Literary notes about Trite (AI summary)
Literary authors often use the term "trite" to denote language or ideas that, through overuse, have become stale and unoriginal. In this context, a remark or sentiment may be labeled trite when its familiarity undercuts the emotional or intellectual impact it might otherwise have—whether it is a deeply felt yet hackneyed expression of sorrow [1] or a commonplace aphorism that, though perhaps true, fails to inspire anew [2]. It is also employed to critique conventions in thought and speech, from tired moral maxims that seem more platitudinous than profound [3, 4] to idiomatic expressions whose predictability diminishes their novelty [5, 6]. At times, calling something trite serves not only as a judgment on its lack of originality but also reflects an awareness of the inherent tension in relying on common notions to articulate complex truths [7, 8].
- How could he know that these few trite sentences had been written in the anguish of a woman’s first great sorrow?
— from Nelly Channell by Sarah Doudney - It is a trite saying—only too frequently true—that we are often more foolish than we think.
— from The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Counsels and Maxims by Arthur Schopenhauer - Needless to repeat what has grown a trite saying that it is the spirit that quickeneth, without which the best of implements profiteth but little.
— from Bushido, the Soul of Japan by Inazo Nitobe - If my judgment is faulty, let us remember that trite aphorism: "To err is human, to forgive, divine."
— from Twentieth Century Negro Literature Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating to the American Negro - You will say that you were not well, that you were engaged in company, that the servant neglected to take the letter, or some such trite thing.
— from Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete by Aaron Burr - A trite platitude about his not caring to lose her was on his lips, but he refrained from uttering it.
— from Adventure by Jack London - Can the classic distinction between East and West, that venerable mother of trite reflections and bad arguments, be, after all, mutable?
— from Pot-Boilers by Clive Bell - It is a very true and a very trite observation that no man is ridiculous for being what he really is, but for affecting to be what he is not.
— from The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II
