#exaggeration

I've always been very upfront about the way I write, and I've always used the tools humorists use, such as exaggeration. ↗

— David Sedaris

#always #been #exaggeration #humorists #i

The first glance at the pillow showed me a repulsive sentinel perched upon each end of it--cockroaches as large as peach leaves--fellows with long, quivering antennae and fiery, malignant eyes. They were grating their teeth like tobacco worms, and appeared to be dissatisfied about something. I had often heard that these reptiles were in the habit of eating off sleeping sailors' toe nails down to the quick, and I would not get in the bunk any more. I lay down on the floor. But a rat came and bothered me, and shortly afterward a procession of cockroaches arrived and camped in my hair. In a few moments the rooster was crowing with uncommon spirit and a party of fleas were throwing double somersaults about my person in the wildest disorder, and taking a bite every time they stuck. I was beginning to feel really annoyed. I got up and put my clothes on and went on deck. The above is not overdrawn; it is a truthful sketch of inter-island schooner life. ↗

— Mark Twain

#exaggeration #humor #pests #sailing #sailor

An element of exaggeration clings to the popular judgment: great vices are made greater, great virtues greater also; interesting incidents are made more interesting, softer legends more soft. ↗

— Walter Bagehot

#clings #element #exaggeration #great #great virtues

False eloquence is exaggeration; true eloquence is emphasis. ↗

— William R. Alger

#emphasis #exaggeration #false #true

There are some people so addicted to exaggeration that they can't tell the truth without lying. ↗

— Josh Billings

#exaggeration #lying #people #some #some people

I do not think it is an exaggeration to say history is largely a history of inflation, usually inflations engineered by governments for the gain of governments. ↗

— Friedrich August von Hayek

#exaggeration #gain #governments #history #i

I tell you, to be honest, every single one of us, without any exaggeration, every single one of us was 100 percent sure that we would all be... all be martyred, but you know, Allah chooses to take a person's life when he chooses. And we have no control over. ↗

— John Walker Lindh

#any #chooses #control #every #exaggeration

All news is an exaggeration of life. ↗

— Daniel Schorr

#life #news

Artists use frauds to make human beings seem more wonderful than they really are. Dancers show us human beings who move much more gracefully than human beings really move. Films and books and plays show us people talking much more entertainingly than people really talk, make paltry human enterprises seem important. Singers and musicians show us human beings making sounds far more lovely than human beings really make. Architects give us temples in which something marvelous is obviously going on. Actually, practically nothing is going on. ↗

— Kurt Vonnegut

#art #dance #exaggeration #film #architecture

Never exaggerate. It is a matter of great importance to forego superlatives, in part to avoid offending the truth, and in part to avoid cheapening your judgment. Exaggeration wastes distinction and testifies to the paucity of your understanding and taste. Praise excites anticipation and stimulates desire. Afterwards when value does not measure up to price, disappointment turns against the fraud and takes revenge by cheapening both the appraised and the appraise. For this reason let the prudent go slowly, and err in understatement rather than overstatement. The extraordinary of every kind is always rare, wherefore temper your estimate. ↗

— Baltasar Gracián

#art