Cruel Or Mean Quotes & Sayings

Humans are the killers of magic, you see.....People can be cruel, unkind, mean, selfish. We can be a great many dreadful thing, and at one time or another we are all guilty of bad behavior. What we fail to realize is that we are the only ones who can do such things. — Patrick Carman

I am not cruel," he said. "Not in the sense you mean. But cruelty is a useful tool if one can only recognise the precise moment when it must be used. — Alastair Reynolds

You know if you would just do as I say I wouldn't have to hurt you. — Amanda Stephan

Sometimes, after all, there is a bit of justice in this mean, cruel world. — Laurent Binet

Don't build walls and shut people out of your life. To act as if another does not exist is a mean and cruel weapon — Joyce Meyer

Denna is a wild thing," I explained. "Like a hind or a summer storm. If a storm blows down your house, or breaks a tree, you don't say the storm was mean. It was cruel. It acted according to its nature and something unfortunately was hurt. The same is true of Denna. — Patrick Rothfuss

When I went into the Army, I made up my mind that I was putting myself at the Army's disposal. I believe in the war. That doesn't mean I believe in the Army. I don't believe in any army. You don't expect justice out of an army, if you're a sensible, grown-up human being, you only expect victory. And if it comes to that, our Army is probably the most just one that ever existed ... I expected the Army to be corrupt, inefficient, cruel, wasteful, and it turned out to be all those things, just like all armies, only much less so than I thought before I got into it. It is much less corrupt, for example, than the German Army. Good for us. The victory we win will not be as good as it might be, if it were a different kind of army, but it will be the best kind of victory we can expect in this day and age, and I'm thankful for it. — Irwin Shaw

Every persisting marriage is based on fear', said Peregrine. 'Fear is fundamental, you dig down in human nature and what's at the bottom? Mean spiteful cruel self-regarding fear, whether it makes you to put the foot in it or whether it makes you to cower ... — Iris Murdoch

Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell. Mercy does not mean not being cruel or sparing people revenge or punishment; it means a plain and positive thing like the sun, which one has either seen or not see — G.K. Chesterton

Fate is cruel but maybe not random. Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn't mean we have to bow and gravel to it. — Donna Tartt

Back in pre-Revolutionary America cruel and unusual punishment meant the rack and burning at the stake ... in more recent rulings it has been taken to mean the absence of cable television and denial of sex-change operations, or just overcrowding in the prisons. — Tom Clancy

Isn't that strange? To be able to feel so much tenderness for a person, and I did, and powerful attraction, sometimes, and yet feel no love. It seems cruel, almost monstrous. I mean I can love a bug. I have watched a spider weaving her web in the evening, in the young alder branches along the river, and I have loved her. Truly. Or a small moth trying to beat her way off the water of a dark pool, her soaked wings stuck to the surface as if by glue. And gently slid a leaf beneath her and lifted her to the ground, praying that her wings would dry without damage. I've done that. And yet I could not love my wife. — Peter Heller

War is a grim, cruel business, a business justified only as a means of sustaining the forces of good against those of evil. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

It's absolutely clear that whatever cruel and unusual punishments may - may mean with regard to future things, such as death by injection or the electric chair, it's clear that - that the death penalty, in and of itself, is not considered cruel and unusual punishment. — Antonin Scalia

Percy: "You asked Poseidon for ... me?"
Tyson: "For a friend, young cyclopes grow up alone on the streets, learns to make things out of scraps. Learn to survive."
Percy: "But that's so cruel!"
Tyson: "Makes us appreciate blessings, not be greedy and mean and fat like Polyphemus. But I got scared. Monsters chased me so much, clawed me sometimes
"
Percy: "The scars on your back?"
Tyson: "Sphinx on Seventy-second Street. Big Bully. I prayed to Daddy for help. Soon the people at Meriwether found me. Mey you. Biggest blessing ever. Sorry I said Poseidon was mean. He sent me a brother. — Rick Riordan

I can't stand cruel people. And if I see people doing something mean to somebody else just to make themselves feel important, it really gets me mad. — Roger Ailes

I don't think evil is sexy! I don't think being cruel and mean and hurting other people is sexy! ... Although I have been quite attracted to some very bad boys! — Madonna Ciccone

