Indignation Quotes - Page 4

• Poverty in itself does not make men into a rabble; a rabble is created only when there is joined to poverty a disposition of mind, an inner indignation against the rich, against society, against the government.

  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

  Men, Mind, Doe

  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1945). “Hegel's Philosophy of right”

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• There is no more sovereign eloquence than the truth in indignation.

  Victor Hugo

  Sovereign, Eloquence

  Victor Hugo (2000). “Les Mis??rables”, p.566, Modern Library

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• There is in every breast a sensibility to marks of honor, of favor, of esteem, and of confidence, which, apart from all considerations of interest, is some pledge for grateful and benevolent returns. Ingratitude is a common topic of declamation against human nature; and it must be confessed, that instances of it are but too infrequent and flagrant both in public and in private life. But the universal and extreme indignation which it inspires, is itself a proof of the energy and prevalence of the contrary sentiment.

  James Madison

  Grateful, Inspire, Honor

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2015). “The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution”, p.281, Coventry House Publishing

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• The gross perversion and destruction of motherhood by the abortionist filled me with indignation, and awakened active antagonism. That the honorable term 'female physician' should be exclusively applied to those women who carried on this shocking trade seemed to me a horror. It was an utter degradation of what might and should become a noble position for women.

  Elizabeth Blackwell

  Motherhood, Abortion, Female

  Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell (2016). “Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women: Autobiographical Sketches”, p.25, Library of Alexandria

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• Are we not all shipwrecked,...condemned to death?... However impatient our neighbours make us, however much indignation our race arouses, we are all bound together, and the companions of a chain-gang have everything to lose by mutual insults.

  Henri Frederic Amiel

  Philosophical, Race, Together

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• The sober people of America are weary of the fluctuating policy which has directed the public councils. They have seen with regret and indignation that sudden changes and legislative interferences, in cases affecting personal rights, become jobs in the hands of enterprising and influential speculators, and snares to the more-industrious and less informed part of the community. They have seen, too, that one legislative interference is but the first link of a long chain of repetitions, every subsequent interference being naturally produced by the effects of the preceding.

  James Madison

  Trust, Jobs, Regret

  Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2017). “The Origin of the Nation: Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights and Other Amendments, Federalist Papers & Common Sense: Creating America - Landmark Documents that Shaped a New Nation”, p.266, Madison & Adams Press

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• I am tired of the superficial smiles that adorn the many ghouls among us. I am tired of the righteous indignation that hides beneath those visages that feign our best interest and deign to think we cannot and will not stand for ourselves.

  Corey Taylor

  Memorable, Tired, Thinking

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• We trust to novels to train us in the practice of great indignations and great generosity.

  Henry James

  Practice, Generosity, Novel

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• The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior 'righteous indignation' — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.

  Aldous Huxley

  Luxury, People, Promise

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• A man who cannot get angry is like a stream that cannot overflow, that is always turbid. Sometimes indignation is as good as a thunderstorm in summer, clearing and cooling the air.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Summer, Anger, Men

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• The Constitution is said to have beautiful features; but when I come to examine these features, Sir, they appear to me horribly frightful. Among other deformities, it has an awful squinting - it squints towards monarchy. And does not this raise indignation in the breast of every true American? Your president may easily become king. Where are your checks in this government? I would rather infinitely - and I am sure most of this convention are of the same opinion - have a king, lords, and commons than a government so replete with such insupportable evils.

  Patrick Henry

  Beautiful, Kings, Squinting

  Speech, www.let.rug.nl. June 07, 1788.

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• Men's indignation, it seems, is more exited by legal wrong than by violent wrong; the first looks like being cheated by an equal, the second like being compelled by a superior.

  Thucydides

  Men, Looks, Firsts

  Thucydides (1965). “History of the Peloponnesian War”, p.38, Hayes Barton Press

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• Compare the emotional vocabulary available to a leader (confidence, satisfaction, indignation) with the emotions not permitted (regret, embarrassment, dread, angst, mortification, anger, surprise, wonder, doubt), and it becomes apparent why perfectly normal people, upon entering public life, transform into cartoons - because they are not free to express what a normal person would feel in their situation.

  John MacLachlan Gray

  Regret, Emotional, Vocabulary

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• But I think the American people expect more from us than cries of indignation and attack. The times are too grave, the challenge too urgent, and the stakes too high to permit the customary passions of political debate. We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us through that darkness to a safe and sane future. As Winston Churchill said on taking office some twenty years ago: if we open a quarrel between the present and the past, we shall be in danger of losing the future.

