Verbal Abuse Quotes

• Critical words to a child are as painful and damaging as being physically hit. They are verbal slaps in the face. Usually, critical words are accompanied by threats, name-calling, and yelling. This verbal abuse can be especially damaging. Insulting names echo in a child's mind over and over again until he comes to believe he is indeed stupid, selfish, lazy, or ugly and that in fact, that is all he is.

  Beverly Engel

  Children, Stupid, Selfish

  Beverly Engel (2002). “The Emotionally Abusive Relationship: How to Stop Being Abused and How to Stop Abusing”, p.71, John Wiley & Sons

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• Emotional abuse is any type of abuse that is not physical in nature. It can include everything from verbal abuse to the silent treatment, domination to subtle manipulation.

  Beverly Engel

  Emotional, Abuse, Domestic Violence

  "Emotionally Abused Women". Interview with David Roberts, www.healthyplace.com.

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• The words with which a child's heart is poisoned, whether through malice or through ignorance, remain branded in his memory, and sooner or later they burn his soul.

  Carlos Ruiz Zafon

  Children, Memories, Heart

  Carlos Ruiz Zafon (2005). “The Shadow of the Wind”, p.161, Penguin

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• The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

  Edmund Burke

  Bullying, Freedom, Work

  Speech on the Middlesex Election, 7 February 1771, in 'The Speeches' (1854)

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• Never strike anyone so old, small or weak that verbal abuse would have sufficed.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Abuse, Weak, Strikes

  P.J. O'Rourke (2015). “Thrown Under the Omnibus”, p.23, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• No one can be as calculatedly rude as the British, which amazes Americans, who do not understand studied insult and can only offer abuse as a substitute.

  Paul Gallico

  Inspirational, Rude, Insulting

  The New York Times, January 14, 1962.

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• They have a word in Finnish called sisu, which basically means guts. It’s the strongest word in the Finnish language. You tell a Finn he doesn’t have sisu, that’s like spitting in his face.

  Arthur Lydiard

  Mean, Track And Field, Faces

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• Screaming at children over their grades, especially to the point of the child's tears, is child abuse, pure and simple. It's not funny and it's not good parenting. It is a crushing, scarring, disastrous experience for the child. It isn't the least bit funny.

  Ben Stein

  Crush, Children, Parenting

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• Sticks and stones may break my bones, but chains and whips excite me.

  Rihanna

  Bullying, Dry Bones, Useless Life

  Song: S&M, Album: Loud

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• I have experienced jealousy, possessiveness, verbal abuse and violence from men, but I have also experienced jealousy, possessiveness, verbal abuse and violence from women, usually when I failed to respond to their advances.

  Julie Burchill

  Men, Abuse, Violence

  "Spare me from the whining women who are giving feminism a bad name" by Julie Burchill, www.theguardian.com. January 28, 2012.

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• Men might be chastised for being promiscuous, but I think they're more likely to be given a pass, due to a "men will be men" attitude that still prevails in the Western world. They don't usually experience anything like the virulent shaming and verbal abuse that women who are sexually adventurous are sometimes prone to experiencing.

  Christine Sneed

  Attitude, Thinking, Men

  Source: therumpus.net

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• I dealt with men who had tempers, and who could get violent-Lord knows how I had to defend myself against Howard Hughes and Frank Sinatra, and from Artie Shaw's verbal abuse. But George [C. Scott] was a different category of animal when he got drunk. He'd break into my hotel room, which he did in Italy, London and at the Beverly Hills Hotel, attack me to where I was frightened for my life, and scream, 'Why won't you marry me?' Well, I would never marry a man who couldn't control his liquor. Me, I'm a happy drunk. I laugh, I dance. I certainly don't break bottles and threaten to kill.

  Ava Gardner

  Animal, Men, Drunk

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• Since so many people these days don't seem to start their families until around age forty, I predict there will be less child beating, but more slipped disks from lifting babies out of cribs. Even the father of advanced age who's not inclined to spare the rod is likely to suffer more than his victim: The first punch he throws might well be the last straw for his rotator cuff, reducing his disciplinary options to mere verbal abuse and napping.

  Sarah Silverman

  Funny, Baby, Children

  Sarah Silverman (2010). “The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee”, p.46, Faber & Faber

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