Quotes & Sayings About Demeaning

I don't like the term 'black people', I find it demeaning to those of us that actually qualify as 'people'. — Zach Braff

I like profanity - it's practically my mother tongue - but I try to use words that insult without demeaning, when I can. — Seanan McGuire

When I come across one or other of my fellow Christians ignorant of astronomy, believing what is not so, I calmly look on, not thinking him the worse for mistaking the place or order of created things, so long as he holds nothing demeaning to you, Lord, the creator of all those things. But he is worse off if he holds that his error is a matter of religious faith, and persists stubbornly in the error. His faith is still a weak thing in its cradle, needing the milk of a mothering love, until the youth grows up and cannot be the play-thing, any more, of every doctrinal wind that blows.
But one who ventures on the role of teacher, of leader and ruler of those under his spell, whose followers heed him not as a man only but as your very Spirit
what are we to make of him when he is caught purveying falsehoods? Should we not reject and despise such madness? — Augustine Of Hippo

Throughout the course of the day, Bobby Tom's irritation over his artificially oiled and dirt-smeared chest and his unzipped jeans had flared into righteous indignation. They were treating him like a sex object! It was damned demeaning, that's what it was, being reduced to a set of oil pecs and a tight ass. Shit. A dozen years in the NFL, and this was what it had all come down to. Pecs and ass. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

So these are the fresh meat, eh?" Zuko smirked.

I cringed when he said fresh meat. How demeaning.

"Well, I don't know how well all of you can fight. So I'll find out the quickest and simplest way." He raised a scarred arm and pointed it at all of us, "ATTACK THE FRESH MEAT! — L. Benitez

I didn't want a completely passive viewer. Art means too much to me. To be able to articulate something visually is really an important thing. I wanted to make work where the viewer wouldn't walk away; he would giggle nervously, get pulled into history, into fiction, into something totally demeaning and possibly very beautiful — Kara Walker

It goes back to keeping things equal. Friendship feels really demeaning if one person still likes the other more,
which is probably what caused the breakup in the first place. It's such a misnomer that 'boyfriend' and 'girlfriend' have the word 'friend' in them."

"I don't know, Dom. It's screwed up that people who dug each other enough to go out can't at least stay friends
afterward.

"Spoken by a true love virgin. — Daria Snadowsky

I can think back to being four or five and not wanting to sit at the kids' table because I thought it was demeaning. I was this ridiculous little kid. — Lenny Abrahamson

Obama also allowed Hillary supporters to insert an absurd statement into the platform suggesting that media sexism spurred her loss and that 'demeaning portrayals of women ... dampen the dreams of our daughters' [ ... ] It would have been better to put this language in the platform: 'A woman who wildly mismanages and bankrupts a quarter-of-a-billion-dollar campaign operation, and then blames sexism in society, will dampen the dreams of our daughters.' — Maureen Dowd

Today, when so much seems to conspire to reduce life and feeling to the most deprived and demeaning bottom line, it is more important than ever that we receive that extra dimension of dignity or delight and the elevated sense of self that the art of building can provide through the nature of the places where we live and work. What counts more than style is whether architecture improves our experience of the built world; whether it makes us wonder why we never noticed places in quite this way before. — Ada Louise Huxtable

I like thinking of the writer as a kind of curator; the collection as curiosity cabinet - in a non-demeaning, non-objectifying sense - but an array, a set of offerings. — Leslie Jamison

I had been reading children's books all my life and saw them not as minor amusements but as part of the whole literary mainstream; not as "juveniles" or "kiddie lit," one of the most demeaning terms in the scholastic jargon.
My belief was, and is, that the child's book is a unique and valid art form; a means of dealing with things which cannot be dealt with quite as well in any other way. There is, I'm convinced, no inner, qualitative difference between writing for adults and writing for children. The raw materials are the same for both: the human condition and our response to it. — Lloyd Alexander

