Demoralizing Quotes

• Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing.

  Harriet B. Braiker

  Motivational, Women, Memorable

  91 Copy quote

• There's nothing more demoralizing than a leader who can't clearly articulate why we're doing what we're doing.

  James M. Kouzes

  Leadership, Leader, Authority

  19 Copy quote

• It is not defeat that destroys you,it is being demoralized by defeat that destroy you.

  Imran Khan

  Deep Thought, Defeat, Politician

  92 Copy quote

• It takes courage to have a conscience when you seem to see others getting something tangible out of not bothering to struggle with the morality of a situation. It gets frustrating and demoralizing. This is precisely where character comes in. All throughout history special people have felt compelled to do what they objectively saw as right and good - even in the face of humiliation or rejection or expulsion or torture or death. That is because they believed that certain ideas were more important than individual well-being.

  Laura Schlessinger

  Struggle, Character, Ideas

  10 Copy quote

• Demoralize the enemy from within by surprise, terror, sabotage, assassination. This is the war of the future.

  Adolf Hitler

  Military, War, Enemy

  89 Copy quote

• There is nothing more demoralizing than a small but adequate income.

  Edmund Wilson

  Money, Income, Adequate

  Edmund Wilson (1951). “Memoirs of Hecate County”

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's better to grow your employees, steer them into a place that they can learn and succeed, and want to work hard and be loyal, than to have a revolving door of employees. That's demoralizing.

  Glen Mazzara

  Hard Work, Doors, Succeed

  8 Copy quote

• The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.

  Oscar Wilde

  Insecure, Civilization, Machines

  "The Soul of Man Under Socialism" (1891)

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is a horrible demoralizing thing to be a lawyer. You look for such low motives in everyone and everything.

  Katharine Tynan

  Looks, Lawyer, Lows

  7 Copy quote

• To be loved is very demoralizing

  Katharine Hepburn

  Love, Confusion

  14 Copy quote

• Tutelage is a comfortable relationship for the senior partner, but it is demoralizing in the long run. It breeds illusions of omniscience on one side and attitudes of impotent irresponsibility on the other.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Senior, Running, Attitude

  10 Copy quote

• Individuals bearing witness cannot do the work of social movements, but they can break a corrosive and demoralizing silence.

  Ellen Willis

  Silence, Movement, Individual

  "Three Elegies for Susan Sontag". "New Politics", Vol. X, No. 3, 2005.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Money: There's nothing in the world so demoralizing as money.

  Sophocles

  Money, World, Antigone

  Sophocles (1977). “The Oedipus Cycle: An English Version”, Harcourt

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• I may as well cut my losses and make a hasty exit while I still had enough self-esteem to walk upright. Crawling was so demoralizing

  Darynda Jones

  Self Esteem, Cutting, Loss

  Darynda Jones (2012). “Death and the Girl Next Door”, p.28, Macmillan

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• Too much money is as demoralizing as too little, and there's no such thing as exactly enough.

  Mignon McLaughlin

  Money, Littles, Too Much

  Mignon McLaughlin (2014). “Aperçus: The Aphorisms of Mignon McLaughlin”, p.101, BookBaby

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• How marriage ruins a man! It is as demoralizing as cigarettes, and far more expensive.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Marriage, Sarcastic

  Oscar Wilde (2013). “Lady Windermere's Fan”, p.55, Courier Corporation

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Set exorbitant standards, and give your people hell when they don't live up to them. There is nothing so demoralizing as a boss who tolerates second rate work.

  David Ogilvy

  People, Giving, Boss

  David Ogilvy (2012). “The Unpublished David Ogilvy”, p.70, Profile Books

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• You have to protect it too, you can't let just any stupid person take it and do something demoralizing with it. At the same time, I don't believe in being so rigid about controlling what happens either.

  Paul Auster

  Stupid, Believe, Protect

  7 Copy quote

• There is something demoralizing about watching two people get more and more crazy about each other, especially when you are the only extra person in the room.

  Sylvia Plath

  Crazy, Two, People

  Sylvia Plath (2016). “The Bell Jar”, p.11, Hamilton Books

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Like every aspect of cancer I've weathered thus far, today's experience was not at all demoralizing, expensive or humiliating. No, it was just plain fun.

  April Winchell

  Fun, Cancer, Today

  8 Copy quote

• Only let the North exert as much moral influence over the South, as the South has exerted demoralizing influence over the North, and slavery would die amid the flame of Christian remonstrance, and faithful rebuke, and holy indignation

  Angelina Grimke

  Christian, Flames, Faithful

  Sarah Grimke, Angelina Grimke (2015). “On Slavery and Abolitionism: Essays and Letters”, p.155, Penguin

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• While negativity is politically useful, it is also demoralizing unless it is accompanied - and to some extent overshadowed - by elevated and inspiring ideas about the American future.

  John Podhoretz

  Ideas, Negativity

  7 Copy quote

• Convictions that outcomes are determined by one's own actions can be either demoralizing or heartening, depending on the level of self-judged efficacy. People who regard outcomes as personally determined, but who lack the requisite skills, would experience low self-efficacy and view the activities with a sense of futility

  Albert Bandura

  Self, Views, Skills

  4 Copy quote

• Outrage, combining as it does shock, anger, reproach, and helplessness, is perhaps the most unmanageable, the most demoralizing of all the emotions.

  Margery Allingham

  Anger, Doe, Emotion

  Margery Allingham (1959). “Crime and Mr. Campion”

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is something demoralizing about watching two people get more and more crazy about each other, especially when you are the only extra person in the room. It's like watching Paris from an express caboose heading in the opposite direction--every second the city gets smaller and smaller, only you feel it's really you getting smaller and smaller and lonelier and lonelier, rushing away from all those lights and excitement at about a million miles an hour.

  Sylvia Plath

  Crazy, Light, Opposites

  Sylvia Plath (2016). “The Bell Jar”, p.11, Hamilton Books

  9 Copy quote

  Show source