Quotes and Sayings about Insult

"Millions of dollars' worth of advertising shows such little respect for the reader's intelligence that it amounts almost to outright insult."
- James Randolph Adams
(Related: Intelligence, Advertising, Insult, Respect, Worth)

"To say 'we' and mean 'I' is one of the most recondite insults."
- Theodor Adorno
(Related: Insults)

"People bitch about losing their anonymity and then get insulted when someone doesn't recognize them from whatever success they've had."
- Casey Affleck
(Related: Success, People, Losing)

"This pilot, by far, was the best I ever read - and I hope that insults every other pilot I worked on."
- Will Arnett
(Related: Hope, Insults)

"To insult someone we call him "bestial." For deliberate cruelty and nature, "human" might be the greater insult."
- Isaac Asimov
(Related: Nature, Cruelty, Insult)

"I'm going to insult a whole industry here, but it seems like TV is for people who can't do film. I'm not talking about actresses; I'm talking about lighting people. Lighting on TV is just so... it's sinful, it really is."
- Kevyn Aucoin
(Related: People, Film, Insult, Talking)

"I like Frenchmen very much, because even when they insult you they do it so nicely."
- Josephine Baker
(Related: Insult)

"Discrimination against Jews can be read in Thomas Aquinas, and insults against Jews in Martin Luther."
- Lionel Blue
(Related: Discrimination, Insults, Martin)

"It's insulting to ask a dramatist what his view of his play is. I have no opinion."
- Edward Bond
(Related: Opinion, Play)

"If there is anyone here whom I have not insulted, I beg his pardon."
- Johannes Brahms

"Whatever insults my State insults me."
- Preston Brooks
(Related: Insults, State)

"I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said."
- William F. Buckley, Jr.
(Related: Intelligence, Insult)

"What white woman, however lonely, was ever captive or insulted by me? Yet they say I am a bad Indian."
- Sitting Bull
(Related: Lonely, Woman)

"Adding "just kidding" doesn't make it okay to insult the Principal."
- Nancy Cartwright
(Related: Insult)

"Let us rise in the moral power of womanhood; and give utterance to the voice of outraged mercy, and insulted justice, and eternal truth, and mighty love and holy freedom."
- Maria W. Chapman
(Related: Love, Power, Truth, Freedom, Justice, Mercy, Voice)

"An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult."
- Lord Chesterfield
(Related: Injury, Insult)

"There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt: and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult."
- Lord Chesterfield
(Related: People, Injury, Insult, Nothing)

"Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist."
- Gilbert K. Chesterton
(Related: Music, Insult)

"A stiff apology is a second insult... The injured party does not want to be compensated because he has been wronged; he wants to be healed because he has been hurt."
- Gilbert K. Chesterton
(Related: Apology, Hurt, Insult, Party, Want)

"Ugly. Is irrelevant. It is an immeasurable insult to a woman, and then supposedly the worst crime you can commit as a woman. But ugly, as beautiful, is an illusion."
- Margaret Cho
(Related: Crime, Illusion, Insult, Ugly, Woman)

"The master class seldom lose a chance to insult a woman who has the ability for something besides service to his lordship."
- Caroline Nichols Churchill
(Related: Ability, Chance, Class, Insult, Service, Woman)

"Elizabeth, Lady C, claims to be writing at the limits of language. Would it not be insulting to her if I were diligently to follow after her, explaining what she means but is not smart enough to say?"
- J. M. Coetzee
(Related: Lady, Language, Limits, Writing)

"We are prepared for insults, but compliments leave us baffled."
- Mason Cooley
(Related: Compliments, Insults)

"Flattery and insults raise the same question: What do you want?"
- Mason Cooley
(Related: Flattery, Insults, Want)

"He who allows himself to be insulted deserves to be."
- Pierre Corneille

"I was asked to memorise what I did not understand; and, my memory being so good, it refused to be insulted in that manner."
- Aleister Crowley
(Related: Being, Memory)