Do not consider any act of service as demeaning. Sweeping the streets, for example, is not below your dignity. Do you not sweep the floor of your homes? Do you not scrub and wash off dirt? When you undertake such tasks, the villagers will also gladly share in them. Why feel ashamed to be good? The ridicule that may be cast on you has been the reward of many saints. It will soon fade away. Muhammad was driven out of Mecca by those who could not appreciate his teachings. Jesus was crucified. But their names resound in the heart of millions. — Sathya Sai Baba

Professional farmworkers who know how to do a number of different jobs, whether it be pruning or picking or crafting, they see themselves as professionals, and they take a lot of pride in that work. They don't see themselves as doing work that is demeaning. — Dolores Huerta

All it takes is a tradition of demeaning, critical words from the right person. All it takes is nothing from the right person. No interest in you, no words spoken to you, no love. If you are treated as if you do not exist, you will feel shame. — Edward T. Welch

For Democrats to reduce women to beggars for cheap government-funded birth control is demeaning to the women that I know who are far more complicated than their libido and the management of their reproductive system. — Mike Huckabee

For the most part, I think of PC as meaning Plain Civil. You treat people the way you'd like to be treated yourself, and that means not using language that is demeaning. — Jay Parini

And if your attitude is that only smarter people have something to teach you, your learning opportunities will be very limited ... When we see people acting in an abusive, arrogant, or demeaning manner toward others, their behavior almost always is a symptom of their lack of self-esteem. They need to put someone else down to feel good about themselves. — Clayton Christensen

One of the great tragedies of life, it seems to me, is when a person classifies himself as someone who has no talents or gifts. When, in disgust or discouragement, we allow ourselves to reach depressive levels of despair because of our demeaning self-appraisal, it is a sad day for us and a sad day in the eyes of God. For us to conclude that we have no gifts when we judge ourselves by stature, intelligence, grade-point average, wealth, power, position, or external appearance is not only unfair but unreasonable. — Marvin J. Ashton

It's very demeaning that we have to put on a show to prove that we know how to put on a show. — Lee Clow

Mr. Blue's way of death was fitting. He had been utterly corrupted by America, and I find it proper that his carotid artery should have been severed by flak from a jumbo-sized can of mentholated shave cream. Like James Joyce, who tried to bend and subjugate the ironmongery of the cosmos with words (wasn't it The Word Joyce was after?), Mr. Blue tried to undo the empyrean mysteries with Seedy and his red carpet, with his elevated alligator shoes, with the ardent push-ups he seemed so sure would make him outlast time's ravages, with his touching search for some golden pussy that would yield to his lips the elixir of eternal life. And like Joyce's Leopold Bloom, like Quixote, Mr. Blue had become the perennial mock-epic hero of his country, the salesman, the boomer who believed that at the end of his American sojourn of demeaning doorbell-ringing, of faking and fawning, he would come to the Ultimate Sale, conquer, and soar. — Frederick Exley

In the far reaches of her brain a storehouse of demeaning events evidently opened a door for Extra Sensory Perception experiences to enter. — Judy Byington

This is what healing demands. Behavior that is hurtful, shameful, abusive, or demeaning must be brought into the fierce light of truth, and truth can be brutal. — Desmond Tutu

Sure enough the goldfish was swimming upside down, its boggle eyes wide and staring, its fins flapping madly at its sides. Brandon felt like the fish looked. He was anxious over how Lewis
knew he was a vet and the address of the practice he worked at.
"I don't think it has vertigo, Lewis." A professional approach was all he could think of. "Has it ever done this before?"
"He. He's not an 'it' and his name is Fluffles. I'd appreciate it if you referred to Fluffles by his name rather than a generic term demeaning him into nothing more than an object devoid of gender." Lewis cocked his head, staring unblinking. "Fluffles is a beloved pet. I demand you show him respect!"
"Ooookaaaay." Brandon pressed his lips together and released them with a loud pop. "Has Fluffles ever done this before?"
"Don't know." Lewis peered into the bag. "I've only had him forty-five minutes. — Zathyn Priest

