Really Mean Quotes

• If someone tells you, "You can't" they really mean, "I can't."

  Sean Stephenson

  Positive Thinking, Mean, Positivity

  FaceBook post by Sean Stephenson from Mar 20, 2011

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• 

  If you smile when no one else is around, you really mean it.

  Andy Rooney

  Love, Happiness, Smile

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• Sometimes you say things with a smile with the precise intention of making it clear that you are not being serious, and are only kidding. If I salute a friend with a smile and say, "How are you, you old scoundrel!" clearly I don't really mean he's a scoundrel.

  Umberto Eco

  Mean, Serious, Sometimes

  "Don't smile when you say that" by Umberto Eco, www.theguardian.com. June 21, 2002.

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• The internet's like one big bathroom wall with a lot of people who anonymously can say really mean things. It's fine, I believe in freedom of speech and I think people should think what they want, but I don't care to hear it.

  Zooey Deschanel

  Wall, Freedom, Believe

  "Zooey Deschanel: 'I don't have control over what's on screen, and that's terrifying'". Interview with Elizabeth Day, www.theguardian.com. April 24, 2010.

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• After Jackie Robinson the most important black in baseball history is Reggie Jackson, I really mean that.

  Reggie Jackson

  Funny, Baseball, Mean

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• Thank you, people who say 'Wow, you're really photogenic,' for not saying what you really mean: 'Wow, you're really ugly in person.'

  Jimmy Fallon

  Funny, Thank You, Mean

  Jimmy Fallon, the Writers of Late Night (2011). “Thank You Notes”, p.181, Hachette UK

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• My parents were entirely unpredictable and what they said very unreliable, which meant I became very attuned to the range of other signals human beings give out - body language or what Freud graphically called the "betrayal that oozes out of him at every pore," betrayal, that is, of what they really mean. I have that to this day, and it makes conversation exhausting because I'm listening not just to the words of the person in front of me but also to their body. It's as if there are two radio stations on at the same time.

  Zia Haider Rahman

  Betrayal, Mean, Giving

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• I also believe that upending ingrained ideas about what assault is a gun to the head, a stranger, a parking lot and what consent looks like a woman who gives a no really means yes is very messy. And part of the messiness is some students - and yes, usually these are liberal students - over-determining the definition of assault.

  Vanessa Grigoriadis

  Believe, Mean, Gun

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Yugoslavia served as a reminder that the lessons of World War Two were only partially learned. There's a great line someone wrote in the middle of the 1990s, at the time when Clinton was agonizing about whether or not to go into Bosnia: "Everyone says, 'Never again. Never again.' But all they really mean is never again will Germans kill Jews in the streets of Warsaw".

  Tony Judt

  War, Mean, World

  "Postwar". Interview With Julian Brookes, www.motherjones.com. December 20, 2005.

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• The English are no nearer than they were a hundred years ago to knowing what Jefferson really meant when he said that God had created all men equal.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Equality, Men, Knowing

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• That it does not matter what a man believes is a statement heard on every side today. ... What he believes tells him what the world is for. How can men who disagree about what the world is for agree about any of the minutiae of daily conduct? The statement really means that it does not matter what a man believes so long as he does not take his beliefs seriously.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Believe, Mean, Men

  Richard M. Weaver (2013). “Ideas Have Consequences: Expanded Edition”, p.22, University of Chicago Press

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• Successful weight management really means a permanent change in lifestyle - and success in this arena provides that person with a great opportunity to model that behavior for friends and family.

  Francis Collins

  Life Changing, Mean, Successful

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• Your personal freedom to experience yourself and life as you wish is not being limited. Step into your choices and stop telling yourself that you can't, when what you really mean is that you don't want other people to feel the way you think that are going to feel when they see you making the choices you really want to make.

  Neale Donald Walsch

  Freedom, Mean, Thinking

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• I don't know where "bro country" came from or what it really means, but a lot of those guys are my buddies and I ­support their music. Within ­country there are lots of styles: stone-cold country, like Brandy Clark, and there's Florida Georgia Line with what they do, which is completely different and bringing a whole new audience. There's room for everyone.

