Harshness Quotes - Page 3

• It is pride which fills the world with so much harshness and severity. We are rigorous to offenses as if we had never offended.

  Hugh Blair

  Pride, World, Offense

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• Oh! if people were but acquainted with piety, they would not fear it so much, or give it so unattractive a character; 'tis the balm of life, and perhaps in the world it is believed to consist of bitterness, harshness, uncouthness; but, take my word for it, nothing is more gentle, more yielding, more loving than a pious soul.

  Eugenie de Guerin

  Character, People, Giving

  Eugénie de Guérin (1866). “Letters of Eugénie de Guérin”, p.137

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• The painful thing is that when we buy into disapproval, we are practicing disapproval. When we buy into harshness, we are practicing harshness. The more we do it, the stronger these qualities become. How sad it is that we become so expert at causing harm to ourselves and others. The trick then is to practice gentleness and letting go. We can learn to meet whatever arises with curiosity and not make it such a big deal.

  Pema Chodron

  Letting Go, Practice, Curiosity

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• Harshness towards individuals who flout the laws and commands of the state is for the public good; no greater crime against the public interest is possible than to show leniency to those who violate it.

  Cardinal Richelieu

  Law, Crime, Individual

  "Champlain's Dream: The European Founding of North America". Book by David Hackett Fischer, 2008.

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• Nietzsche was personally more philosophical than his philosophy. His talk about power, harshness, and superb immorality was the hobby of a harmless young scholar and constitutional invalid.

  George Santayana

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Hobbies

  George Santayana, Martin A. Coleman (2009). “The Essential Santayana: Selected Writings”, p.580, Indiana University Press

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• Love is a feeling that comes into our hearts of our own choice for neither force nor harshness can limit the heart's freedom.

  Pietro Metastasio

  Love, Heart, Choices

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• Americans, it seems to me, tend to protect their children from the harshness of life, in their interest. That's not the way my people rear their children. They let them experience the world as it is.

  Chinua Achebe

  Children, People, World

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• Quelque rigueur qui loge en votre coeur, Amour s'en peut un jour rendre vainqueur. That little harshness which resides in your heart, Love will vanquish someday.

  Louise Labe

  Heart, Littles, Someday

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• The problem is not the harshness of Fate, for anything we want strongly enough we get. The trouble is rather that when we have it we grow sick of it, and then we should never blame Fate, only our own desire.

  Cesare Pavese

  Fate, Sick, Desire

  Diary entry for February 03, 1943. "This Business of Living: Diaries 1935-1950". Book by Cesare Pavese, 2009.

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• The modern clercs have created in so-called cultivated society a positive romanticism of harshness. The have also created a romanticism of contempt.

  Julien Benda

  Modern, Contempt, Romanticism

  "Treason of the Intellectuals". Book by Julien Benda, p. 143, 1927.

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• Harshness is for the good of a boy, soft-heartedness will ruin him.

  Ihara Saikaku

  Boys, Ruins

  Saikaku Ihara (1959). “The Japanese Family Storehouse: Or, The Millionaire's Gospel Modernised. Nippon Eitai-gura, Or Daifuku Shin Chōja Kyō (1688)”, Cambridge University Press

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• There are two visions of America. One precedes our founding fathers and finds its roots in the harshness of our Puritan past. It is very suspicious of freedom, uncomfortable with diversity hostile to science, unfriendly to reason, contemptuous of personal autonomy. It sees America as a religious nation. It views patriotism as allegiance to God. It secretly adores coercion and conformity. Despite our constitution, despite the legacy of the Enlightenment, it appeals to millions of Americans and threatens our freedom.

  Sherwin Wine

  Religious, Father, Past

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• I have known some grim bells, with not a single joyous note in the whole peal, so forced to hurry for a human festival, with their harshness made light of, as though the Bishop of Hereford had again been forced to dance in his boots by a merry highwayman.

  Alice Meynell

  Light, Sound, Bishops

  Alice Meynell (2013). “The Essential Alice Meynell Collection”, p.225, eBookIt.com

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• I think Oprah's [winfrey] learned from me that it's OK to be harsh on people because in one's harshness you can see transformation happen right before your very eyes.

  Suze Orman

  Eye, Thinking, People

  Source: www.npr.org

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• The painful thing is that when we buy into disapproval,we are practicing disapproval. When we buy into harshness,we are practicing harshness.

  Pema Chodron

  Painful, Painful Things, Disapproval

  Pema Chodron (2000). “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times”, p.34, Shambhala Publications

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