Offence Quotes - Page 4

• Be careful how you do one man a pleasure which must needs occasion equal displeasure in another. For he who is thus slighted will not forget, but will think the offence to himself the greater in that another profits by it; while he who receives the pleasure will either not remember it, or will consider the favour done him less than it really was.

  Francesco Guicciardini

  Men, Thinking, Needs

  Francesco Guicciardini (1890). “Counsels and Reflections of Francesco Guicciardini”

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• When a Cabinet Minister who is sacked for telling lies is re-appointed, in the face of every constitutional convention, only for the same man to be sacked again from the same Cabinet for the same offence by the same Prime Minister – no wonder the public are cynical about politics.

  William Hague

  Lying, Men, Cynical

  William Hague's Speech to the Spring forum in Harrogate, www.theguardian.com. March 4, 2001.

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• From tender youth we are told by father and teacher that betrayal is the most heinous offence imaginable. But what is betrayal?…Betrayal means breaking ranks and breaking off into the unknown. Sabina knew of nothing more magnificent than going off into the unknown.

  Milan Kundera

  Teacher, Betrayal, Father

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• A government that can at pleasure accuse, shoot, and hang men, as traitors, for the one general offence of refusing to surrender themselves and their property unreservedly to its arbitrary will, can practice any and all special and particular oppressions it pleases.

  Lysander Spooner

  Men, Practice, Special

  Lysander Spooner (1867). “No Treason: No. 1-”, p.15

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• A strong argument for the religion of Christ is this - that offences against Charity are about the only ones which men on their death-beds can be made - not to understand - but to feel - as crime.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Strong, Men, Bed

  Edgar Allan Poe (2014). “Complete Collection of Edgar Allan Poe - 170+ eBooks (Complete Tales, Poems, Novels, Essays, Miscellaneous, Play)”, p.1207, Ageless Reads

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• We do not tell old friends beneath our roof-tree that they are an offence to the eyesight.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Tree, Old Friends, Roof

  P. G. Wodehouse (2015). “Right Ho, Jeeves”, p.15, Booklassic

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• Love is always patient and kind. It is never jealous.Love is never boastful or conceited. It is never rude or selfish. It does not take offense and is not resentful.

  Nicholas Sparks

  Selfish, Jealous, Conceited

  "Message in a Bottle". Book by Nicholas Sparks, April 1, 1998.

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• Thus with hir fader for a certeyn space
  Dwelleth this flour of wyfly pacience,
  That neither by hir wordes ne hir face
  Biforn the folk, ne eek in her absence,
  Ne shewed she that hir was doon offence.

  Geoffrey Chaucer

  Patience, Space, Faces

  Geoffrey Chaucer (1874). “The Prioresses Tale: Sire Thopas, the Monkes Tale, the Clerkes Tale, the Squieres Tale, from the Canterbury Tales”, p.90

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• In adultery, there is usually tenderness and self-sacrifice; in murder, courage; in profanation and blasphemy, a certain satanic splendour. Judas elected those offences unvisited by any virtues: abuse of confidence and informing.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Sacrifice, Self, Abuse

  "Ficciones". Book by Jorge Luis Borges, 1944.

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• I think it is well . . . for the man in the street to realise there is no power on earth that can protect him from bombing, whatever people may tell him. The bomber will always get through. The only defence is in offence, which means that you have to kill more women and children more quickly than the enemy if you want to save yourselves.

  Stanley Baldwin

  Children, Mean, Men

  Speech in House of Commons, 10 Nov. 1932

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• Christianity is alone in thinking that sex is entirely the Devil's business and an offence to God, This is a strange doctrine and almost implies that God and the devil must have collaborated on the creation of humanity, God working above the belly button and the Devil below.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Sex, Thinking, Humanity

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• Pardon, we beseech Thee, all our offences of omission and commission; and grant that in all our thoughts, words, and actions, we may conform to Thy known will manifested in our consciences, and in the revelations of Jesus Christ our Saviour.

