Popular quotes about Insult! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 3
The clear problem of the outlawing of insult is that too many things can be interpreted as such. Criticism, ridicule, sarcasm, merely stating an alternative point of view to the orthodoxy, can be interpreted as insult.
Rowan AtkinsonAn insult is either sustained or destroyed, not by the disposition of those who insult, but by the disposition of those who bear it.
Saint John ChrysostomMuslims insult all other religions. The Quran is an insult to the Jews, the Christians and everyone else. It calls the Jews apes, pigs and rats. All the non-believers are najis (filthy, impure) and hell bond. The Quran even instructs the Muslims to fight the unbelievers, chop their fingertips, behead them, crucify them and deal with them harshly. 5:33, 9:14, 9:73 However, Muslims went berserk when a Danish Newspaper published a few cartoons of Muhammad.
Ali SinaThe (U.K.) government's thesis that the countryside of upland and coastal Britain is 'worth sacrificing to save the planet' is an insult to science, economics and politics. But the greatest insult is to aesthetics. The trouble is that aesthetics has no way of answering back.
Simon JenkinsWhen will the public cease to insult the teacher's calling with empty flattery? When will men who would never for a moment encourage their own sons to enter the work of the public schools cease to tell us that education is the greatest and noblest of all human callings?
William BagleyIt is only the vulgar who are always fancying themselves insulted. If a man treads on another's toe in good society, do you think it is taken as an insult?
Lady Hester StanhopeThe man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than anyone else. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offense, isn't it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him, but that he has invented the insult for himself, has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill--he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offense, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it.
Fyodor DostoevskyYou would make a great teacher. (Grace) Commander to teacher. Why not call me Cato the Elder, and really insult me while youโre at it? (Julian)
Sherrilyn KenyonI used to be an insult comic, and I didn't end up liking the way that I felt about myself.
Zach AnnerLemmings with suicide vests. It's kind of an insult to lemmings to call them lemmings, so they'd have to be more than just a lemming, because jumping to your death is not enough.
Devin NunesWhat I think is that the F-word is basically just a convenient nasty-sounding word that we tend to use when we would really like to come up with a terrific-ally witty insult, the kind Winston Churchill always came up with when enormous women asked him stupid questions at parties.
Dave BarryI think that for a lot of actors - especially American actors - to get line readings and to be told and have your director literally act out the part for you is sort of discouraging in a way. It's a very Eastern European thing to do - a lot of directors that I worked with in Russia did that as well. And, I never took that as an insult, as many actors tend to do. To me, I think it's just offering a certain energy - offering their flavor - and, instead of trying to sort of decode and communicate it to you, they just show you their flavor of what it should be.
Jon BernthalThe days when the words Hollywood actor framed Ronald Reagan like bunny fingers as an ID tag and an implied insult seem far-off and quaint: nearly everybody in politics - candidate, consultant, pundit, and Tea Party crowd extra alike - is an actor now, a shameless ham in a hoked-up reality series that never stops.
James WolcottThe Southern newspapers, with their advertisements of negro sales and personal descriptions of fugitive slaves, supply details of misery that it would be difficult for imagination to exceed. Scorn, derision, insult, menace - the handcuff, the last - the tearing away of children from parents, of husbands from wives - the weary trudging in droves along the common highways, the labor of body, the despair of mind, the sickness of heart - these are the realities which belong to the system, and form the rule, rather that the exception, in the slave's experience.
Fanny KembleThe single best thing about coming out of the closet is that nobody can insult you by telling you what you've just told them.
Rachel MaddowA year ago, six months ago, I thought that I was an artist. I no longer think about it, I am. Everything that was literature has fallen from me. There are no more books to be written, thank God. This then? This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of character. This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty . . . what you will.
Henry MillerTo say that Agatha Christieโs characters are cardboard cut-outs is an insult to cardboard cut-outs.
Ruth RendellPresident Obama's actions are an unconscionable betrayal of America's fundamental values and a profound insult to the oppressed Cuban people.
Mario Diaz-BalartThe Intelligentsia (scientists apart) are losing all touch with, and all influence over, nearly the whole human race. Our most esteemed poets and critics are read by our most esteemed critics and poets (who don't usually like them much) and nobody else takes any notice. An increasing number of highly literate people simply ignore what the 'Highbrows' are doing. It says nothing to them. The Highbrows in return ignore and insult them.
C. S. LewisMy best friend recently told me that I was the most passionate person she's ever known. I don't know if that was a compliment or an insult, honestly.
Amy LeeI was not offended, my love. An insult is like a drink; it affects one only if accepted. And pride is too heavy baggage for my journey.