When women say that going on publications directed at men is somehow demeaning, I don't think that's true. I think that's one really effective way to change the societal standard women are held to. — Ronda Rousey

It is offensive that so many people feel that it is okay to publicly refer to transsexuals as being "pre-op" or "post-op" when it would so clearly be degrading and demeaning to regularly describe all boys and men as being either "circumcised" or "uncircumcised. — Julia Serano

Young People! Do not gloat about your youth, because you have a long and treacherous path to negotiate before you reach the truly lovely part of your life. Your fisrt decades are one long, tiring, demeaning struggle for at least a short turn at the control level. Every day you get savaged by your own wishes. When you finally calm down and accept your lot, you are middle-aged, and happiness most definitely lies more closely ahead, but you still have a few years to go, passing through most arduous longing and regret. — Irene Dische

Ronald Reagan has held the two most demeaning jobs in the country; President of the United States and radio broadcaster for the Chicago Cubs. — George Will

A wife who obsesses on "fixing" her husband only succeeds in demeaning him.
pg 48 — Michael Ben Zehabe

I know who I am and can deal with the use of Indian mascots ... But I know it can be demeaning to a group of people. Maybe it would be all right if they were truly honoring the people and are giving due respect to the people they are representing. — Leonard Little

The sun never has an inferiority complex. It shines the same whether above or below. — Curtis Tyrone Jones

I don't like it when they [media critics] see me as this little person who doesn't know what to do with herself
like I have no idea what I want, like I'm just a puppet ... That's demeaning to me, because that ain't how it is, and it never was. — Whitney Houston

I don't really think myself that sex work is necessarily more demeaning than other kinds of demeaning work. — Alix Kates Shulman

He decides he wants both more and less. He'd like to hang out with Beyonce in a nice way, get to know her by doing small pleasant things like going out for icecream, or how about this, a three-week trial run in some tropical paradise where they can hang together in that nice way and possibly fall in love, and meanwhile fuck each other's brains out in their spare time. He wants both, he wants the entire body-soul connect because anything less is just demeaning. Has the war done this to him, he wonders, inspired by these deeper sensitivities and yearnings of his? Or is it just because he's going on his twentieth year of life? — Ben Fountain

And another item from the growing file of people who voluntarily wear dunce caps ... You'll be talking cordially to someone and make an offhand reference, 'I recently read where
' and they'll cut you off and say, 'Oh, I don't read' ... This is a tragedy on so many different levels. First, because they don't read, they don't know enough to keep it to themselves. Next, and this is the most amazing part, they use a demeaning tone like I'm the stupid one for wasting time with books. — Tim Dorsey

Abject poverty is demeaning, is an assault on the dignity of those that suffer it. In the end it demeans us all. It makes the freedom of all of us less meaningful. — Nelson Mandela

Smiling without good reason is demeaning. — Ellen Raskin

As to my mouth, of all my features, I wish I could possess my mouth again, just as it had been before the fire. I had my mother's lips, generous below and above; and what kissing I had practiced, mainly on my hand or on a lonely pig, had convinced me that my lips would be the source of my good fortune. I would kiss with them, and lie with them, I would make victims and willing slaves of anyone my eyes desired, simply by talking a little, and following the talk with kisses, and the kisses with demands. And they'd melt into compliance, everyone of them, happy to perform the most demeaning acts as long as I was there to reward them with a long, tongue-tied kiss when they were done. But the fire didn't spare my lips; it took them too, erasing them utterly. — Clive Barker

You are a collection of almost identical molecules with a different collective label. But is that all? Is there nothing in here but molecules? Some people find this idea somehow demeaning to human dignity. For myself, I find it elevating that our universe permits the evolution of molecular machines as intricate and subtle as we. — Carl Sagan