  Timothy Pickering

  Jesus, Omission, May

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• Each famous author of antiquity whom I recover places a new offence and another cause of dishonor to the charge of earlier generations, who, not satisfied with their own disgraceful barrenness, permitted the fruit of other minds, and the writings that their ancestors had produced by toil and application, to perish through insufferable neglect. Although they had nothing of their own to hand down to those who were to come after, they robbed posterity of its ancestral heritage.

  Petrarch

  Writing, Hands, Mind

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• The one weapon every man, soldier, sailor, or airman should be able to use effectively is the rifle. It is always his weapon of personal safety in an emergency, and for many it is the primary weapon of offence and defense. Expertness in its use cannot be over emphasized.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Gun, Men, Safety

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• The national laws of the five regions of India prescribe no cangue, beatings or prison. Those who are guilty are fined in accordance with the degree of the offence committed. There is no capital punishment.

  Hyecho

  Law, Punishment, India

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• There is a very broad theory that society gets the right to hang, as the individual gets the right to defend himself. Suppose she does; there are certain principles which limit this right. Society has got the murderer within four walls; he never can do any more harm. Has society any need to take that man's life to protect itself? If any society has only the right that the individual has, she has no right to inflict the penalty of death, because she can effectually restrain the individual from ever again committing his offence.

  Wendell Phillips

  Wall, Men, Principles

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• It surely can be no offence to state, that the progress of science has led to new views, and that the consequences that can be deduced from the knowledge of a hundred facts may be very different from those deducible from five. It is also possible that the facts first known may be the exceptions to a rule and not the rule itself, and generalisations from these first-known facts, though useful at the time, may be highly mischievous, and impede the progress of the science if retained when it has made some advance.

  Henry De la Beche

  Science, Views, Progress

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• When Bobby came into the league he was a rushing defenseman, a goal scorer and a point getter. He just opened the game up to more offence and that's the way the game is played now.

  Johnny Bucyk

  Hockey, Games, Rushing

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• For if it is not lawful to take the law into our own hands and slay even a guilty person, whose death no public sentence has warranted. Then certainly he who kills himself is a homicide, and so much the guiltier of his own death as he was more innocent of that offence for which he doomed himself to die.

  Saint Augustine

  Suicide, Suicidal, Hands

  Saint Augustine of Hippo (2016). “Saint Augustine of Hippo Collection [50 Books]”, p.9332, Aeterna Press

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• There are offences given and offences not given but taken.

  Izaak Walton

  Confidence, Taken, Given

  Izaak Walton (1833). “The Complete Angler ; Or, Contemplative Man's Recreation; Being a Discourse on Rivers, Ponds, Fish and Fishing. With Lives and Notes”, p.33

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• Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind.

  Edward Gibbon

  Government, Law, Punishment

  Edward Gibbon (1846). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.444

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• The moderate are not usually the most sincere, for the same circumspection which makes them moderate makes them likewise retentive of what could give offence.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Giving, Sincere, Prudence

  Walter Savage Landor (2016). “Delphi Collected Poetical Works of Walter Savage Landor (Illustrated)”, Delphi Classics

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• Take advantage of the gracious condescension of the elegant calf's kidney, multiply its metamorphoses: you can without giving it any offence, call it the chameleon of cuisine.

  Emmanuel des Essarts

  Food, Giving, Cooking

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• Vatican City is a bit overrated in my opinion - no offence to the Vatican.

  Ed Stoppard

  Cities, Opinion, Overrated

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• The character of the tribunes was, in every respect, different from that of the consuls. The appearance of the former was modest and humble; but their persons were sacred and inviolable. Their force was suited rather for opposition than for action. They were instituted to defend the oppressed, to pardon offences, to arraign the enemies of the people, and, when they judged it necessary, to stop, by a single word, the whole machine of government.

  Edward Gibbon

  Humble, Character, Government

  Edward Gibbon (2016). “THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (All 6 Volumes): From the Height of the Roman Empire, the Age of Trajan and the Antonines - to the Fall of Byzantium; Including a Review of the Crusades, and the State of Rome during the Middle Ages”, p.106, e-artnow

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