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

  Gautama Buddha

  Inspiring, Wise, Buddhist

  38 Copy quote

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

  Aristotle

  Anger, Age, Old Age

  23 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

  15 Copy quote

• 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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• 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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• 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

  52 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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• 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

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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

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• 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

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

  Confucius

  Mean, Men, Virtuous

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• What Darwin was too polite to say, my friends, is that we came to rule the earth not because we were the smartest, or even the meanest, but because we have always been the craziest, most murderous motherfuckers in the jungle.

  Stephen King

  Smart, Mean, People

  FaceBook post by Stephen King from Jan 15, 2014

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• 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

  14 Copy quote

• Wealth and poverty; one is the parent of luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent.

  Plato

  Luxury, Parent, Poverty

  Plato (2012). “The Republic and Other Works”, p.110, Anchor

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• I consider nothing low but ignorance, vice, and meanness, characteristics generally found where the animal propensities predominate over the higher sentiments.

  William John Wills

  Ignorance, Animal, Vices

  William John Wills (1863). “A Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia: From Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria”, p.45, London : R. Bentley

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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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• In a lifetime of observing and participating in political debate, I have seen a lot of meanness.

  Dennis Prager

  Political, Debate, Lifetime

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