Rebuke Quotes - Page 3

• Anger and just rebuke, and judgment given,
  That brought into this world a world of woe,
  Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery,
  Death's harbinger.

  John Milton

  Shadow, World, Woe

  John Milton (1750). “Paradise Lost: A Poem, in Twelve Books. The Author John Milton”, p.125

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• With regard to manner, be careful to speak in a soft, tender, kind and loving way. Even when you have occasion to rebuke, be careful to do it with manifest kindness. The effect will be incalculably better.

  Hosea Ballou

  Kindness, Way, Speak

  "Biography of Rev. Hosea Ballou. By his youngest son, Maturin M. Ballou". Book by Maturin Murray Ballou, 1854.

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• Jesus defeated satan in Gethsemane on the cross, not by directly confronting the devil, but by fulfilling the destiny to which He had been called. The greatest battle that was ever won was accomplished by the apparent death of the victor, without even a word of rebuke to His adversary!

  Francis Frangipane

  Jesus, Destiny, Battle

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• Brain, v. [as in "to brain"]: To rebuke bluntly, but not pointedly; to dispel a source of error in an opponent.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Errors, Brain, Opponents

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• Father, we ask that you give us a passion for the truth and not merely a hatred of falsehood. Keep us concerned for the spiritual health of people but open to your own rebukes from your mighty Word.

  Max Anders

  Spiritual, Father, Passion

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• Come hither, all ye empty things,
  Ye bubbles rais'd by breath of Kings;
  Who float upon the tide of state,
  Come hither, and behold your fate.
  Let pride be taught by this rebuke,
  How very mean a thing's a Duke;
  From all his ill-got honours flung,
  Turn'd to that dirt from whence he sprung.

  Jonathan Swift

  Kings, Mean, Fate

  Jonathan Swift, Thomas Sheridan (1812). “The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift...”, p.283

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• A suicide is both a rebuke to the living and a puzzle that defies them to solve it. Like a poem, suicide is finished and refuses to answer questions as to its final cause.

  Margaret Atwood

  Suicide, Finals, Answers

  Margaret Atwood (1984). “Second words: selected critical prose”, Beacon Press, 1984

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• Praise is sunshine; it warms, it inspires, it promotes growth; blame and rebuke are rain and hail; they beat down and bedraggle, even though they may at times be necessary.

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Rain, Sunshine, Inspire

  Harriet Beecher Stowe (1875). “We and Our Neighbors: Or, The Records of an Unfashionable Street: (Sequel to "My Wife and I.") A Novel”, p.325

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• Censure pardons the ravens but rebukes the doves. [The innocent are punished and the wicked escape.]

  Juvenal

  Ravens, Wicked, Innocent

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• Combativeness was, I suppose, the dominant trait in my grandmother's nature. An aggressive churchgoer, she was quite without Christian feeling; the mercy of the Lord Jesus had never entered her heart. Her piety was an act of war against Protestant ascendancy. ...The teachings of the Church did not interest her, except as they were a rebuke to others.

  Mary McCarthy

  Christian, Jesus, War

  "Memories of a Catholic Girlhood". Book by Mary McCarthy, 1957.

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• It is one thing to decry the rat race...that is the good and honorable work of moralists. It is quite another thing to quit the rat race, to drop out, to refuse to run any further--that is the work of the individualist. It is offensive because it is impolite it makes the rebuke personal the individualist calls not his or her behavior into question, but mine.

  Paul Gruchow

  Running, Race, Rats

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• Many who know something but not enough about dreams and their meaning...are liable to succumb to the prejudice that the dream actually has a moral purpose, that it warns, rebukes, comforts, foretells the future, etc. If one believes that the unconscious always knows best, one can easily be betrayed into leaving the dreams to take the necessary decisions, and is then disappointed when the dreams become more and more trivial and meaningless...The unconscious functions satisfactorily only when the conscious mind fufills its task to the very limit.

