Joseph Howe

My books are very few, but then the world is before me - a library open to all - from which poverty of purse cannot exclude me - in which the meanest and most paltry volume is sure to furnish something to amuse, if not to instruct and improve.

Canadian Politician

Edgar Allan Poe

There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.

American Poet

Tracy K. Smith

I love the sense of looking at the sad, paltry, and yet very familiar spectacle that we must make from moment to moment in our lives, and in our frenzy, as something that's as out there as alien life.

P. J. O'Rourke

Politics are for foreigners with their endless wrongs and paltry rights. Politics are a lousy way to get things done. Politics are, like God's infinite mercy, a last resort.

American Comedian

William Butler Yeats

An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick, unless soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing for every tatter in its mortal dress.

Irish Poet

Demosthenes

You cannot have a proud and chivalrous spirit if your conduct is mean and paltry; for whatever a man's actions are, such must be his spirit.

Greek Statesman

John Updike

From infancy on, we are all spies; the shame is not this but that the secrets to be discovered are so paltry and few.

American Novelist

D. H. Lawrence

So long as you don't feel life's paltry and a miserable business, the rest doesn't matter, happiness or unhappiness.

English Writer

Sam Waterston

There is no problem that is not improved by effort, and no effort that is too paltry to be worth undertaking.

American Actor

Honore de Balzac

Death unites as well as separates; it silences all paltry feeling.

French Novelist

Use 'paltry' to emphasize the smallness of an amount to show it’s disappointingly inadequate.

Strength of Amount

'Paltry' suggests that the amount is less generous than expected or deserved.

Not Generous

When you call something 'paltry,' it conveys a sense of disapproval or scorn.

Expressing Disapproval

Use 'paltry' to describe something so minor that it doesn’t merit any serious attention.

Lacking Substance

'Paltry' can mean an attempt to do something is so insubstantial that it's unlikely to succeed.

Not Persuasive

Using 'paltry' can suggest that you think less of the person saying or doing something weak.

Affecting Perception

 I won't take any more of this formless, lifeless description. I will not take these lies, and neither should you. A doctor asks you how you feel. "I feel bad." Heresy! The doctor, based on this paltry report, could conclude that you have brain cancer or the flu or rabies.

The case against "good"...

 dwarfing tiny Everest's paltry peak by well over a kilometer. Then, since we're picking on poor Everest, let's consider the world's deepest canyon, the Challenger Deep, existing 11 kilometers below the ocean's surface, some six times deeper than the Grand Canyon.

How big is the ocean? -...

 perhaps as protection against blood born diseases, or due to random genetic drift. Finally, different species have different sets of antigens. In fact, the four main blood types shared by us apes seem paltry in comparison to the thirteen types found in dogs.

Why do blood types...

 that amount of carbon. If we feed our food waste which is the current government favorite way of getting rid of food waste, to anaerobic digestion, which turns food waste into gas to produce electricity, you save a paltry 448 kilograms of carbon dioxide

Tristram Stuart: The...

 it's a solid metal at room temperature, but it melts at a paltry 30 degrees Celcius, 85 degrees Fahrenheit. It melts in your mouth and in your hand. Not only did Mendeleev completely nail gallium, he predicted other elements that were unknown at the

The genius of...

 We were told, we were assured, that the more meat and dairy and poultry we ate, the healthier we'd be. No. Overconsumption of animals, and of course, junk food, is the problem, along with our paltry consumption of plants.

What's wrong with what...

 They don't get to influence the decisions we make today. They're voiceless. And that means we still spend a paltry amount on these nuclear nonproliferation, geoengineering, biorisk, artificial intelligence safety.

What are the most...

 Which makes you What does it say about the human mind that we can find such paltry evidence to be compelling enough to convict a man? Well, this is a case of what scientists call "motivated reasoning."

Why you think you're...

 When born, the hatchlings themselves weigh a paltry five kilograms and need to fend for themselves immediately.

The Biggest Dinosaur...

 tons when born the hatchlings themselves weigh a paltry 5 kilograms and need to fend for themselves