"To like an individual because he's black is just as insulting as to dislike him because he isn't white."
- e. e. cummings

"I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure - that is all that agnosticism means."
- Clarence Darrow
(Related: Men, Compliment, Insult)

"Being a star has made it possible for me to get insulted in places where the average Negro could never hope to go and get insulted."
- Sammy Davis, Jr.
(Related: Hope, Being)

"A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me."
- Frederick Douglass
(Related: Gentleman, Insult, Will)

"Old age is an insult. It's like being smacked."
- Lawrence Durrell
(Related: Age, Being, Insult, Old)

"It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you, but your opinion that these things are insulting."
- Epictetus
(Related: Insults, Opinion)

"Insult is powerful. Insult begets both rage and humor and often at the same time."
- Suzanne Fields
(Related: Humor, Time, Insult)

"The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization."
- Sigmund Freud
(Related: Civilization, First, Insult)

"Taste every fruit of every tree in the garden at least once. It is an insult to creation not to experience it fully. Temperance is wickedness."
- Stephen Fry
(Related: Experience, Creation, Garden, Insult, Taste, Temperance, Wickedness)

"But I can't bear it when somebody who some man made a pass at - to call that violence seems to me absurd and insulting to women who've really met violence, who've been raped or bashed."
- Helen Garner
(Related: Women, Man, Violence)

"When I see the American flag, I go, 'Oh my God, you're insulting me.'"
- Janeane Garofalo
(Related: God, American)

"Each of us carries within himself a collection of instant insults."
- Haim Ginott
(Related: Insults)

"If there is a God, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion."
- Edmond de Goncourt
(Related: Religion, God, Atheism, Insult)

"There is no great invention, from fire to flying, which has not been hailed as an insult to some god."
- John B. S. Haldane
(Related: God, Fire, Flying, Insult, Invention)

"But I would never insult the people that love this music and I would never insult the blessing of music in my life and I would never insult myself by playing uninspired music."
- Ben Harper
(Related: Life, Love, Music, People, Insult)

"The point of quotations is that one can use another's words to be insulting."
- Carolyn Gold Heilbrun
(Related: Quotations, Words)

"Never insult anyone by accident."
- Robert A. Heinlein
(Related: Accident, Insult)

"To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves."
- Claud-Adrian Helvetius
(Related: Books, Fools, Insult, Nation, Press, Reading)

"I think the most insulting thing you can do to a director is to challenge when he or she is satisfied with your interpretation."
- Dustin Hoffman
(Related: Challenge)

"A close associate of his gave an interview in which the book was described as quotes 'fiction from being to end'. I suffered trial by tabloid for a couple of weeks, lots of insults in the press, in the columns - this man should be put in the tower and so on."
- Anthony Holden
(Related: Being, End, Insults, Man, Press, Quotes)

"It was delightful but, of course, it was pretty insulting to my professional reputation."
- Anthony Holden
(Related: Pretty, Reputation)

"Never insult an alligator until after you have crossed the river."
- Cordell Hull
(Related: Insult)

"I love it when someone insults me. That means that I don't have to be nice anymore."
- Billy Idol
(Related: Love, Insults)

"It's better to get smart than to get mad. I try not to get so insulted that I will not take advantage of an opportunity to persuade people to change their minds."
- John H. Johnson
(Related: Change, People, Opportunity, Will)

"Oppression is more easily endured than insult."
- Junius
(Related: Insult, Oppression)

"I love women. I'm trying to do beautiful things with them. I'm not trying to insult them. My life is not about that."
- Calvin Klein
(Related: Life, Love, Women, Insult, Trying)

"Many people are target people. Once when Louis B. Mayer insulted me I poured a glass of water over his head."
- Hedy Lamarr
(Related: People, Water)

"Pornography is the attempt to insult sex, to do dirt on it."
- David Herbert Lawrence
(Related: Sex, Insult, Pornography)

