Self Pity Quotes - Page 5

• The human species was too fond of lying, cheating, envy, ignorance, self-pity, self-righteousness, and utopian visions that always led to mass murder-but until and if it destroyed itself, it harbored the potential to become nobler, to take responsibility for its actions, to live and let live, and to earn the stewardship of the earth.

  Dean Koontz

  Cheating, Lying, Ignorance

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• We are repeatedly left, in other words, with no further focus than ourselves, a source from which self-pity naturally flows. Each time this happens I am struck again by the permanent impassibility of the divide. Some people who have lost a husband or a wife report feeling that person's presence, receiving that person's advice. Some report actual sightings, what Freud described in "Mourning and Melancholia" as "a clinging to the object through the medium of a hallucinatory wishful psychosis." Others describe not a visible apparition but just a "very strongly felt presence."

  Joan Didion

  Husband, Self, Psychosis

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• Self-pity does not appreciate pedantry.

  Alexander McCall Smith

  Self, Appreciate, Doe

  Alexander McCall Smith (2011). “Bertie Plays The Blues: 7”, p.9, Hachette UK

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• Tears that are shed in time of affliction are rarely tears of penitence, but more likely they are shed out of self pity and pain or sorrow.

  John Calvin

  Faith, Religious, Pain

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• Tragedy looks to me like man in love with his own defeat.
  Which is only a sloppy way of being in love with yourself.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Love You, Being In Love, Men

  D.H. Lawrence (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated)”, p.6697, Delphi Classics

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• There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.

  Toni Morrison

  Writing, Self, Civilization

  "In times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent" by Toni Morrison, www.thenation.com. March 23, 2013.

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• Pity is a sense of our own misfortunes in those of another man; it is a sort of foresight of the disasters which may befall ourselves. We assist others,, in order that they may assist us on like occasions; so that the services we offer to the unfortunate are in reality so many anticipated kindnesses to ourselves.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Kindness, Reality, Men

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• Just because you're an adult doesn't mean you're grown up. Growing up means being patient, holding your temper, cutting out the self-pity, and quitting with the righteous indignation.'
  
  'Why do so many people seem to love righteous indignation?'
  
  'Because if you can prove you're a victim, all rules are off. You can lash out at people. You don't have to be accountable for anything.

  Brandon Stanton

  Growing Up, Mean, Cutting

  Brandon Stanton (2013). “Humans of New York”, p.290, St. Martin's Press

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• Self-pity makes people callous.

  Mason Cooley

  Self, People, Pity

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• Inside your own self pity there you swim, in sinking down to drown her voice still haunts you, and only with your laughter can you win.

  Joni Mitchell

  Laughter, Sadness, Winning

  Song: Roses Blue, Album: Clouds

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• The feeling it gave me was an odd combination of weightless self-pity and excitement. I understood my life was meaningless, and this knowledge freed me up to accomplish absolutely anything.

  Matt de la Pena

  Self, Feelings, Excitement

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• I hurt for my Marines, goodhearted American guys who'd bear these burdens for the rest of their lives. And I mourned for myself. Not in self-pity, but for the kid who'd come to Iraq. He was gone. I did all this in the dark, away from the platoon, because combat command is the loneliest job in the world.

  Nathaniel Fick

  Hurt, Jobs, Kids

  Nathaniel Fick (2006). “One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer”, p.243, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• She quoted a dead playwright and called me a bullet with nothing but a future. She understood my lack of self-pity. She knew why I despised everything that might restrict my forward momentum. She knew that bullets have no conscience. They speed past things and miss their marks as often as they hit them.

  James Ellroy

  Past, Self, Missing

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• Grief and disappointment are like hate: they make men ugly with self-pity and bitterness. And how selfish they make us too.

  Graham Greene

  Disappointment, Hate, Selfish

  Graham Greene (1974). “The end of the affair”, Vintage

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• Are you sure self-pity is a luxury you can afford, Jack?

