Malice Quotes - Page 8

• It is very unfair in any writer to employ ignorance and malice together, because it gives his answerer double work.

  Jonathan Swift

  Ignorance, Giving, Together

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• Whence proceeds this weight we lay
  On what detracting people say?
  Their utmost malice cannot make
  Your head, or tooth, or finger ache;
  Nor spoil your shapes, distort your face,
  Or put one feature out of place.

  Jonathan Swift

  People, Weight, Shapes

  Jonathan Swift (1841). “The Works. Containing Interesting and Valuable Papers, Not Hitherto Published. With Memoir of the Author, by Thomas Roscoe. -London, Washbourne 1841”, p.629

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• Why bear malice? Just let it go. So what of pride? It will swallow you whole.

  Ray Davies

  Philosophy, Pride, Let It Go

  Song: Trust Your Heart

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• We had rather do anything than acknowledge the merit of another if we can help it. We cannot bear a superior or an equal. Hence ridicule is sure to prevail over truth, for the malice of mankind, thrown into the scale, gives the casting weight.

  William Hazlitt

  Giving, Envy, Weight

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• Emulation admires and strives to imitate great actions; envy is only moved to malice.

  Honore de Balzac

  Role Models, Envy, Emulation

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• I can only say that I have acted upon my best convictions, without selfishness or malice, and that by the help of God I shall continue to do so.

  Abraham Lincoln

  God, Selfishness, Helping

  Abraham Lincoln (2012). “The Complete Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln (Biographically Annotated Edition)”, p.1041, Jazzybee Verlag

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• We prefer a person with vivacity and high spirits, though bordering upon insolence, to the timid and pusillanimous; we are fonder of wit joined to malice than of dullness without it.

  William Hazlitt

  Spirit, Insolence, Vivacity

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1486, Delphi Classics

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• They also have at that critical point of death the opportunity to be converted to God through repentance. And if they are so obstinate that even at the point of death their heart does not draw back from malice, it is possible to make a quite probable judgment that they would never come away from evil.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Heart, Opportunity, Evil

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• The tongue of slander is too prompt with wanton malice to wound the stranger.

  Aeschylus

  Tongue, Stranger, Slander

  Aeschylus (1821). “The tragedies of Aeschylus”, p.88

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• There is no word or action but may be taken with two hands,--either with the right hand of charitable construction, or the sinister interpretation of malice and suspicion; and all things do succeed as they are taken. To construe an evil, action well is but a pleasing and profitable deceit to myself; but to misconstrue a good thing is a treble wrong,--to myself, the action, and the author.

  Joseph Hall

  Taken, Hands, Two

  Joseph Hall (1837). “The Works of Joseph Hall: Devotional works; Miscellaneous theology”, p.89

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• Not every action or emotion however admits of the observance of a due mean. Indeed the very names of some directly imply evil, for instance malice, shamelessness, envy, and, of actions, adultery, theft, murder. All these and similar actions and feelings are blamed as being bad in themselves; it is not the excess or deficiency of them that we blame. It is impossible therefore ever to go right in regard to them - one must always be wrong.

  Aristotle

  Mean, Names, Evil

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• Most writers spend their lives standing a little apart from the crowd, watching and listening and hoping to catch that tiny hint of despair, that sliver of malice, that makes them think, 'Aha, here is the story.'

  Ayelet Waldman

  Thinking, Listening, Despair

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• For at least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols

  Aldous Huxley

  Religious, Spring, Idols

  Aldous Huxley (2003). “Huxley and God: Essays on Religious Experience”, Crossroad 8 Avenue

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• But Sauron was not of mortal flesh, and though he was robbed now of that shape in which had wrought so great an evil, so that he could never again appear fair to the eyes of Men, yet his spirit arose out of the deep and passed as a shadow and a black wind over the sea, and came back to Middle-earth and to Mordor that was his home. There he took up again his great Ring in Barad-dur, and dwelt there, dark and silent, until he wrought himself a new guise, an image of malice and hatred made visible; and the Eye of Sauron the Terrible few could endure.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Home, Eye, Dark

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• During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it.