She's just nervous, Paddy. Don't worry, hon," saidSharon , her lips pulled into a generous smile. Her eyes sparkled with warmth and sincerity. "I'm used to these neck nibblers."
"No offense,Sharon . But I'd rather have the chocolate," I said.
She laughed and slapped her thigh. "Hell's bells, Patrick! She's the reason you've had me eating these Godiva truffles all day?"
I looked at Patrick. "You're mean." His black brows formed question marks. Then his lips curled into a smile. "No, not just mean. Cruel."
"I had her eat truffles for you," he said.
"Are you insane? How is her eating my chocolate in any way helpful?"
Sharon chortled. "You might not be able to eat the truffle, sweetie, but you'll taste it. Prob'ly be the best chocolate you ever eat, too."
I looked at Sharon , then at Patrick. "Are you telling me that she's gonna taste like chocolate?"
"Yes. — Michele Bardsley

They send a person who can never stay,: she whispered. "Who can never accept my offer of companionship for more than a little while. They send me a hero I can't help ... Just the sort of person I can't help falling in love with." The night was quiet except for the gurgle of the fountains and waves lapping on the shore. It took me a long time to realize what she was saying. "Me?" I asked. "If you could see your face." She suppressed a smile, though her eyes were still teary. "Of course, you." "That's why you've been pulling away all this time?" "Itried very hard. But I can't help it. The Fates are cruel. They sent you to me, my brave one, knowing that you would break my heart." "But ... I'm just ... I mean, I'm just me." "That is enough," Calypso promised. — Rick Riordan

The slavery of Negroes in the South was not usually a deliberately cruel and oppressive system. It did not mean systematic starvation or murder. — W.E.B. Du Bois

You were a child, you didn't mean to hurt my feelings. Children are ignorant. It takes an adult to choose to be cruel. — Jan Strnad

Girls scare me more than boys. Boys are cruel. Girls are mean. — Julie Anne Peters

Whenever people say, 'We mustn't be sentimental,' you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add, 'We must be realistic,' they mean they are going to make money out of it. — Brigid Brophy

You like me." "I do not," she lied. "But I didn't mean to hurt your feelings." He was undaunted. "Aye, you like me, lass. I can tell. You called me by my given name and you are frowning, with dewy eyes. I forgive you for being cruel and thoughtless. — Karen Marie Moning

I'm not a great one for chatting people up, because it's phony. I don't want people to feel at ease. You want a bit of edge. There are quite long, agonized silences. I love it. Something strange might happen. I mean, taking photographs is a very nasty thing to do. It's very cruel. — Antony Armstrong-Jones

I mean, okay, let's say we're all going to get better. Let's just pretend we will. Fine. Where are we going to go after we get better? What are we going to do with all of our newfound healthy behaviors? Back out into the world that screwed us up and screwed us over. This does not sound promising. — Benjamin Alire Saenz

The truth was that life was as short and brutish and mean as ever. "But people didn't have to pay as much attention to the awful truth. As the living legend of the cruel tyrant in the city and the gentle holy man in the jungle grew, so, too, did the happiness of the people grow. They were all employed full — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Fear is cruel and mean. The political reigns of terror have been reigns of madness and malignity,
a total perversion of opinion;society is upside down, and its best men are thought too bad to live. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Never," said my aunt, "be mean in anything; never be false; never be cruel. Avoid those three vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of you. — Charles Dickens

My father once told me
that there are no gods;
only the cruel manipulations
of evil people
who pretended that their power was good
and their exploitation was love.
But if there are no gods;
why are we so hungry to believe in them?
Just because evil liars
stand between us and the gods
and block our view of them
does not mean that the bright halo
that surrounds each liar
is not the outer edges of a god, waiting
for us to find our way around the lie. — Orson Scott Card

Houston is a cruel, crazy town on a filthy river in East Texas with no zoning laws and a culture of sex, money and violence. It's a shabby, sprawling metropolis ruled by brazen women, crooked cops and super-rich pansexual cowboys who live by the code of the West
which can mean just about anything you need it to mean, in a pinch. — Hunter S. Thompson

Nothing so bad you need to be cruel. Tough, yes. You'll have to kill, yes. But there's a difference in the heart. One makes you mean. The other keeps you going. — Marjorie M. Liu