  Carl Jung

  Dream, Believe, Decision

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• I root for hurricanes. When, courtesy of the Weather Channel, I see one forming in the ocean off the coast of Africa, I find myself longing for it to become big and strong--Mother Nature's fist of fury, Gaia's stern rebuke. Considering the havoc mankind has wreaked upon nature with deforesting, stripmining, and the destruction of animal habitat, it only seems fair that nature get some of its own back and teach us that there are forces greater than our own.

  James Wolcott

  Mother, Strong, Stupid

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• [T]he man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Block, Struggle, Men

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• Cats are a standing rebuke to behavioral scientists wanting to know how the minds of animals work. The mind of a cat is an unscrutable mystery.

  Lewis Thomas

  Cat, Animal, Mind

  Lewis Thomas (1990). “A Long Line of Cells Collected Essays”

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• One of the things that makes a Negro unpleasant to white folk is the fact that he suffers from their injustice. He is thus a standing rebuke to them.

  H. L. Mencken

  White, Justice, Diversity

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.271, Knopf

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• A story contained in the family lore of Brigham Young's descendants illustrates the submissive nature of humility. It recounts that in a public meeting the Prophet Joseph, possibly as a test, sternly rebuked Brigham Young for something he had done or something he was supposed to have done but hadn't - the detail is unclear. When Joseph finished the rebuke, everyone in the room waited for Brigham Young's response. This powerful man, later known as the Lion of the Lord, in a voice everyone could tell was sincere, said simply and humbly, "Joseph, what do you want me to do?"

  Truman G. Madsen

  Powerful, Humility, Men

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• We will stand by our friends and administer a stinging rebuke to men or parties who are either indifferent, negligent, or hostile, and, wherever opportunity affords, to secure the election of intelligent, honest, earnest trade unionists, with clear, unblemished, paid-up union cards in their possession.

  Samuel Gompers

  Party, Intelligent, Opportunity

  Samuel Gompers, John McBride, William Green (1906). “The American Federationist”

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• Cats - a standing rebuke to behavioural scientists . . . least human of all creatures.

  Lewis Thomas

  Cat, Scientist, Humans

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• A winner rebukes and forgives; a loser is too Forgiveness breaks the chain of causality because he who forgives you -- out of love -- takes upon himself the consequences of what you have done. Forgiveness, therefore, always entails a sacrifice.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Forgiveness, Sacrifice, Forgiving

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• You guys take over while I go put on a shirt." Mrs. Kulavich had edged close enough to hear him. She beamed at him. "Don't bother on my account," she said. "Sadie!" Mr. Kulavich said in rebuke. "Oh, hush, George! I'm old, not dead!" "I'll remind you of that the next time I want to watch the Playboy Channel," he growled.

  Linda Howard

  Guy, Watches, Want

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• [...] endless action and reaction. Those beautifully rounded pebbles which you gather on the sand and which you hold in your hand and marvel at their exceeding smoothness, were chiseled into their varies and graceful forms by the ceaseless action of countless waves. Nature is herself a great worker and never tolerates, without certain rebuke, any contradiction to her wise example. Inaction is followed by stagnation. Stagnation is followed by pestilence and pestilence is followed by death.

  Frederick Douglass

  Wise, Hands, Example

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• It's in the difficult times that we're growing and you can't just rebuke everything hard. We've got to endure it and fight the good fight of faith and pass the test.

  Joel Osteen

  Fighting, Growing, Tests

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• One should follow a man of wisdom who rebukes one for one's faults, as one would follow a guide to some buried treasure. To one who follows such a wise man, it will be an advantage and not a disadvantage.

  Gautama Buddha

  Wise, Buddhist, Men

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• Indeed the Book of Job avowedly only answers mystery with mystery. Job is comforted with riddles; but he is comforted. Herein is indeed a type, in the sense of a prophecy, of things speaking with authority. For when he who doubts can only say, ‘I do not understand,’ it is true that he who knows can only reply or repeat ‘You do not understand.’ And under that rebuke there is always a sudden hope in the heart; and the sense of something that would be worth understanding.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Jobs, Book, Heart

  "The Everlasting Man". Book by G. K. Chesterton, IV: God and Comparative Religion, 1925.

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