"If they had said my writing wasn't good enough, fair enough, that's an opinion. But to say it's too complex is to insult the intelligence of the so-called young."
- Tanith Lee
(Related: Intelligence, Insult, Opinion, Writing)

"There are two insults no human being will endure: that he has no sense of humor, and that he has never known trouble."
- Sinclair Lewis
(Related: Humor, Being, Insults, Sense, Trouble, Will)

"The private citizen, beset by partisan appeals for the loan of his Public Opinion, will soon see, perhaps, that these appeals are not a compliment to his intelligence, but an imposition on his good nature and an insult to his sense of evidence."
- Walter Lippmann
(Related: Nature, Intelligence, Compliment, Insult, Opinion, Public, Public opinion, Sense, Will)

"If you can't ignore an insult, top it; if you can't top it, laugh it off; and if you can't laugh it off, it's probably deserved."
- Russell Lynes
(Related: Insult)

"Insults are the business of the court."
- Naguib Mahfouz
(Related: Business, Court, Insults)

"The attacks of which I have been the object have broken the spring of life in me... People don't realize what it feels like to be constantly insulted."
- Edouard Manet
(Related: Life, People, Spring)

"Insults are pouring down on me as thick as hail."
- Edouard Manet
(Related: Insults)

"Honesty has come to mean the privilege of insulting you to your face without expecting redress."
- Judith Martin
(Related: Honesty, Privilege)

"It should come as no surprise to any of us that the solution to ending bickering in families is to talk to one another more often without blaming, making judgments, or insulting one another."
- Donald C. Medeiros
(Related: Ending, Solution, Talk)

"Nothing could be more insulting to me than the concept of civil rights. It means perpetual second-class citizenship for me and my kind."
- James H. Meredith
(Related: Citizenship, Civil rights, Nothing)

"A wise man is superior to any insults which can be put upon him, and the best reply to unseemly behavior is patience and moderation."
- Moliere
(Related: Behavior, Insults, Man, Moderation, Patience)

"The unflattering reviews are painful for short periods of time; the badly written ones are deeply, deeply insulting. That reviewer took no time to really read the book."
- Toni Morrison
(Related: Time)

"I always looked upon the acts of racist exclusion, or insult, as pitiable, from the other person. I never absorbed that. I always thought that there was something deficient about such people."
- Toni Morrison
(Related: Thought, People, Insult)

"We criticize, copy, patronize, idolize and insult but we never doubt that the U.S. has a unique position in the history of human hopes."
- Ferdinand Mount
(Related: History, Doubt, Insult)

"A graceful taunt is worth a thousand insults."
- Louis Nizer
(Related: Insults, Worth)

"Ultimately, there is no compromise. Westerners will either retain their civilization, including the right to insult and blaspheme, or not."
- Daniel Pipes
(Related: Civilization, Compromise, Insult, Right, Will)

"Here is Mike Wallace, who is visible to the public, and I have been watching him since the early '50s. Smoking up a storm and insulting his guests and being absolutely wonderfully evil and charming too."
- Christopher Plummer
(Related: Being, Evil, Guests, Public, Smoking)

"The bad part about being recognized is that when I walk into a restaurant and sit down, I've got to eat everything on the plate, whether it's good or bad. People would take it as an insult if I did otherwise."
- Paul Prudhomme
(Related: People, Being, Insult)

"I elect to stay on the soil of which I was born and on the plot of ground which I have fairly bought and honestly paid for. Don't advise me to leave, and don't add insult to injury by telling me it's for my own good; of that I am to be the judge."
- Robert Purvis
(Related: Injury, Insult)

"We shall suffer no attachment to literature, no taste for abstract discussion, no love of purely intellectual theories, to seduce us from our devotion to the cause of the oppressed, the down trodden, the insulted and injured masses of our fellow men."
- George Ripley
(Related: Love, Men, Cause, Devotion, Literature, Taste, Theories)

