Distasteful Quotes - Page 2

• We shall succeed only so far as we continue to undertake “the intolerable labor of thought” — that most distasteful of all our activities.

  Learned Hand

  Ideas, Political, Succeed

  "The Spirit of Liberty: Papers and Addresses".

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have never been one who is comfortable talking about my faith in the political arena. In fact, the pandering that typically occurs in the election season I find to be distasteful. But for those who have asked, I freely confess that Jesus Christ is my personal Savior, and that I seek His guidance in all that I do.

  Ron Paul

  Jesus, Talking, Political

  4 Copy quote

• The man who raises new issues has always been distasteful to politicians. He musses up what had been so tidily arranged.

  Walter Lippmann

  Men, Issues, Politician

  Walter Lippmann (1914). “A Preface to Politics”

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Occasionally and frequently the exercise of the judgment ought to end in absolute reservation. It may be very distasteful, and great fatigue, to suspend a conclusion; but as we are not infallible, so we ought to be cautious; we shall eventually find our advantage, for the man who rests in his position is not so far from right as he who, proceeding in a wrong direction, is ever increasing his distance.

  Michael Faraday

  Distance, Science, Exercise

  Michael Faraday (1859). “Experimental Researches in Chemistry and Physics”, p.483

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Anxiety is an even better teacher than reality, for one can temporarily evade reality by avoiding the distasteful situation; but anxiety is a source of education always present because one carries it within.

  Rollo May

  Teacher, Reality, Anxiety

  Rollo May Ph.D. (2015). “The Meaning Of Anxiety”, p.66, Pickle Partners Publishing

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Once she read a book but found it distasteful because it contained adjectives.

  Lois Lowry

  Book, Adjectives, Found

  Lois Lowry (2008). “The Willoughbys”, p.12, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It was obvious that the matter had to be settled, and evasions were distasteful to me.

  Jules Verne

  Matter, Obvious, Evasion

  Jules Verne (2016). “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea”, p.216, My Ebook Publishing House

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Tempter masters the lazy and irresolute man who dwells on the attractive side of things, ungoverned in his senses, and unrestrained in his food, like the wind overcomes a rotten tree. But the Tempter cannot master a man who dwells on the distasteful side of things, self-controlled in his senses, moderate in eating, resolute and full of faith, like the wind cannot move a mountain crag.

  Gautama Buddha

  Faith, Buddhist, Moving

  20 Copy quote

• One of the tricks of the west is to use or create images, they create images of a person who doesn't go along with their views and then they make certain that this image is distasteful, and then anything that that person has to say from thereon, from thereon in, is rejected.

  Malcolm X

  Views, West, Use

  113 Copy quote

• What's that smell?" I froze. What? Did I really smell so distasteful he had only to lean in my direction to catch a putrid whiff of me? I stayed the urge to break his freaking nose for pointing out my stinkiness. He sniffed again. "I can't place it." "How bad is it?" I asked, my cheeks heating. "It's good. Some kind of flower." My first thought: Hurray! I don't stink. My second: Ohmygod!

  Gena Showalter

  Flower, Smell, Noses

  Gena Showalter (2012). “Animal Instincts”, p.66, Harlequin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I feel like a lot of life is distasteful and embarrassing. And you just push through it. You fix what you can, and you let time pass.

  Curtis Sittenfeld

  Life Is, Embarrassing, Time Passes

  4 Copy quote

• Mister Cameron - I have read the unexpurgated Ovid, the love poems of Sappho, the Decameron in the original, and a great many texts in Greek and Latin histories that were not though fit for proper gentlemen to read, much less proper ladies. I know in precise detail what Caligula did to, and with, his sisters, and I can quote it to you in Latin or in my own translation if you wish. I am interested in historical truth, and truth in history is often unpleasant and distasteful to those of fine sensibility. I frankly doubt that you will produce anything to shock me.

  Mercedes Lackey

  Latin, Historical, Greek

  8 Copy quote

• Her future, she thought, was likely to be worse than her past, for after her years of contented renunciation, she had slipped back into desire and longing; she found joyless days of distasteful occupation harder and harder; she found the image of the intense and varied life she yearned for, and despaired of, becoming more and more importunate.