When I was in school," Strassnitzky said, "I went out one morning in my riding clothes and shod in heavy boots, and as I left the last step I came down on a young bird that had been resting at the foot of the stairs, having been savaged by a hawk. My weight on it pushed the air out of its lungs, and when I turned to see what had made that unearthly noise, the bird looked at me in such a way that I knew that even animals have souls. Only a creature with a soul could have had eyes so expressive and so understanding, and I had crushed it as it lay dying. It took a full day to die, and since then I have been what is called a pacifist. The term is inexact and demeaning, for a pacifist has no peace in his soul, and he knows rage as much as anyone else, but he simply will not kill. — Mark Helprin

Lesson number one from the Lord's vineyard: coveting, pouting, or tearing others down does not elevate your standing, nor does demeaning someone else improve your self-image. So be kind, and be grateful that God is kind. It is a happy way to live. — Jeffrey R. Holland

There are a lot of movies out there that I would hate to be paid to do, some real demeaning, real woman-denigrating stuff. It is up to women to change their roles. They are going to have to write the stuff and do it. And they will. — Beah Richards

Before you either turn away in disgust or wink knowingly at one another, you should know that the artist insists that this is a picture about love. Filial love. The old man has been condemned by the Roman senate to die of hunger, and his daughter has come to his prison cell and offered her breast to feed him. This has nothing to do with with the decorous love or amorous passions one is more accustomed to seeing in a painting. It is raw and wretched and demeaning. In the end, we are physical bodies and every abstract notion about love sinks beneath this fact. — Debra Dean

It's the end of the day where wives stay home and raise the kids and all that. That demeaning stuff? No more. Country club memberships, that's what you shoot for! To hell with that. — Rush Limbaugh

I'm of the belief that in most industries, women have to work twice as hard to get half the credit. After putting in so much effort to make a good movie, it felt pretty demeaning when they called it a "female comedy." This meaningless label painted me into a corner and forced me to speak for all females, because I am the actual FEMALE who wrote the FEMALE comedy and then starred as the lead FEMALE in that FEMALE comedy. They don't ask Seth Rogen to be ALL MEN! They don't make "men's comedies." They don't ask Ben Stiller, "Hey, Ben, what was your message for all male-kind when you pretended to have diarrhea and chased that ferret in Along Came Polly? — Amy Schumer

As a child and a teenager, my attitudes and actions assumed the superiority of my race in almost every way without knowing or wanting to know anybody who was black, except Lucy. Lucy came to our house on Saturdays to help my mother clean. I liked Lucy, but the whole structure of the relationship was demeaning. — John Piper

I don't do romance, in the same way I don't do heroin Russian roulette, or nude alligator wrestling. I consider all of the above self-destructive, and demeaning and these are things up with which I will not put. — D.D. Barant

The demeaning of dignity is almost the only reason for a fight. — Simon Soloveychik

We are all the spirit sons and daughters of a loving God who is our Father. We are part of His family. He is not a father in some allegorical or poetic sense. He is literally the Father of our spirits. He cares for each one of us. Though this world has a way of diminishing and demeaning men and women, the reality is we are all of royal, divine lineage. In that unprecedented appearance of the Father and the Son in the Sacred Grove, the very first word spoken by the Father of us all was the personal name of Joseph. Such is our Father's personal relationship with each of us. He knows our names and yearns for us to become worthy to return to live with Him. — M. Russell Ballard

Or guides might initiate a discussion of slave names. Many owners insisted on the right to name their newborn slaves - rather than allowing their parents this pleasure - and then deliberately gave them demeaning names or names that ironically invoked godlike figures from antiquity. George Washington, for instance, used Hercules, Paris-boy, Sambo, Sucky, Flukey, Doll, Suck Bass, Caesar, and Cupid. Most slaves received no last names. Guides could ask visitors to imagine the self-respect of black children under these conditions. — James W. Loewen

Put the strong, masculine figure in a school with tough kids and you have a certain control. It's very demeaning to the kids and very demeaning to the tough, black guy, but that's how they worked it. — Lynne Stewart