  Miranda Lambert

  Music, Country, Mean

  "ACM Queen Miranda Lambert Dishes on Her Good-Luck Charm for the Big Night and the Bro-Country Trend: 'There's Room for Everyone'". Interview with Chuck Arnold, www.billboard.com. April 13, 2015.

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• Executives will talk about the importance of passion, but what they really mean is finding somebody who will work nights and weekends on their assigned task but predictably and reliably follow orders and just work harder.

  John Hagel

  Hard Work, Passion, Mean

  "Only Passion Can Transform Stress Into Success" by John Hagel, bigthink.com.

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• When I move from being a cameraman to being a director I looked at a lot of other cameramen who tried to make the move. And in each case they moved up their camera operator to be the DP, which really meant they didn't want to give up being the DP, and really wanted to do both. And my feeling was if I was going to succeed as a director, I had to just be a director and give up the safety net of being a cameraman.

  Barry Sonnenfeld

  Giving Up, Moving, Safety

  Source: collider.com

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• The narrative for girls is that you just hang around and wait to be "chosen" and then you belong to somebody and you live happily ever after. There isn't room for more nuanced concerns about the creepy proprietary nature of that relationship model, or the breadth of what fulfillment really means for women.

  Lindy West

  Girl, Mean, Waiting

  Source: www.mtv.com

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• Everyone has the attitude that movies aren't just disposable entertainment - they can really mean something. I love that, because that's the way I feel about films.

  Joseph Gordon-Levitt

  Attitude, Mean, Way

  Interview with Amy Kaufman, www.thewrap.com. October 7, 2010.

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• It somehow became an article of faith on the right that Obama is the most extreme president in American history. Although, when they say that, I think what they really mean is...he's black.

  Bill Maher

  Mean, Thinking, Black

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• Libertarians are believers in small government who really mean it -- no excuses, no exceptions. [For Libertarians], the excesses of government are their best recruiters.

  Richard Brookhiser

  Mean, Government, Excess

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• Glory belongs to God, of course; that's what the word really means. And you can't serve God with a gun.

  Gregory David Roberts

  Mean, Gun, Glory

  Gregory David Roberts (2004). “Shantaram: A Novel”, p.695, Macmillan

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• The basic drive behind real philosophy is curiosity about the world, not interest in the writings of philosophers. Each of us emerges from the preconsciousness of babyhood and simply finds himself here, in it, in the world. That experience alone astonishes some people. What is all this - what is the world? And what are we? From the beginning of humanity some have been under a compulsion to ask these questions, and have felt a craving for the answers. This is what is really meant by any such phrase as 'mankind's need for metaphysics.'

  Bryan Magee

  Philosophy, Real, Writing

  "Confessions of a Philosopher". Book by Bryan Magee, 1997.

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• Space really means the level of awareness or presence, not thinking. So, can you look at your partner and not think? Two conscious beings realize that the essence of the relationship is the space in it. Even when there is an egoic overlay, it is not too dense or heavy for you to sense the essence underneath it. You don't need to react to the egoic overlay. When you don't react to it you don't strengthen it.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Mean, Thinking, Essence

  Source: jhaines6.wordpress.com

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• My father was a minister for 50 years with Pentecostal Church of God in Christ. We prayed about everything, every day, then he always said, "Amen. God is love." I thought God is love was one word. Like "Godislove." And it took me a long time to learn what that really meant.

  Denzel Washington

  Father, Years, Long

  "‘The Book of Eli’: Interview with Denzel Washington, Mila Kunis, and Gary Oldman". Roundtable discussions, www.beliefnet.com.

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• Everything is this distorted mishmash of pop culture that pulls from this era and that era and is just thrown at the wall. These people have no clue what anything really means. There are guys out there getting a million hits for a video.

  Willis Earl Beal

  Wall, Mean, People

  Interview with Ryan Dombal, pitchfork.com. September 20, 2013.

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