Misanthropy Quotes

• Misanthropy ariseth from a man trusting another without having sufficient knowledge of his character, and, thinking him to be truthful, sincere, and honourable, finds a little afterwards that he is wicked, faithless, and then he meets with another of the same character. When a man experiences this often, and more particularly from those whom he considered his most dear and best friends, at last, having frequently made a slip, he hates the whole world, and thinks that there is nothing sound at all in any of them.

  Plato

  Hate, Character, Men

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• I'm tired of this back-slappin' "isn't humanity neat" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes.

  Bill Hicks

  Tired, Shoes, Bullshit

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• I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.

  Bill Hicks

  Believe, Revolutionary Ideas, Humanity

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• Real misanthropes are not found in solitude, but in the world; since it is experience of life, and not philosophy, which produces real hatred of mankind.

  Giacomo Leopardi

  Philosophy, Real, Hatred

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• By four o'clock, I've discounted suicide in favor of killing everyone else in the entire world instead.

  Warren Ellis

  Suicide, Optimistic, Bad Ass

  "Transmetropolitan". Comic book series by Warren Ellis, 1997–2002.

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• Misanthropes have some admirable if paradoxical virtues. It is no exaggeration to say that we are among the nicest people you are likely to meet. Because good manners build sturdy walls, our distaste for intimacy makes us exceedingly cordial "ships that pass in the night." As long as you remain a stranger we will be your friend forever.

  Florence King

  Friendship, Relationship, Wall

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• I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.

  Samuel Johnson

  Funny, Hate, Integrity

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1824). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., Comprehending an Account of His Studies, and Numerous Works, in Chronological Order: A Series of His Epistolary Correspondence and Conversations with Many Eminent Persons; and Various Original Pieces of His Composition, Never Before Published; the Whole Exhibiting a View of Literature and Literary Men in Great Britain, for Near Half a Century During which He Flourished”, p.6

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• I hate all men, the ones because they are mean and vicious, and the others for being complaisant with the vicious ones.

  Moliere

  Hate, Mean, Men

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• This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory.

  William Shakespeare

  Vapour, Earth, Cynicism

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [316]

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• Pasteboard pies and paper flowers are being banished from the stage by the growth of that power of accurate observation which is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it...

  George Bernard Shaw

  Power, Cynical, Belief

  "Music in London, 1890-94: Criticisms Contributed Week by Week to The World, Volume 27 (The World (18 July 1894))". Book by George Bernard Shaw, 1931.

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• You call me a misanthrope because I avoid society. You err; I love society. Yet in order not to hate people, I must avoid their company.

  Caspar David Friedrich

  Hate, Order, People

  "Caspar David Friedrich and the Subject of Landscape". Book by Joseph Koerner, 1990.

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• Do you hate people? I don't hate them...I just feel better when they're not around.

  Charles Bukowski

  Hate, Feel Better, People

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• How frequently has melancholy and even misanthropy taken possession of me, when the world has disgusted me, and friends have proven unkind. I have then considered myself as a particle broken off from the grand mass of mankind.

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Taken, Broken, World

  Mary Wollstonecraft (2007). “Letters from Scandinavia”, p.13, Lulu.com

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• I found him well educated, with unusual powers of mind, but infected with misanthropy, and subject to perverse moods of alternate enthusiasm and melancholy.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Mind, Enthusiasm, Melancholy

  Edgar Allan Poe (2015). “A Classic Crime Collection”, p.104, Simon and Schuster

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• I could never find two people who are perfectly equal: one will always be more valuable than the other. And many people, as a matter of fact, simply have no value.

  Pentti Linkola

  Two, People, Matter

  Pentti Linkola (2011). “Can Life Prevail?”, p.118, Arktos

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• Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

  H. L. Mencken

  God, Being Happy, Cynical

  A Mencken Chrestomathy ch. 30 (1949)

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• Misanthropy is a suit of armor lined with thorns.

  Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

  Suits Of Armor, Thorns, Armor

  Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1994). “Aphorisms”, Ariadne Press (CA)

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• What is Man? A miserable little pile of secrets.

  Andre Malraux

  Men, Keeping Secrets, Littles

  ANDRE MALRAUX (1968). “ANTI-MEMOIRS”

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• I don't care if you're a parent giving to a child, a worker to a company, or a romantic to a lover, this behavior eventually leads to resentment. There's always a hidden agenda of What's in it for me? It's often suppressed, and this is why sacrifice is ultimately unwise and incomplete. Does this mean that there's no such thing as altruism, philanthropy, or generosity? No, it just means that anytime these exist, so do egocentricity, misanthropy, and greed. There's always a balancing force, even if it's sometimes hidden or unconscious.

  John Frederick Demartini

  Children, Mean, Sacrifice

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• I've gotta be honest, it is a little of a mystery to me. I consider myself very sentimental, very sensitive, but obviously my outward appearance is a bit scruffy-haired, and I have a general tendency toward snarling at people, and a sort of misanthropic nature. Maybe that is what people actually read. I do actually believe that misanthropy and sensitivity go hand in hand, because I have a tremendous disappointment in the ways of the world.

  Larry Fessenden

  Disappointment, Believe, People

  Source: film.avclub.com

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• Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Funny, Business, Stupid

  Elbert Hubbard, Bert Hubbard (1923). “Selected writings of Elbert Hubbard: his mintage of wisdom, coined from a life of love, laughter and work”

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• The multiplication of our kind borders on the obscene; the duty to love them, on the preposterous.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Borders, Kind, Duty

  "History and Utopia". Book by Emile M. Cioran, 1960.

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• Whenever I tell people I'm a misanthrope they react as though that's a bad thing, the idiots. I live in London, for God's sake. Have you walked down Oxford Street recently? Misanthropy's the only thing that gets you through it. It's not a personality flaw, it's a skill.

  Charlie Brooker

  Skills, Oxford, People

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• I cannot but conclude that the Bulk of your Natives, to be the most pernicious Race of little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth.

  Jonathan Swift

  Race, Gulliver, Earth

  Gulliver's Travels "A Voyage to Brobdingnag" ch. 6 (1726)

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• A hermitage in the forest is the refuge of the narrow-minded misanthrope; a hammock on the ocean is the asylum for the generous distressed.

  Herman Melville

  Ocean, Generosity, Forests

  Herman Melville (1855). “Israel Potter: his fifty years of exile”, p.20

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