Robert A. HeinleinMy mother, unlike yours, never exchanged sexual favors for a piece of silver," he said, addressing the first insult by banging the boy's head against the trunk of the tree. "And," he said with another resounding thump, "although I'm very familiar with that part of the female body, I take offense at being labeled one.
Melina MarchettaWhatโs that poem again?โ Will, who had been twirling his empty teacup around his fingers, stood up straight and declaimed: โEach spake words of high disdain, And insult to his heartโs best brotherโโ โOh, by the Angel, Will, do be quiet,โ said Charlotte, standing up. โI must go and write a letter to Aloysius Starkweather that drips remorse and pleading. I donโt need you distracting me.โ And, gathering up her skirts, she hurried from the room. โNo appreciation for the arts,โ Will murmured, setting his teacup down.
Cassandra ClareIf we empower ourselves with responsibility over our actions, responsibility over our destinies and responsibility for directing and maintaining and creating our own ethical and moral frameworks, which is the most important thing really isnโt it because perhaps the greatest insult to humanism is this idea that mankind needs a god in order to have a moral framework.
Stephen FryWhy prove to a man he is wrong? Is that going to make him like you? Why not let him save face? He didn't ask for your opinion. He didn't want it. Why argue with him? You can't win an argument, because if you lose, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it. Why? You will feel fine. But what about him? You have made him feel inferior, you hurt his pride, insult his intelligence, his judgment, and his self-respect, and he'll resent your triumph. That will make him strike back, but it will never make him want to change his mind. A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.
Dale CarnegieItโs never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesnโt hurt you.
Harper LeeBut as he grew older, he learned that a word was a powerful thing. An insult didn't have to be shouted to bleed; a vow didn't have to be whispered to make you believe. Hold a thought in your head, and that was enough to change the actions of anyone and anything that crossed your path.
Jodi PicoultI once met a man who had forgiven an injury. I hope some day to meet the man who has forgiven an insult.
Charles BuxtonMy plea is that we stop seeking out the storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight...I am asking that we look a little deeper for the good, that we still our voices of insult and sarcasm, that we more generously compliment and endorse virtue and effort.
Gordon B. HinckleyLiterature is invention. Fiction is fiction. To call a story a true story is an insult to both art and truth.
Vladimir NabokovIsaiah 55 provides an entirely different framework for thinking about God's justice, because it suggests that we have it backward - the mystery lies not in God's unfathomable wrath but in his unfathomable mercy. God's ways are higher than our ways because his capacity to love is infinitely greater than our own. Despite all that we do to alienate ourselves from God, all that we do to insult and disobey, God abundantly pardons again and again.
Rachel Held EvansYour saying 'I do not understand you' is praise beyond my worth, and an insult you do not deserve.
Khalil GibranPoets should be law-givers; that is, the boldest lyric inspiration should not chide and insult, but should announce and lead the civil code, and the day's work.
Ralph Waldo EmersonBuddah says once you understand that you are lost and you have to find your own way and there is no help coming, you become responsible. Prayer is irresponsible. To pray is just to avoid responsibility, to pray is to be lazy. To pray is just an escape. Buddha says effort is needed. It is an insult to pray.
RajneeshIf you can't ignore an insult, top it; if you can't top it, laugh it off; and if you can't laugh it off, it's probably deserved.
Russell LynesThere is in India a story of a dying youth who, hearing the sobs of grief around him, cried: Insult me not with your cries of sympathy. When I soar to the land of eternal light and love; it is I who should feel for you. For me, disease, shattering of bones, sorrow, excruciating heartaches no more. I dream joy, I glide in joy, I breathe in joy evermore.
Paramahansa YoganandaTurks have a dismissive phrase: he works like a clerk. I have turned this insult around: I am proud to say that I work like a clerk.
Orhan PamukThe fact people think that when you sell a lot of books you are not a serious writer is a great insult to the readership. I get a little angry when people try to say such a thing.
Isabel AllendeWhen you are insulted by someone or humiliated, guard against angry thoughts, lest they arouse a feeling of irritation, and so cut you off from love and place you in the realm of hatred. You should know that you have been greatly benefited when you have suffered deeply because of some insult or indignity; for by means of the indignity self-esteem has been driven out of you.
Maximus the ConfessorI always asked for forgiveness for my sins right away but I never accepted it until I felt right that I had suffered enough to pay for it. God revealed to me what I was doing how much unnecessary pain I was causing myself. He even showed me that what I was doing was an insult to Jesus that in essence I was saying Lord the sacrifice of Your life and blood was good but not good enough. I must add my work of feeling guilty before I can be forgiven.
Joyce Meyer