  John F. Kennedy

  Passion, Past, Thinking

  Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech, en.wikisource.org. July 15, 1960.

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• Men's and nations' finest hour consist of those moments when extraordinary challenge is met by extraordinary response. Hence in those darkest hours, we must light our individual candles rather than vying with others to call attention to the enveloping darkness. Our indignation about injustice should lead to illumination, for if it does not, we are only adding to the despair-and the moment of gravest danger is when there is so little light that darkness seems normal!

  Neal A. Maxwell

  Men, Light, Illumination

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• No, I make no pretension to patriotism. So long as my voice can be heard on this or the other side of the Atlantic, I will hold up America to the lightning scorn of moral indignation. In doing this, I shall feel myself discharging the duty of a true patriot; for he is a lover of his country who rebukes and does not excuse its sins.

  Frederick Douglass

  Country, Voice, America

  Speech at Market Hall, New York, N.Y., 22 Oct. 1847

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• Indeed, I have observed one ingredient, somewhat necessary in a man’s composition towards happiness, which people of feeling would do well to acquire; a certain respect for the follies of mankind: for there are so many fools whom the opinion of the world entitles to regard, whom accident has placed in heights of which they are unworthy, that he who cannot restrain his contempt or indignation at the sight will be too often quarrelling with the disposal of things to relish that share which is allotted to himself. 

  Henry Mackenzie

  Men, Sight, People

  Henry Mackenzie (1837). “The Man of Feeling: The Man of the World ...: The Stories of La Roche, Louisa Venoni, and Nancy Collins: Being the Whole of the Popular Works of the Late Henry Mackenzie, Esq”, p.5

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• When my heart is cold and I cannot pray as I should I scourge myself with the thought of the impiety and ingratitude of my enemies, the Pope and his accomplices and vermin, and Zwingli, so that my heart swells with the righteous indignation and hatred and I can say with warmth and vehemence: 'Holy be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done!' And the hotter I grow the more ardent do my prayers become.

  Martin Luther

  Prayer, Heart, Names

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• The soldier is on friendlier terms than other men with his stomach and intestines. Three-quarters of his vocabulary is derived from these regions, and they give an intimate flavour to expressions of his greatest joy as well as of his deepest indignation. It is impossible to express oneself in any other way so clearly and pithily. Our families and our teachers will be shocked when we go home, but here it is the universal language.

  Erich Maria Remarque

  Teacher, Home, Men

  Erich Maria Remarque (2000). “All quiet on the western front and related readings”

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• The object of a comedy is not to correct morals or ridicule the vices of society; no, a comedy should depict the discrepancies between life and purpose, should be the fruit of bitter indignation aroused by the degradation of human dignity, should be sarcasm, and not an epigram, convulsive laughter and not an amused grin, should be written with bile and not diluted salt, in a word, it should embrace life in its highest significance.

  Vissarion Belinsky

  Laughter, Sarcasm, Discrepancies Between

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• I was a gangster when I was young. I had a Robin Hood mentality and tended to always want to support the weak against the strong, but sometimes it was cohesive and I really needed to fall in love with the power of education to find the right venue to express my rage. I still have a righteous indignation at injustice, no matter what form it takes.

  Cornel West

  Falling In Love, Strong, Support

  "Cornel West, 'Living And Loving Out Loud'". "Talk of the Nation" with Neal Conan, www.npr.org. October 29, 2009.

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• Shahid has grown increasingly committed to the art of indignation, waking up in the morning with an expression of incipient disgust already in stock for all the affronts he will surely encounter during the course of the day.

  Sara Suleri

  Morning, Art, Expression

  Sara Suleri (2018). “Meatless Days”, p.89, Penguin UK

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• What I admire most in any man is a serene spirit, a steady freedom from moral indignation, and all-embracing tolerance--in brief,what is commonly called sportsmanship.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Men, Tolerance

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.163, Vintage

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• I hardly know a sight that raises one's indignation more than that of an enlarged soul joined to a contracted fortune; unless it be that so much more common one, of a contracted soul joined to an enlarged fortune.

  Sir Fulke Greville

  Sight, Soul, Common

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• Nothing is needed so much as a holy indignation against sin. It is true that there is not enough love for God, and one sign of it is that there is not enough hatred for sin.

  Vance Havner

  Christian, Hatred, Sin

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