"Insults are the arguments employed by those who are in the wrong."
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
(Related: Arguments, Insults, Wrong)

"People think that they just want movies like Pretty Woman, when really they - at least the ones that I know personally - have been waiting for something that doesn't completely insult them."
- Winona Ryder
(Related: Movies, People, Insult, Pretty, Waiting, Want, Woman)

"If you believe in journalism, you don't insult good journalists."
- Sydney Schanberg
(Related: Insult, Journalism)

"I just don't believe that you have to come in and insult people when you want to change things."
- Sydney Schanberg
(Related: Change, People, Insult, Want)

"We talk about a free press. These people hide, they make a lot of money off the media. They hide behind the slogans of free press, and then they can come out with crap like that. It's just garbage. It's insulting to the readers."
- Robert Scheer
(Related: Money, People, Media, Press, Talk)

"Whereas Jeremy is just the opposite: always moving because he's never really thinking of anything and the kind of guy you'd worry inviting to a dinner party because he says what he thinks. He can be insulting at times but doesn't mean to be."
- Jason Schwartzman
(Related: Party, Thinking, Worry)

"Not to be loved is a misfortune, but it is an insult to be loved no longer."
- Charles de Secondat
(Related: Insult, Misfortune)

"The court has said you are entitled to robust speech on public sidewalks, even insulting speech."
- Jay Alan Sekulow
(Related: Court, Public, Speech)

"I am in suspense as to the probable or improbability of being called into the Army, a station I would prefer to any other that of being in arms to defend an injured and grossly insulted country."
- John Sevier
(Related: Army, Being, Country, Suspense)

"Hour after hour, they shouted at me, accused me, insulted me and members of my family."
- Sam Sheppard
(Related: Family)

"When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it."
- Gordon Sinclair
(Related: Americans, Danger, Paris, Reward)

"The vanity of men, a constant insult to women, is also the ground for the implicit feminine claim of superior sensitivity and morality."
- Patricia Meyer Spacks
(Related: Men, Women, Morality, Insult, Sensitivity, Vanity)

"When people screamed novelty the first time around talking about an ugly video and stuff I was really insulted because, hold on a minute, everyone you see in the video are real life."
- Bubba Sparxxx
(Related: Life, Time, People, First, Novelty, Talking, Ugly)

"Sometimes I think I might insult people by being openly flirtatious, then snatching it back."
- Dominique Swain
(Related: People, Being, Insult)

"The causes of the China Incident were the exclusion and insult of Japan throughout China, the exclusion of Japanese goods, the persecution of Japanese residents in China, and the illegal violation of Japanese rights."
- Hideki Tojo
(Related: Causes, Rights, Insult, Persecution)

"To force a man to pay for the violation of his own liberty is indeed an addition of insult to injury."
- Benjamin Tucker
(Related: Force, Injury, Insult, Liberty, Man)

"Daily life is governed by an economic system in which the production and consumption of insults tends to balance out."
- Raoul Vaneigem
(Related: Life, Balance, Insults, Production)

"If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for War."
- George Washington
(Related: War, Peace, Desire, Insult, Prosperity)

"Looking back at all the people I have insulted, I am mildly surprised that I am still allowed to exist."
- Auberon Waugh
(Related: People)

"I think ethnic and regional labels are insulting to writers and really put restrictions on them. People don't think your work is quite as universal."
- James Welch
(Related: Work, People, Writers)

"Re-examine all that you have been told... dismiss that which insults your soul."
- Walt Whitman
(Related: Soul, Insults)

"Women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions which men think it manly to pay to the sex, when, in fact, men are insultingly supporting their own superiority."
- Mary Wollstonecraft
(Related: Men, Women, Sex, Superiority, Fact)

"Envy is an insult to oneself."
- Yevgeny Yevtushenko
(Related: Envy, Insult)