of Rationality (1882)

• The desire of appearing clever often prevents our becoming so.
  • François de La Rochefoucauld, Maxim 199, as quoted in Great Truths by Great Authors (1856), p. 422

• Where there is much pretension, much has been borrowed: nature never pretends.
  • Johann Kaspar Lavater, as quoted in Mental Recreation; or, Select Maxims (1831), p. 234

• The more honesty a man has, the less he affects the air of a saint.
  • Johann Kaspar Lavater, as quoted in Many Thoughts of Many Minds (1862) edited by Henry Southgate, p. 290

See also

• Arrogance
• Boasting
• Pretentiousness
• Pride
• Vanity

External links