Claudius, you're luckier than you realize. Guard your appointment jealously. Don't let anyone usurp it."
"What do you mean, girl?"
"I mean that people don't kill their butts. They are cruel to them, they frighten them, they rob them, but they don't kill them. — Robert Graves

That's the nub of the thing, you see seriousness of spirit. It doesn't mean heaviness of heart, or a lack of fantasy, but it does mean an awareness of influences that touch our lives, sometimes in ways that seem cruel and unfeeling, and sometimes in ways that open up a glory which can never be forgotten. — Robertson Davies

It is quick to over punish and uninterested in rewarding good behavior. What would we say about an individual who had these characteristics? Mean? Cruel? Heartless? Mindless? Hypocritical? Stupid? — Bernard B. Kerik

T's awful not to be loved. It's the worst thing in the world ... It makes you mean, and violent, and cruel. — John Steinbeck

Cruel to be kind means that I love you. — Nick Lowe

I've been thrown into a turbulent triangle, but even though I have deep feelings for Shiray doesn't mean my feelings will disappear for Melanie immediately. Fate has really dealt me a cruel hand of cards. — B. Truly

The office of reformer of the superstitions of a nation, is ever more dangerous. Jesus had to work on the perilous confines of reason and religion; and a step to the right or left might place him within the grasp of the priests of the superstition, a bloodthirsty race, as cruel and remorseless as the being whom they represented as the family God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, and the local God of Israel. That Jesus did not mean to impose himself on mankind as the son of God, physically speaking, I have been convinced by the writings of men more learned than myself in that lore. — Thomas Jefferson

Because this, after all, was the basic truth they all chose to live by: that love was no finite commodity. That it was not subject to the cruel reckoning of addition and subtraction, that to give to one did not necessarily mean to take from another; that the heart, in its infinite capacity-even the confused and cheating heart of the man in front of her, even the paltry thing now clenched and faltering inside her own chest-could open itself to all who would enter, like a house with windows and doors thrown wide, like the heart of God itself, vast and accommodating and holy, a mansion of rooms without number, full of multitudes without end. — Brady Udall

It's not that people are mean or cruel, they're just busy. — Austin Kleon

I've always kind of made sure to maintain the sense of who I am and never be mean or cruel or snotty to anyone. Because, at the end of the day, it's not going to help you last in the business, and who wants to be around someone like that? I don't want to turn into 'that guy.' That guy! — Leonardo DiCaprio

Life is hard. It's cruel sometimes. It's merciless and unfair, but we all go through difficult times, one way or another. You've had more than your share of knocks lately, I'll give you that, but it doesn't mean you get to quit. No one gets to quit. You keep fighting, every day, and sooner or later, the grief fades a little. You grow stronger, find joy again, and everything gets easier. You come out of it more equipped to handle the next wave, which will come eventually. There will always be waves. — Julianne MacLean

Mother told me always to follow the golden rule.And she said it's really a sin to be mean and cruel.So remember if you're untrueAngels up in heaven are looking at you. — Hal David

So anyway, change of subject; why would your parents name you Rosie if your surname was Right? I mean, that's just a little cruel," I asked, pretending to be serious.

She looked at me as if I'd lost the plot a little. "I'm not Rosie Right, I'm Rosie York."

I recoiled, faking shock. "Seriously? Damn it, I could have sworn you were Miss Right."

She rolled her eyes as she got it. "Nice. Didn't see that one coming so good job."

"You like that? I made that up on the spot, just for you. — Kirsty Moseley

What I mean is, things like that happen. They may seem might cruel and unfair, but that's how life is a part of the time. But that isn't the only way life is. A part of the time, it's mighty good. And a man can't afford to waste all the good part, worrying about the bad parts. That makes it all bad — Fred Gipson

What mean and cruel things men do for the love of God. — W. Somerset Maugham

There's more to being a warrior than killing. A true warrior - the best warrior - isn't cruel or mean. He doesn't claw an enemy who can't fight back. Where's the honor in that? — Erin Hunter