  Stephen King

  Self, Luxury, Pity

  Stephen King (2008). “The Shining”, p.241, Anchor

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• Things might have been different if she hadn't been able to drift; if she'd had to concentrate on her next meal, instead of dwelling on all the injuries she felt we'd done her. An unearned income encourages self-pity in those already prone to it.

  Margaret Atwood

  Self, Dwelling, Meals

  Margaret Atwood (2000). “The Blind Assassin”, Random House Large Print Publishing

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• Sometimes, you know, I cry. And sometimes I scream. And I get really angry. And I get really upset, you know, into wallowing in self-pity sometimes. And I think that it's all part of the healing.

  Christina Applegate

  Cancer, Healing, Thinking

  "EXCLUSIVE: Applegate Underwent Breast Removal to Stop Cancer". Interview with Brian O'keefe, Lee Ferran, abcnews.go.com. August 19, 2008.

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• That is the challenge Companion. To take what has happened to you and learn from it. Nothing is quite so destructive as pity, especially self-pity. No event in life is so terrible that one cannot rise above it.

  Robin Hobb

  Self, Events In Life, Challenges

  Robin Hobb (2014). “The Liveship Traders Trilogy 3-Book Bundle: Ship of Magic, Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny”, p.1940, Del Rey

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• Maybe the first time you saw her you were ten. She was standing in the sun scratching her legs. Or tracing letters in the dirt with a stick. Her hair was being pulled. Or she was pulling someone's hair. And a part of you was drawn to her, and a part of you resisted--wanting to ride off on your bicycle, kick a stone, remain uncomplicated. In the same breath you felt the strength of a man, and a self-pity that made you feel small and hurt. Part of you thought: Please don't look at me. If you don't, I can still turn away. And part of you thought: Look at me.

  Nicole Krauss

  Hurt, Men, Hair

  Nicole Krauss (2006). “The History of Love: A Novel”, p.57, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Nobody's going to do your life for you. You have to do it yourself, whether you're rich or poor, out of money or raking it in, the beneficiary of ridiculous fortune or terrible injustice. And you have to do it no matter what is true. No matter what is hard. No matter what unjust, sad, sucky things befall you. Self-pity is a dead-end road. You make the choice to drive down it. It's up to you to decide to stay parked there or to turn around and drive out.

  Cheryl Strayed

  Inspirational, Life, Sad

  Cheryl Strayed (2015). “Brave Enough: A Mini Instruction Manual for the Soul”, p.14, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• The best of our theater is standing on tiptoe, striving to see over the shoulders of father and mother. The worst is exploiting and wallowing in the self-pity of adolescence and obsessive keyhole sexuality. The way out, as the poet says, is always through.

  Arthur Miller

  Mother, Father, Self

  Arthur Miller (2016). “The Collected Essays of Arthur Miller”, p.155, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• I have to be honest with you. Islam is on very thin ice with me... Through our screaming self-pity and our conspicuous silences, we Muslims are conspiring against ourselves. We're in crisis and we're dragging the rest of the world with us. If ever there was a moment for an Islamic reformation, it's now. For the love of God, what are we doing about it?

  Irshad Manji

  Islamic, Self, Ice

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• For most people, self-awareness and self-pity blossom simultaneously in early adolescence. It's about that time that we start viewing the world as something other than a whoop-de-doo playground, we start to experience personally how threatening it can be, how cruel and unjust. At the very moment when we become, for the first time, both introspective and socially conscientious, we receive the bad news that the world, by and large, doesn't give a rat's ass.

  Tom Robbins

  Self, People, Giving

  "Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates". Book by Tom Robbins, 2000.

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• Praise will lead you to vanity, and blame will lead you to self-pity, and both are bad for writers.

  John Berryman

  Vanity, Self, Blame

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• Try to avoid complaints. Self-pity even when legitimate never fails to undermine your strength.

  Mariane Pearl

  Self, Trying, Failing

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