  Vladimir Lenin

  Lying, Class, Names

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• We went to the door and I let Asha in. I expected an uberawkward moment when he and Vayl met. But Asha took care of that problem right away. "So you belong to Jasmine," he said in his melancholy voice. It somehow delivered Vayl his deepest condolences without bearing a trace of malice toward me.

  Jennifer Rardin

  Condolences, Doors, Voice

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• That's the strangest thing about this life, about being in the ministry. People change the subject when they see you coming. And then sometimes those very same people come into your study and tell you the most remarkable things. There's a lot under the surface of life, everyone knows that. A lot of malice and dread and guilt, and so much loneliness, where you wouldn't really expect to find it, either.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Loneliness, People, Guilt

  Marilynne Robinson (2004). “Gilead: A Novel”, p.6, Macmillan

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• He decided in favor of life out of sheer spite and malice.

  Patrick Süskind

  Favors, Spite, Sheer

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• It is unlikely that many people will take to heart the conclusion that coming into existence is always a harm. It is even less likely that many people will stop having children. By contrast, it is quite likely that my views either will be ignored or will be dismissed. As this response will account for a great deal of suffering between now and the demise of humanity, it cannot plausibly be thought of as philanthropic. That is not to say that it is motivated by any malice towards humans, but it does result from a self-deceptive indifference to the harm of coming into existence.

  David Benatar

  Children, Heart, Self

  David Benatar (2008). “Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence”, p.225, Oxford University Press

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• No client ever had money enough to bribe my conscience or to stop its utterance against wrong, and oppression. My conscience is my own - my creators - not man's. I shall never sink the rights of mankind to the malice, wrong, or avarice of another's wishes, though those wishes come to me in the relation of client and attorney.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Men, Law, Rights

  Abraham Lincoln, Caroline Thomas Harnsberger (1950). “The Lincoln treasury”

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• In the dark colony of night, when I consider man's magnificent capacity for malice, madness, folly, envy, rage, and destructiveness, and I wonder whether we shall not end up as breakfast for newts and polyps, I seem to hear the muffled cries of all the words in all the books with covers closed.

  Leo Rosten

  Fear, Book, Dark

  Leo Calvin Rosten (1959). “The return of H*y*m*a*n K*a*p*l*a*n”

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• Dislike what deserves it, but never hate: for that is of the nature of malice; which is almost ever to persons, not things, and is one of the blackest qualities sin begets in the soul.

  William Penn

  Hate, Hatred, Soul

  William Penn (1841). “Fruits of Solitude, in Reflections and Maxims Relating to the Conduct of Human Life”, p.51

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• Possibly, more people kill themselves and others out of hurt vanity than out of envy, jealousy, malice or desire for revenge.

  Iris Murdoch

  Hurt, Revenge, Vanity

  Iris Murdoch (2008). “The Philosopher's Pupil”, p.81, Random House

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• One day, the Devil decided to go out of business. His tools, therefore, being for sale, were put on display; and Malice, Jealousy, and Pride were soon recognized by most of his prospective customers. There was one worn, tiny wedge-shaped tool bearing the highest price, however, which seemed difficult to identify. "What is that?" someone asked. "I can't quite place it." "Oh that!" Satan answered. "That is Discouragement. It is my most valuable tool. With it I can open many hearts, since so few people know that it belongs to me."

  James Keller

  Business, Heart, Pride

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• If a wave of service sweeps over the land, catching everyone in its enthusiasm, it will be able to wipe off the mounds of hatred, malice and greed that infest the World. Attune your hearts so that it will vibrate in sympathy with the woes and joys of your fellow-men. Fill the World with Love. Love will warn you against advising another to do something which you yourself are unwilling to do; your conscience will tell you that you are living in a lie!

  Sathya Sai Baba

  Sympathy, Lying, Heart

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