A cruel queen does not mean an unsuccessful one. Under her guidance, Kenettra changed from a glittering gem into a clouded stone, and her empire became one to rule all others, a darkness that stretched from sun, to sea, to sky.
- The Empire of the Wolf, translation by Tarsa Mehani — Marie Lu

Chicago - this vicious, stinking zoo, this mean-grinning, Mace-smelling boneyard of a city; an elegant rockpile monument to everything cruel and stupid and corrupt in the human spirit. — Hunter S. Thompson

I shall die soon ... Here at this Dros. And what will I have achieved in my life? I have no sons nor daughters. No living kin ... Few friends. They will say, 'Here lies Druss. He killed many and birthed none'."
"They will say more than that," said Virae suddenly. "They'll say, 'Here lies Druss the Legend, who was never mean, petty nor needlessly cruel. Here was a man who never gave in, never compromised his ideals, never betrayed a friend, never despoiled a woman and never used his strength against the weak.' They'll say 'He had no sons, but many a woman asleep with her babes slept more soundly for knowing Druss stood with the Drenai.' They'll say many things, whitebeard. Through many generations they will say them, and men with no strength will find strength when they hear them."
"That would be pleasant," said the old man, smiling. — David Gemmell

For April Fools Day, someone played a really cruel joke on me. They stole ALL my mirrors and I had to go hours without seeing myself. I mean, I couldn't even do my daily affirmations. What kind of world is this? I tell you, it's artists like myself that really suffer. — James Franco

Forgiveness is an embrace, across all barriers, against all odds, in defiance of all that is mean and petty and vindictive and cruel in this life. — Kent Nerburn

But, I didn't have a clue what it was really like, how terribly cruel and mean and judgmental people could be — Siobhan Vivian

Barney's Dad was really bad so Barney hatched a plan
when his dad said "Eat your peas."
Barney shouted no and ran
Barney tricked his mean old dad and locked him in the cellar
Barney's Mom never found out where he'd gone,
Cause Barney didn't tell her.
There his dad spent his life eating mice and gruel
With every bite for fifty years
he was sorry he'd been cruel — Bill Watterson

That life - whatever else it is - is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn't mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if we're not always so glad to be here, it's our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open. And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn't touch. — Donna Tartt

According to the thesaurus... and according to me... there are over thirty different meanings and substitutions for
the word
mean.
(I quickly yell the following words; the entire class flinches- including Will)
Jackass, jerk, cruel, dickhead, unkind, harsh, wicked,
hateful, heartless, vicious, virulent, unrelenting, tyrannical, malevolent, atrocious, bastard, barbarous, bitter, brutal, callous, degenerate, brutish, depraved, evil, fierce, hard, implacable, rancorous, pernicious, inhumane, monstrous, merciless, inexorable.
And my personal favorite - asshole. — Colleen Hoover

Whenever you see the words 'hee hee hee' in a book, or 'ha ha ha,' or 'har har har,' or 'heh heh heh,' or even 'ho ho ho,' those words mean somebody was laughing. In the case, however, the words 'hee hee hee' cannot really describe what Vice Principal Nero's laugh sounded like. The laugh was squeaky, and it was wheezy, and it had a rough crackly edge to it, as if Nero were eating tin cans and he laughed at the children. But most of all the laugh sounded cruel. — Lemony Snicket

Well, that's that. Goodbye cruel world. Be sure to fuck thyself on the way out, you mean-assed son of a whore. — Belle Aurora

Los Angeles, the sun shines a lot, and it's blue, and there's palm trees; it's a bit like Sydney, I guess, but the underbelly is a vicious, mean, cruel, awful place. — Loudon Wainwright III

That's just how white folks will do you. It wasn't merely the cruelty involved; I was learning that black people could be mean and then some. It was a particular brand of arrogance, an obtuseness in otherwise sane people that brought forth our bitter laughter. It was as if whites didn't know they were being cruel in the first place. Or at least thought you deserved of their scorn. — Barack Obama

I don't come to tournaments to make friends, to go to parties, to hold conversations. I come to be the best, and I'm not mean and cruel and dirty. — Venus Williams

