Literary notes about Platitude (AI summary)
Literary authors deploy "platitude" to characterize expressions that seem profound at first glance but reveal themselves as trite and unoriginal upon closer inspection. It is often used to denote a banal remark—a formulaic statement that, in contexts ranging from casual dialogue to moralizing discourse, serves as little more than a superficial consolation or a default response [1, 2, 3]. At times, writers even personify the term to highlight the vacuity of conventional wisdom, using it both to criticize the tendency toward unthinking generalizations in society and to infuse dialogue with irony or understated humor [4, 5, 6, 7].
- The young man simpered, uttered the requisite platitude, and moved away.
— from The Web of Life by Robert Herrick - This then was to be that often-dwelt-on first meeting—a conventional hand-shake, a mere platitude of a “How d’you do?”
— from A Veldt Official: A Novel of Circumstance by Bertram Mitford - "We are never too old to love," I said, conscious that I was uttering a melancholy [Pg 109] platitude.
— from The Romance of an Old Fool by Roswell Martin Field - "'When in doubt, don't,'" resumed the other, taking refuge in a platitude.
— from Old Rose and Silver by Myrtle Reed - And so the second great preventive of clear thinking is the tranquillising platitude.
— from War and the Future: Italy, France and Britain at War by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells - ‘I speak advisedly,’ said he, in continuation; ‘there is one Platitude.’
— from Lavengro: The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest by George Borrow - Now a man preaching what he thinks is a platitude is far more intolerant than a man preaching what he admits is a paradox.
— from The New Jerusalem by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
