Undeserving Quotes

• Only those who spread treachery, fire, and death out of hatred for the prosperity of others are undeserving of pity.

  Jose Marti

  Fire, Hatred, Abjection

  "Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos" edited by Carlos Ripoll, 1994.

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• They are good furniture pictures, unworthy of praise, and undeserving of blame.

  John Ruskin

  Furniture, Blame, Praise

  John Ruskin (1862). “pt. I. Of genral principles. pt. II. Of truth. v. 4. pt. v. Of mountain beauty”, p.340

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• Praise to the undeserving is severe satire.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Flattery, Praise, Satire

  Benjamin Franklin (1914). “Poor Richard's Almanack”

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• Should we grieve over a little misplaced charity, when an all knowing, all wise Being showers down every day his benefits on the unthankful and undeserving?

  Francis Atterbury

  Wise, Grieving, Knowing

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• Loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable; that one false step involves her in endless ruin; that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful; and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex.

  Jane Austen

  Beautiful, Sex, Loss

  Jane Austen (1813). “Pride and Prejudice: A Novel. : In Three Volumes”, p.100

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• To bring deserving things down by setting undeserving things up is one of its perverted delights; and there is no playing fast and loose with the truth, in any game, without growing the worse for it.

  Charles Dickens

  Games, Words Of Wisdom, Delight

  Charles Dickens (1872). “A Cyclopedia of the Best Thoughts of Charles Dickens”, p.246

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• The undeserving maintain power by promoting hysteria.

  Frank Herbert

  Hysteria, Promoting

  Frank Herbert (2008). “God Emperor of Dune”, p.306, Penguin

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• In the shadow of my hurt, forgiveness feel like a decision to reward my enemy. But in the shadow of the cross, forgiveness is merely a gift from one undeserving soul to another.

  Andy Stanley

  Forgiveness, Hurt, Decision

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• Grace is unconditional acceptance given to an undeserving person by an unobligated giver.

  Tullian Tchividjian

  Acceptance, Grace, Given

  Twitter post from May 16, 2014

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• I loathe your ideals because I know no worse injustice than the giving of the undeserved.

  Ayn Rand

  Giving, Novelists, Philosopher

  Ayn Rand (2009). “We the Living”, p.81, Penguin

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• Being gay is a natural normal beautiful variation on being human. Period. End of subject. Therefore, any argument which says differently is an immoral supremacist one. Call it out as such. ... Be outraged, offended, angry and intolerant of any discussion or any one who describes you as unequal, undeserving or unnatural for being just as you are.

  Larry Kramer

  Beautiful, Gay, Normal

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• In our hearts... there must abide some pity for those people who have always felt themselves to be separate from even their most familiar surroundings, those people who either are foreigners or who suffer a singular point of view that makes them feel as if they’re foreigners - even in their native lands. In our hearts... there also abides a certain suspicion that such people need to feel set apart from their society. But people who initiate loneliness are no less lonely than those who are suddenly surprised by loneliness, nor are they undeserving of our pity.

  John Irving

  Lonely, Loneliness, Heart

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• The Gospel takes away our right forever, to discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving poor.

  Dorothy Day

  Forever, Poor, Deserving

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• All through it, I have known myself to be quite undeserving. And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire- a fire, however, inseparable in its nature from myself, quickening nothing, lighting nothing, doing no service, idly burning away.

  Charles Dickens

  Fire, Wish, Weakness

  Charles Dickens (2005). “A Tale of Two Cities - Literary Touchstone Edition”, p.143, Prestwick House Inc

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• Mass incarceration has become normalized in the United States. Poor folks of color are shuttled from decrepit, underfunded schools to brand new, high tech prisons and then relegated to a permanent undercaste - stigmatized as undeserving of any moral care or concern.

  Michelle Alexander

  School, Color, United States

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Perhaps we just need little reminders from time to time that we are already dignified, deserving, worthy. Sometimes we don't feel that way because of the wounds and the scars we carry from the past or because of the uncertainty of the future. It is doubtful that we came to feel undeserving on our own. We were helped to feel unworthy. We were taught it in a thousand ways when we were little, and we learned our lessons well.

  Jon Kabat-Zinn

  Life, Past, Insecurity

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• She explained that many people, but especially women, feel fraudulent when they are praised for their accomplishments. Instead of feeling worthy of recognition, they feel undeserving and guilty, as if a mistake has been made. Despite being high achievers, even experts in their fields, women can't seem to shake the sense that it is only a matter of time until they are found out for who they really are- impostors with limited skills or abilities.

  Sheryl Sandberg

  Mistake, Skills, People

  Sheryl Sandberg (2014). “Lean In for Graduates”, p.37, Knopf

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• There is no concept more generally cherished by publishers than that of the Undeserving Poor.

  A. J. Liebling

  Poor, Publishers, Concepts

  A. J. Liebling (2005). “Just Enough Liebling: Classic Work by the Legendary New Yorker Writer”, p.22, Macmillan

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• Grace is the good pleasure of God that inclines him to bestow benefits upon the undeserving. It is a self-existent principle inherent in the divine nature and appears to us as a self-caused propensity to pity the wretched, spare the guilty, welcome the outcast, and bring into favor those who were before under just disapprobation. Its use to us sinful men is to save us and make us sit together in heavenly places to demonstrate to the ages the exceeding riches of God's kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Jesus, Kindness, Men

  Aiden Wilson Tozer (1975). “The Knowledge of the Holy: The Attributes of God: Their Meaning in the Christian Life”

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• The Lord commands us to do good unto all men without exception, though the majority are very undeserving when judged according to their own merits. But scripture here helps us out with an excellent argument when it teaches us that we must not think of man's real value, but only of his creation in the image of God to which we owe all possible honor and love.

  John Calvin

  Love, Real, Men

  "Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life". Book by John Calvin, 1550.

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• Understanding God's great love for undeserving people such as us, gives us insight into His great majesty. As beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, so great love reveals the nature of the One who loves deeply.

  Mike Bickle

  Eye, Deep Love, Understanding God

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• Undeserved praise causes more pangs of conscience later than undeserved blame, but probably only for this reason, that our power of judgment are more completely exposed by being over praised than by being unjustly underestimated.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Causes, Blame, Judgment

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• The highest act of love is the giving of the best gift, and, if necessary, at the greatest cost, to the least deserving. That's what God did. At the loss of His Son's life to the totally undeserving, God gave the best gift - the display of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.

  John Piper

  Valentines Day, Son, Loss

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• Be kind to people whether they deserve your kindness or not. If your kindness reaches the deserving good for you if your kindness reaches the undeserving take joy in your compassion.

  James Fadiman

  Kindness, Compassion, People

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• What a lie it is to call this a free country, where none but the unworthy and undeserving may swear.

  Mark Twain

  Country, Lying, May

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.381, Courier Corporation

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