He reached up without thinking to assist Siena with hands on her waist. He did not realize until she hesitated that she might interpret the gesture as somewhat demeaning to her undoubtedly excellent ability to take care of herself. But she reached for his shoulders a moment later, moving into his hands as he lowered her to the floor easily.
"Do not worry," she assured him softly as she linked her fingers through his and squeezed his hand. "I sometimes forget that you were born when men were gentlemen. However, I think it could grow on me."
"I am glad to hear that," he said with a grin. "However, I am wholeheartedly willing to forgo gentlemanly manners and let the door hit you in the ass at your immediate request."
"You are too kind," she laughed. — Jacquelyn Frank

There has to be so many other ways of approaching airline security than demeaning ourselves by giving up a lot of our dignities and our liberty to do this. — Quico Canseco

If we are merely matter intricately assembled, is this really demeaning? If there's nothing here but atoms, does that make us less or does that make matter more? — Carl Sagan

A samurai chooses to serve a master and does it out of respect and love, not because they are forced. Service to them is not demeaning; service is an expression of their prowess and their pride; they serve because only they are strong enough to serve with such flawless perfection and such consummate ability. It is a source of pride to them. — Alexei Maxim Russell

It was demeaning to scrape affection from virtually everyone you encountered. That was immature. — John Knowles

Mindfulness can have a sobering effect on the restless, jittery psyche. The stiller and more focused it becomes, the more I am able to peer into the sources of my febrile reactivity, to catch the first stirring of hatred before it overwhelms me with loathing and spite, to observe with ironic detachment the conceited babbling of the ego, to notice at its inception the self-demeaning story that could tip me into depression. And — Stephen Batchelor

When we lose the contemplative mind, or non-dual consciousness, we invariably create violent people. The dualistic mind is endlessly argumentative, and we created an argumentative continent, which we also exported to North and South America. We see it in our politics; we see it in our Church's inability to create any sincere interfaith dialogue - or even intra-faith dialogue. The Baptists are still fighting the Anglicans as "lost" and the Evangelicals are dismissing the Catholics as the "Whore of Babylon," and we Catholics are demeaning everybody else as heretics, and each of us is hiding in our small, smug circles. What a waste of time and good God-energy, while the world suffers and declines. We have divided Jesus. — Richard Rohr

If you are embarrassed about your sex, it must mean that you feel there is something demeaning or disgusting about being female. You are all wondrously made, girls. Remember that: wondrously made, and you should carry your sex proudly, a badge of honor. — Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

A person or group of people can suffer real damage, real distortion, if the people or society around them mirror back to them a confining or demeaning or contemptible picture of themselves.24 — Melissa V. Harris-Perry

A fundamental principle of Catholic theology is that grace perfects nature rather than setting it aside; and that means that the Christian life is not a two-layer cake, the supernatural simply added on to the natural. It transforms the natural but by perfecting it, not by demeaning it. — Peter Kreeft

What is it? What is it?!" I began dumping clothes out of the dresser drawers, snatching them on as quickly as I could before hauling my suitcase and large duffel out of the closet. I would not cry. I would not cry! "Brendan, what was the only fucking thing I asked from you that first night? Do you remember?"
He blinked, scrubbing a hand through his tousled hair. "You ... you asked me to respect you. Which I do, I'm just trying to - "
"Oh, really?" I gave him a derisive sneer as I threw wadded clothes into my bags and began slamming about, looking for odds and ends I might have missed. "That's what you call this? You offer to put me up like your personal rent-boy in some no-tell motel and promise to drop by every few days for a booty call while your wife's in town, and you think that's not demeaning? Well, fuck you. — Amelia C. Gormley

Work is not your enemy but your friend. How you work, not what you do, determines the course of your life. You may work grudgingly or you may work gratefully; you may work as a human or you may work as a robot. There is no work so rude that you may not exalt in it; no work so demeaning that you cannot breathe soul into it; no work so dull that you may not enliven it. — Og Mandino

We need to encourage designers and agencies to be responsible. We need to make sure everyone is sensitive to the issues. But to calculate the girls' body mass - I personally think it is demeaning. — Diane Von Furstenberg

