Giordano Bruno

We see that pedantry has never been held in such esteem for the government of the world as in our times, and it offers as many paths of the true intelligible species and objects of infallible and sole truth as there are individual pedants.

Italian Philosopher

Steph McGovern

I, like many annoying pedants, will wince when someone says 'less' when they should have said 'fewer.' But my 'poor' sounds like poo-ah, not pore; and my 'grass' rhymes with mass, not farce. What's wrong with that?

English Journalist

Steven Pinker

Language pedants hew to an oral tradition of shibboleths that have no basis in logic or style, that have been defied by great writers for centuries, and that have been disavowed by every thoughtful usage manual.

Canadian Scientist

Gunter Grass

Memory likes to play hide-and-seek, to crawl away. It tends to hold forth, to dress up, often needlessly. Memory contradicts itself; pedant that it is, it will have its way.

German Author

Colson Whitehead

I didn't know I was a zombie pedant until I started considering what from the zombie canon to keep in 'Zone One' and what to ignore.

American Novelist

George Weinberg

My father was a pedant and a bully who cared about nobody, and I was not to see him until I was eighteen.

American Psychologist

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Do not be bullied out of your common sense by the specialist; two to one, he is a pedant.

American Writer

Alfred North Whitehead

Fools act on imagination without knowledge, pedants act on knowledge without imagination.

English Mathematician

George Orwell

Joyce is a poet and also an elephantine pedant.

British Author

Johann Kaspar Lavater

Have you ever seen a pedant with a warm heart?

German Theologian

A pedant goes beyond necessary detail, often missing the bigger picture or main point.

Excessive Detail

Being called a pedant usually suggests annoyance; it's not typically a compliment.

Negative Connotation

'Pedant' can refer to anyone overly concerned with details, not just in learning.