  George Eliot

  Past, Years, Desire

  George Eliot (2006). “The Mill on the Floss: Easyread Large Edition”, p.195, ReadHowYouWant.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• You have to give everybody another recourse as some means other than violence, no matter how distasteful it may be to have to deal with them and what they represent.

  Anthony Zinni

  Mean, Giving, May

  16 Copy quote

• I ask one thing only: I ask for the right to hope, to suffer as I do. But if even that cannot be, command me to disappear, and I disappear. You shall not see me if my presence is distasteful to you.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Suffering, Disappear, Command

  Leo Tolstoy (2016). “Anna Karenina (World Classics, Unabridged)”, p.121, Vij Books India Pvt Ltd

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Being nice doesn’t make you stupid. It makes you feel good because you know you are gracious enough to forgive and smart enough to realize how distasteful some people can be.

  C. S. Lewis

  Nice, Smart, Stupid

  4 Copy quote

• People probably long for something genuinely personal in a society where the personal is often indistinguishable from the "personalized." Maybe the poetry audience member is searching for his or her own "personal space" and they expect the poet to be a sort of avatar of the private life. But that sort of representation is distasteful to me. Asking a poet to represent the personal life is, paradoxically, to turn the poet into something other than a person.

  Rae Armantrout

  Long, People, Poet

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• No evidence is powerful enough to force acceptance of a conclusion that is emotionally distasteful.

  Theodosius Dobzhansky

  Powerful, Science, Acceptance

  12 Copy quote

• With the greatest respect, we do not make the criminal law on the basis of opinion polls. A majority of 9:1 could be in favour of a ban in my constituency, but I would not regard that as conclusive, and I hope that we never would. If we start having opinion polls about all the unpleasant and distasteful habits and customs of some members of society, and suggesting that their findings should be made part of the criminal law, foxhunting would come way down the list, and quite a lot of strange enactments would have to go through the House.

  Kenneth Clarke

  Hunting, Law, House

  4 Copy quote

• There should be no distasteful tasks in one's life. If you just hate to do a thing, that hatred for it develops body-destructive toxins, and you become fatigued very soon.

  Walter Russell

  Life, Hate, Hatred

  29 Copy quote

• Nothing to me is more distasteful than that entire complacency and satisfaction which beam in the countenances of a new married couple; in that of the lady particularly; it tells you that her lot is disposed of in this world; that you can have no hopes for her.

  Charles Lamb

  Marriage, Wedding, Couple

  Charles Lamb (1840). “The essays of Elia”, p.79

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The main conclusion arrived at in this work, namely that man is descended from some lowly-organised form, will, I regret to think, be highly distasteful to many persons. But there can hardly be a doubt that we are descended from barbarians.

  Charles Darwin

  Regret, Science, Men

  Charles Darwin (2010). “Evolutionary Writings: including the Autobiographies”, p.525, OUP Oxford

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Bodybuilding is men on a stage in their underwear wearing brown paint showing other men their muscles. It is training for appearance only, and at the contest level requires a degree of vanity, narcissism, and self-absorption that I find distasteful and odd

  Mark Rippetoe

  Bodybuilding, Men, Vanity

  49 Copy quote

• This is the true liberty of Christ, when a free man binds himself in love to duty. Not in shrinking from our distasteful occupations, but in fulfilling them, do we realize our high origin.

  Frederick William Robertson

  Men, Liberty, Shrinking

  Frederick William Robertson (1873). “Sermons Preached at Brighton”, p.362

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Have you found your life distasteful?
  My life did, and does, smack sweet.
  Was your youth of pleasure wasteful?
  Mine I saved and hold complete.
  Do your joys with age diminish?
  When mine fail me, I'll complain.
  Must in death your daylight finish?
  My sun sets to rise again.

  Robert Browning

  Life, Sweet, Failure

  Robert Browning (1830). “An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry”, p.42

  9 Copy quote

  Show source