Meanness Quotes

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  It has always seemed strange to me... the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.

  John Steinbeck

  Love, Wisdom, Appreciation

  John Steinbeck (1963). “The short novels of John Steinbeck: Tortilla Flat, The red pony, Of mice and men, The moon is down, Cannery Row, The pearl”

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• Meanness is incurable; it cannot be cured by old age, or by anything else.

  Aristotle

  Anger, Age, Old Age

  22 Copy quote

• With gentleness overcome anger. With generosity overcome meanness. With truth overcome deceit.

  Gautama Buddha

  Inspiring, Wise, Buddhist

  36 Copy quote

• Where envy reigns virtue can't exist, and generosity doesn't go with meanness.

  Miguel de Cervantes

  Generosity, Envy, Reign

  Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (2006). “Don Quixote”, p.450, Collector's Library

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• Meanness demeans the demeaner far more than the demeaned.

  Malcolm Forbes

  Anger

  14 Copy quote

• This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor...Welcome and entertain them all. Treat each guest honorably. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

  Rumi

  Spiritual, Wisdom, Morning

  Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi, “The Guest House”

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• Nothing is more unpleasant than a virtuous person with a mean mind.

  Walter Bagehot

  Mean, Mind, Virtuous

  Walter Bagehot (1973). “Literary studies”

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• My father had taught me to be nice first, because you can always be mean later, but once you've been mean to someone, they won't believe the nice anymore. So be nice, be nice, until it's time to stop being nice, then destroy them.

  Laurell K. Hamilton

  Life, Father, Nice

  50 Copy quote

• Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.

  George Sand

  Kindness, Regret, Giving

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives.

  John Adams

  Children, Ambition, Compassion

  John Adams (2003). “The Letters of John and Abigail Adams”, p.74, Penguin

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• Some men have a necessity to be mean, as if they were exercising a faculty which they had to partially neglect since early childhood.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Mean, Exercise, Men

  15 Copy quote

• You will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Thinking, Solitude, Self Reliance

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.12, Penguin

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• Good-humor is allied to generosity, ill-humor to meanness.

  Sir Fulke Greville

  Generosity, Ill, Good Humor

  15 Copy quote

• Make the world better. Take the meanness out of people's hearts.

  Sue Monk Kidd

  Heart, People, World

  Sue Monk Kidd (2002). “The Secret Life of Bees”, Viking Press

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• How inexpressible is the meanness of being a hypocrite! how horrible is it to be a mischievous and malignant hypocrite.

  Voltaire

  Hypocrite, Hell, Horrible

  Voltaire (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of Voltaire (Illustrated)”, p.4227, Delphi Classics

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• The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.

  Rumi

  Dark, Doors, Laughing

  Rumi (2015). “Selected Poems”, p.150, Penguin UK

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• When you give a lesson in meanness to a critter or a person, don't be surprised if they learn their lesson.

  Will Rogers

  Giving, Lessons, Surprise

  58 Copy quote

• There has never been a man mean and at the same time virtuous.

  Confucius

  Mean, Men, Virtuous

  9 Copy quote

• Family is the most important thing in the world.

  Princess Diana

  Inspirational, Family, Money

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• Good-humor will sometimes conquer ill-humor, but ill-humor will conquer it oftener; and for this plain reason, good-humor must operate on generosity, ill-humor on meanness.

  Sir Fulke Greville

  Generosity, Sometimes, Conquer

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• Sometimes you never feel meaner than the moment you stop being mean. It's like how turning on a light makes you realize how dark the room had gotten. And the way you usually act, the things you would have normally done, are like these ghosts that everyone can see but pretends not to.

  Rebecca Stead

  Mean, Dark, Light

  Rebecca Stead (2010). “When You Reach Me/First Light”, p.160, Wendy Lamb Books

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• We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bone.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Blood, Flesh, Bones

  1854 Walden, or Life in the Woods,'Higher Laws'.

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• So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.

  Charles Dickens

  People, Expectations, Words Of Wisdom

  Charles Dickens (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Charles Dickens (Illustrated)”, p.7278, Delphi Classics

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• Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

  Rumi

  Inspirational, Friendship, Thank You

  Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi, “The Guest House”

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• They wanted to know why I did what I did. Well, sir I guess there's just meanness in the world.

  Bruce Springsteen

  Order, Law, World

  "Song: "Nebraska"". 1982.

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