Disagreeable Quotes - Page 4

• What am I in most people's eyes? A nonentity or an eccentric and disagreeable man... I should want my work to show what is in the heart of such an eccentric, of such a nobody.

  Vincent Van Gogh

  Heart, Eye, Men

  Vincent van Gogh, Rachel Barnes (1990). “Van Gogh by Vincent”

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• In society every man is taken for what he gives himself out to be; but he must give himself out to be something. Better to be slightly disagreeable than altogether insignificant.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Taken, Character, Men

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Stuart Blackie (1883). “The Wisdom of Goethe”, Edinburgh, W. Blackwood

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• It is a mark of a superior mind to be able to disagree without being disagreeable.

  Ann Landers

  Mind, Able, Conflict

  Ann Landers (1979). “The Ann Landers Encyclopedia, A to Z: Improve Your Life Emotionally, Medically, Sexually, Socially, Spiritually”

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• John Wesley's conversation is good, but he is never at leisure. He is always obliged to go at a certain hour. This is very disagreeable to a man who loves to fold his legs and have his talk out as I do.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Leisure, Legs

  In James Boswell 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' (1791) vol. 3, p. 230 (31 March 1778)

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• Whichever way we look the prospect is disagreeable. Behind, we have left pleasures we shall never enjoy, and therefore regret; and before, we see pleasures which we languish to possess, and are consequently uneasy till we possess them.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Regret, Looks, Way

  Oliver Goldsmith, David Masson (1869). “The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith”, p.157

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• Unfortunately civility is hard to codify or legislate, but you know it when you see it. It's possible to disagree without being disagreeable.

  Sandra Day O'Connor

  Conflict, Civility, Manners

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• Cato, being scurrilously treated by a low and vicious fellow, quietly said to him, "A contest between us is very unequal, for thou canst bear ill language with ease, and return it with pleasure; but to me it is unusual to hear, and disagreeable to speak it." There are none more abusive to others than they that lie most open to it themselves; but the humor goes round, and he that laughs at me today will have somebody to laugh at him tomorrow.

  Seneca the Younger

  Lying, Laughing, Return

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• Obstinacy, sir, is certainly a great vice; and in the changeful state of political affairs it is frequently the cause of great mischief. It happens, however, very unfortunately, that almost the whole line of the great and masculine virtues--constancy, gravity, magnanimity, fortitude, fidelity, and firmness--are closely allied to this disagreeable quality, of which you have so just an abhorrence; and in their excess all these virtues very easily fall into it.

  Edmund Burke

  Fall, Political, Quality

  William Pitt (Earl of Chatham), Edmund Burke, Thomas Erskine Baron Erskine, Jean Gabriel Peltier (1834). “Celebrated Speeches of Chatham, Burke, and Erskine: To which is Added the Arguement of Mr. Mackintosh in the Case of Peltier”, p.87

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• A single woman with a narrow income must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old maid, the proper sport of boys and girls, but a single woman of fortune is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as anybody else.

  Jane Austen

  Girl, Sports, Boys

  Jane Austen (2007). “The Complete Novels of Jane Austen”, p.824, Wordsworth Editions

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• A forest of all manner of trees is poor, if not disagreeable, in effect; a mass of one species of tree is sublime.

  John Ruskin

  Tree, Sublime, Forests

  John Ruskin (1873). “Pt. 3, sections 1-2 of the imaginative and theoretic faculties”, p.51

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• When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know have gone to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life.

  Mark Twain

  Numbers, People, Different

  Pudd'nhead Wilson ch. 13, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" (1894)

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• Choose a good disagreeable friend, if you be wise--a surly, steady, economical, rigid fellow.

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Friends, Wise, Surly

  William Makepeace Thackeray (1869). “The book of snobs. Sketches and travels in London. Denis Duval”, p.121

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• It is in the highest interests of the devil to persuade the world that religious people are disagreeable.

  Hubert Van Zeller

  Religious, People, Devil

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• Disagreeable suspicions are usually the fruits of a second marriage.

  Jean Racine

  Fruit, Second Marriage, Suspicion

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, p. 771-72, Phèdre, II. 5, 1922.

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• Humor can help you to disagree without being disagreeable. The key in democracy is not necessarily that we agree, but that we participate....Despite all the heavy problems- domestic and international- there is humor. Humor transcends partisanship.

  Gerald R. Ford

  Humor, Keys, Democracy

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• As we can not love what is hateful, let us accustom ourselves neither to think nor to speak of disagreeable things and persons.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Thinking, Hateful, Speak

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• The refinement of morality increases together with the refinement of fear. Today the fear of disagreeable feelings in other people is almost the strongest of our own disagreeable feelings.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  People, Feelings, Together

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1977). “The Portable Nietzsche”, p.53, Penguin

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• Perhaps the gods are kind to us, by making life more disagreeable as we grow older. In the end death seems less intolerable than the manifold burdens we carry

  Sigmund Freud

  Kind, Burden, Ends

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• Good and Evil are names that signify our appetites and aversions, which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men, are different: And diverse men differ not only in their judgment, on the senses of what is pleasant and unpleasant to the taste, smell, hearing, touch, and sight, but also of what is conformable, or disagreeable to Reason, in the actions of the common life. Nay, the same man, in diverse times, differs from himself, and one time praiseth, that is, calleth Good, what another time he dispraiseth, and calleth Evil.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Men, Sight, Names

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• The most disagreeable thing that your worst enemy says to your face does not approach what your best friends say behind your back.

  Alfred de Musset

  Worst Enemy, Doe, Faces

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• This cold weather has set all the young Folks to providing Bedfellows. I have signed two or three Licences every Day [as a Fairfax Justice of the Peace] since I have been at Home. I wish I knew where to get a good one myself; for I find cold Sheets extreamly disagreeable.

  George Mason

  Home, Weather, Two

  Letter to his cousin, James Mercer, February 5, 1780.

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• If we must disagree, let's disagree without being disagreeable.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Ifs, Disagree

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• Rain is disagreeable, but snow is as much part of the mountain as are sunshine and clear skies.

  Gaston Rebuffat

  Rain, Sunshine, Sky

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• Criminal cases receive the attention of the press. The cruel and disagreeable things of life are more apt to get the newspaper space than the pleasant ones. It must be that most people enjoy hearing of and reading about the troubles of others. Perhaps men unconsciously feel that they rise in the general level as others go down.

  Clarence Darrow

  Reading, Men, Space

  Clarence Darrow (2015). “The Story of My Life”, p.80, Lulu.com

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• Often, moreover, it is...that aspect of our being that society finds eccentric, ridiculous, or disagreeable, that holds our sweet waters, our secret well of happiness, the key to our equanimity in malevolent climes.

  Tom Robbins

  Sweet, Keys, Water

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