Insolent Quotes

• Your depression is connected to your insolence and refusal to praise. Whoever feels himself walking on the path, and refuses to praise--that man or woman steals from others every day--is a shoplifter! The sun became full of light when it got hold of itself. Angels only began shining when they achieved discipline. The sun goes out whenever the cloud of not-praising comes. The moment the foolish angel felt insolent, he heard the door close.

  Rumi

  Angel, Men, Clouds

  Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (Maulana), Jelaluddin Rumi, Kabir Helminski, Andrew Harvey (2005). “The Rumi Collection: An Anthology of Translations of Mevlâna Jalâluddin Rumi”, p.122, Shambhala Publications

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• An insolent reply from a polite person is a bad sign.

  Hippocrates

  Polite, Persons

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• In prosperous fortunes be modest and wise, The greatest may fall, and the lowest may rise: But insolent People that fall in disgrace, Are wretched and nobody pities their Case.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Wise, Fall, People

  Benjamin Franklin (2005). “A Benjamin Franklin reader: the essential writings of a colonial sage ; Autobiography, Wit & wisdom”

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• I don't mean to be insolent. I'm truthful. I tell the truth and the truth sometimes hurts. For instance, you have bad breath, Lieutenant. I can smell it from here. It must offend a lot of people. That's the truth. But how many people have told you that? Instead, they either lie or try to avoid your company.

  Robert Cormier

  Hurt, Lying, Mean

  Robert Cormier (2013). “Tenderness”, p.32, Delacorte Books for Young Readers

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• Insolence is not logic; epithets are the arguments of malice.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Logic, Argument, Epithet

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.1647, Library of Alexandria

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• Prosperity is the surest breeder of insolence I know.

  Mark Twain

  Inspiration, Prosperity, Breeders

  Mark Twain, Caroline Thomas Harnsberger (2009). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.385, Courier Corporation

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• Some are made modest by great praise, others insolent.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Praise, Made, Modest

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• For those who are on the roof become insolent as they don't know yet about the slope and the slipperiness of the roof!

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Roof, Slopes, Knows

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• It is the coward who fawns upon those above him. It is the coward who is insolent whenever he dares be so.

  Junius

  Coward, Fawns, Dare

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• Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance.

  Thomas Paine

  Men, Mind, Looks

  Thomas Paine (2006). “Common Sense: Addressed to the Inhabitants of America”, p.15, Cosimo, Inc.

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• The insolence of authority is endeavoring to substitute money for ideas.

  Frank Lloyd Wright

  Ideas, Disrespect, Authority

  Frank Lloyd Wright, Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer (1995). “1949-1959”, Rizzoli International Publications

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• This is the first time in my experience... that I ever heard of a Senator trying to discredit his own Government before the world.... Your telegram is not only not true and an insolent approach to a situation that should have been worked out between man and man - but it shows conclusively that you are not even fit to have a hand in the operation of the Government of the United States.

  Harry S. Truman

  War, Men, Hands

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• Your depression is connected to your insolence and refusal to praise.

  Rumi

  Inspirational, Depression, Praise

  Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (Maulana), Jelaluddin Rumi, Kabir Helminski, Andrew Harvey (2005). “The Rumi Collection: An Anthology of Translations of Mevlâna Jalâluddin Rumi”, p.122, Shambhala Publications

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• The attitude of insolent haughtiness is characteristic of the relationships Americans form with what is alien to them, with others.

  Jose Saramago

  Attitude, Haughtiness, Aliens

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• Only greatly insolent people establish a religious law which is to be taken for granted by others, which should be accepted by everyone on faith, without any discussion or doubts. Why must people do this?

  Leo Tolstoy

  Religious, Taken, Acceptance

  Leo Tolstoy (2010). “A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul, Written and Se”, p.43, Simon and Schuster

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• It is but refusing to gratify an unreasonable or an insolent demand, and up starts a patriot.

  Robert Walpole

  Demand, Patriot, Unreasonable

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• The willing sacrifice of the innocents is the most powerful retort to insolent tyranny that has yet to be conceived by God or man.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Powerful, Sacrifice, Men

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• Success is the space one occupies in the newspaper. Success is one day's insolence.

  Elias Canetti

  Success, Space, One Day

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• He who is insolent towards men is insolent towards God... Respect in man the grand, inestimable image of God and be forbearing towards the faults and errors of fallen man, so that God may be forbearing towards your own.

  John of Kronstadt

  Christian, Men, Errors

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• Those who merely possess the goods of fortune may be haughty and insolent; . . . they try to imitate the great-souled man without being really like him, and only copy him in what they can, reproducing his contempt for others but not his virtuous conduct. For the great-souled man is justified in despising other people - his estimates are correct; but most proud men have no good ground for their pride.

  Aristotle

  Pride, Men, People

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• And who can suffer injury by just taxation, impartial laws and the application of the Jeffersonian doctrine of equal rights to all and special privileges to none? Only those whose accumulations are stained with dishonesty and whose immoral methods have given them a distorted view of business, society and government. Accumulating by conscious frauds more money than they can use upon themselves, wisely distribute or safely leave to their children, these denounce as public enemies all who question their methods or throw a light upon their crimes.

  William Jennings Bryan

  Light, Enemy, Bankers

  Speech at Madison Square Garden, New York, August 30, 1906.

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• I wasn't sure what I'd done to deserve such a wonderful gift, and I wasn't sure if it was insolent, but I thanked God for fallen angels.

  Jamie McGuire

  Angel, Done, Wonderful

  Jamie McGuire (2011). “Providence”, p.161, Jamie McGuire

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• Youth is insolent; it is its right - its necessity; it has got to assert itself, and all assertion in this world of doubts is a defiance, is an insolence.

  Joseph Conrad

  Doubt, World, Youth

  Joseph Conrad (2015). “The Complete Novels of Joseph Conrad - All 20 Works in One Premium Edition: Including Unforgettable Titles like Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, The Secret Agent, Nostromo, Under Western Eyes and Many More (With Author’s Letters, Memoirs and Critical Essays)”, p.771, e-artnow

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• Insolent youth rides, now, in the whirlwind. For those modern iconoclasts who are without culture possess, apparently, all the courage.

  Ellen Glasgow

  Courage, Culture, Youth

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• Everyone thinks I'm showing off when I talk, ridiculous when I'm silent, insolent when I answer, cunning when I have a good idea, lazy when I'm tired, selfish when I eat one bite more than I should.

  Anne Frank

  Selfish, Tired, Thinking

  Anne Frank (2011). “The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition”, p.54, Bantam

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