Insult Quotes - Page 12

• Irony is an insult conveyed in the form of a compliment.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Irony, Compliment, Form

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1851). “Literature and life, lects”, p.52

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• When misguided public opinion honors what is despicable and despises what is honorable, punishes virtue and rewards vice, encourages what is harmful and discourages what is useful, applauds falsehood and smothers truth under indifference or insult, a nation turns its back on progress and can be restored only by the terrible lessons of catastrophe.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Political, Honor, Progress

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• Exhaustion has a way of parting the veils between men, not so much because the effort of censoring their words exceeds them, but because weariness is the foe of volatility. Oft times insults that would pierce the wakeful simply thud against the sleepless and fatigued.

  R. Scott Bakker

  Men, Effort, Veils

  R. Scott Bakker (2012). “The White-Luck Warrior: Book Two”, p.127, The Overlook Press

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• The crowning insult [of abortion] is that this ordeal is represented to her as some kind of a privilege.Her sad and onerous duty is garbed in the rhetoric of a civil right.

  Germaine Greer

  Abortion, Privilege, Kind

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• Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself.

  Erich Fromm

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Men

  Man for Himself (1947) ch. 4

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• Old age is an insult. It's like being smacked.

  Lawrence Durrell

  Insult To Injury, Age, Aging

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• I focus on my work. If I let myself get distracted by the insults and slanders I wouldn't get anything substantive done.

  Norman Finkelstein

  Hard Work, Focus, Insulting

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• Turks 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 Pamuk

  Work, Optimistic, Clerks

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• Daily life is governed by an economic system in which the production and consumption of insults tends to balance out.

  Raoul Vaneigem

  Balance, Comeback, Daily Life

  Raoul Vaneigem, Donald Nicholson-Smith (2012). “The Revolution of Everyday Life”, p.15, PM Press

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• It is a virtue and a prize to listen patiently to and put up with insults for the sake of God

  Brigit of Kildare

  Humility, Sake, Virtue

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• Injuries accompanied with insults are never forgiven: all men, on these occasions, are good haters, and lay out their revenge at compound interest.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Revenge, Men, Injury

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.215

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• Don't take anything personally. Even when a situation seems so personal, even if others insult you directly, it has nothing to do with you. Their point of view and opinion come from all the programming they received growing up. When you take things personally, you feel offended and your reaction is to defend your beliefs and create conflict. You make something big out of something so little because you have the need to be right and make everybody else wrong.

  Miguel Angel Ruiz

  Life, Growing Up, Insults You

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• Sometimes when reading Goethe I have the paralyzing suspicion that he is trying to be funny.

  Guy Davenport

  Witty, Powerful, Humorous

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• This isn't right. This isn't even wrong.

  Wolfgang Pauli

  Witty, Humorous, Mathematics

  "The Successful Toastmaster: A Treasure Chest of Introductions, Epigrams, Humor, and Quotations" by Herbert Victor Prochnow, (p. 350), 1966.

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• I'm actively working hard on learning to appreciate yourself no matter what. If what someone else says can easily derail you, it means your sense of self isn't that firmly established in the first place. It's an inside job. You're beautiful and worthy and totally unique. People insult each other based on their own insecurities - even though it may feel personal, it really never is. Really. Seriously.

  Emma Stone

  Inspirational, Motivational, Beautiful

  "The Really Amazing Spider-Man 2 Star Emma Stone On Tuning Out The Haters And Owning Who You Are". Interview With Brittany Burke, www.seventeen.com. May 2, 2014.

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• I regarded finding I had a form of Alzheimer's as an insult, and I decided to do my best to marshal any kind of forces that I could against this wretched disease. I have posterior cortical atrophy or PCA. They say, rather ingenuously, that if you have Alzheimer's it's the best form of Alzheimer's to have.

  Terry Pratchett

  Alzheimer's, Disease, Kind

  "'A butt of my own jokes': Terry Pratchett on the disease that finally claimed him". www.theguardian.com. March 14, 2015.

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• They always use the word 'insult' with me, but I don't hurt anybody. I wouldn't be sitting here if I did. I make fun of everybody and exaggerate all our insecurities.

  Don Rickles

  Hurt, Fun, Insecurity

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• I must decline your invitation owing to a subsequent engagement.

  Oscar Wilde

  Sweet, Engagement, Owing

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• It seems an insult to the night to speak of purpose and intent, when this common moment is so brimming full of blessed design tranquility. All things follow their course.

  Anne Rice

  Nature, Blessed, Night

  Anne Rice (2011). “New Tales of the Vampires: includes Pandora and Vittorio the Vampire”, p.257, Ballantine Books

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• I won't be protected. I will choose for myself what is ladylike and right. To shield me is an insult.

  E. M. Forster

  Shields, Room With A View, Protected

  E. M. Forster (2013). “Delphi Collected Works of E. M. Forster (Illustrated)”, p.488, Delphi Classics

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• You have to let other people be right' was his answer to their insults. 'It consoles them for not being anything else.

  Andre Gide

  People, Answers, Console

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• 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 Miller

  Art, Book, Destiny

  Tropic of Cancer ch. 1 (1934)

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• Life is nothing in itself. It’s a place marker that proves who’s winning, and we are the winners. We are always the winners. There is nothing but the winning. Even winning means nothing. We win because it’s an insult to lose. The ends don’t justify the means. The means don’t justify the ends. There is no one to justify to. There is no justice.” ~ Durzo Blint

  Brent Weeks

  Mean, Winning, Justice

  Brent Weeks (2009). “The Way Of Shadows: Book 1 of the Night Angel”, p.138, Hachette UK

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• The young can exasperate, of course, and frighten, and condescend, and insult, and cut you with their still unrounded edges. But they can also drag you, as you protest and scold and try to pull away, right up to the window of the future, and even push you through.

  Laura Moriarty

  Cutting, Trying, Window

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• She's pretty." (It's amazing how girls can say this and make it the most withering insult.)

  Ned Vizzini

  Girl, Withering

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