You want to know what I'm afraid of? All right, I'll tell you. I'm afraid of men - yes, I'm very much afraid of men. And I'm even more afraid of women. And I'm very much afraid of the whole bloody human race. Afraid of them? Of course I'm afraid of them. Who wouldn't be afraid of a pack of damned hyenas? [ ... ] And when I say afraid - that's just a word I use. What I really mean is that I hate them. I hate their voices, I hate their eyes, I hate the way they laugh. I hate the whole bloody business. It's cruel, it's idiotic, it's unspeakably horrible. I never had the guts to kill myself or I'd have got out of it long ago. — Jean Rhys

Miss Dartle,' I returned, 'how shall I tell you, so that you will believe me, that I know of nothing in Steerforth different from what there was when I first came here? I can think of nothing. I firmly believe there is nothing. I hardly understand even what you mean.' As she still stood looking fixedly at me, a twitching or throbbing, from which I could not dissociate the idea of pain, came into that cruel mark; and lifted up the corner of her lip as if with scorn, or with a pity that despised its object. She put her hand upon it hurriedly - a hand so thin and delicate, that when I had seen her hold it up before the fire to shade her face, I had compared it in my thoughts to fine porcelain - and saying, in a quick, fierce, passionate way, 'I swear you to secrecy about this!' said not a word more. — Charles Dickens

Prettying you up for slaughter?" he suggests. "It's more complicated than that. I know them. They're not evil or cruel. They're not even smart. Hurting them, it's like hurting children. They don't see ... I mean, they don't know ... " I get knotted up in my words. "They don't know what, Katniss?" he says. "That tributes - who are the actual children involved — Suzanne Collins

So let us be bold in our efforts and even bolder in our vision. Let us tell the story of an America becoming - of a nation breaking free from the limits of its own arrested development and transforming into the place we were told about in school but which never really existed as such. Just because that place has been a cruel and taunting mirage for so long does not mean we cannot mold it into a reality. As the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) - one of the premier civil rights groups of our nation's history - used to say, Come, let us build a new world together. — Tim Wise

People can be cruel, but that doesn't mean you have to take it home, wrap yourself up in it and wear it. — Darlene Cates

Here's what I've learned - people will hurt you, but you don't have to respond - not every mean comment or cruel act deserves to be noticed ... — John Geddes

I'm a mean, cruel person who doesn't deserve love. — Sherry Gammon

I don't mean to sound bitter, cold, or cruel, but I am, so that's how it comes out. — Bill Hicks

If I learned anything these past few months, it's that life sucks, Daniel. It sucks. It's mean, it's vicious, and it's unapologetic. It's dark and cruel. But then, sometimes, it's so beautiful that it knocks all of that darkness out of your system with the light. — Brittainy C. Cherry

Most children turn out badly because they have the wrong parental image. This doesn't mean their parents are criminal. It means they are boring and cruel. — Hedy Lamarr

The Hindus criticise the Mahomedans for having spread their religion by the use of the sword. They also ridicule Christianity on the score of the Inquisition.
But really speaking, who is better and more worthy of our respect - the Mahomedans and Christians who attempted to thrust down the throats of unwilling persons what they regarded as necessary for their salvation, or the Hindu who would not spread the light, who would endeavour to keep others in darkness, who would not consent to share his intellectual and social inheritance with those who are ready and willing to make it a part of their own make-up?
I have no hesitation in saying that if the Mahomedan has been cruel, the Hindu has been mean; and meanness is worse than cruelty. — B.R. Ambedkar

had decided while she was in bed that she would never speak to her again. But she wanted Marnie to see her. She wanted her to look out of her window and see her down there on the staithe, and remember the mean, cruel thing she had done. If — Joan G. Robinson

Some selfish people rise because some kind people haven't learned the art of saying no to them. — Sanhita Baruah

Criminals, it turns out, are the one social group in America we have permission to hate. In "colorblind" America, criminals are the new whipping boys. They are entitled to no respect and little moral concern. Like the "coloreds" in the years following emancipation, criminals today are deemed a characterless and purposeless people, deserving of our collective scorn and contempt. When we say someone was "treated like a criminal," what we mean to say is that he or she was treated as less than human, like a shameful creature. Hundreds of years ago, our nation put those considered less than human in shackles; less than one hundred years ago, we relegated them to the other side of town; today we put them in cages. Once released, they find that a heavy and cruel hand has been laid upon them. Brave — Michelle Alexander