I'd find it demeaning to be cleaning toilets. — Jack Kevorkian

A fiction about soft or easy deaths is part of the mythology of most diseases that are not considered shameful or demeaning. — Susan Sontag

We are a simple creation ever eager to complicate ourselves. We are a loving animal, capable of showing so much love, who even though does not walk on all-four, is also capable, many a time, of nefarious, savage, demeaning, degrading and unfathomable acts against fellow humans. — Levi Cheruo Cheptora

Let me tell you humans something. You are not fighters. You don't have what it takes to actually change your current living situations. You can't even organize a decent group to combat oppression. How can beings of such low stature hope to do anything? You are not heroes. Stop pretending you are helping by playing commando and get out of the way of someone who can. — Charles Lee

To be told that one can be dependent on one's parents until age 26 should strike a young person who wants to grow up as demeaning, not as something to celebrate. — Dennis Prager

Imagine if all girls called a moratorium on cool. How amazing would it be for women to stop demeaning themselves with morose jerks and actually demand decent guys. Maybe the best tip is this: Treat every day as though you're preparing for the prom. If it doesn't meet your expectations, make other plans. I'm free most weekends. — Greg Gutfeld

Because he was suffering doubts about himself and his future, Adams may have felt comfort demeaning the behavior and the character of women. — Paul C. Nagel

We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent. — Jason Whitlock

I don't think most people realize - and there's no reason they should - the amount of demeaning garbage you have to take if you want a career in the arts. I mean, going off to med school is something you can say with your head high. Or being a banker or going into insurance or the family business - no problem. But the conversations I had with grown-ups after college ... "So you're done with school now, Bill." "That's right." "So what's next on the agenda?" Pause. Finally I would say it: "I want to be a writer." And then they would pause. "A writer." "I'd like to try." Third and final pause. And then one of two inevitable replies: either "What are you going to do next?" or "What are you really going to do?" That dread double litany ... What are you going to do next? ... What are you really going to do? ... What are you going to do next? ... What are you really going to do ... ? — William Goldman

Discipline and demand without being demeaning. — Don Meyer

The first mode is the open hostility to verifiable reality, which takes the form of presenting inventions and lies as if they were facts. The president does this at a high rate and at a fast pace. One attempt during the 2016 campaign to track his utterances found that 78 percent of his factual claims were false. This proportion is so high that it makes the correct assertions seem like unintended oversights on the path toward total fiction. Demeaning the world as it is begins the creation of a fictional counterworld. The — Timothy Snyder

Usually the term phobia refers to the psychological fear of the human mind from something that poses a threat. But when a species starts using the term fear against a biological portion of itself, there is nothing more demeaning than this. — Abhijit Naskar

It takes a long time before we really get to grips with this [Darwin's 'On the Origin of Species'] and begin to understand it, because not only does it seem incredible and thoroughly demeaning to us, but it's yet another shock to our system to discover that not only are we not the centre of the Universe and we're not made by anything, but we started out as some kind of slime and got to where we are via being a monkey. It just doesn't read well. — Douglas Adams

The women of the Band were learning that if the Lord of Glory took a towel and knelt on the floor to wash the dusty feet of His disciples, then no work, even the relentless and often messy routine of caring for squalling babies, is demeaning. To offer it up to the Lord of Glory transforms it into a holy task. — Elisabeth Elliot

Malcolm X found the language that communicated across the board, from college professor to floor sweeper, all at the same time, without demeaning the intellect of either. — John Henrik Clarke

I'd rather be somewhere building a house, if I knew how. The whole idea of being a professional artist is like a demeaning kind of thing. — Willis Earl Beal

An intelligent adult often feels it is demeaning to pay attention to simplistic definitions. — Robert T. Kiyosaki

Strangely, charity sometimes gets dismissed, as if it is ineffective, inappropriate or even somehow demeaning to the recipient. 'This isn't charity,' some donors take pains to claim, 'This is an investment.' Let us recognize charity for what it is at heart: a noble enterprise aimed at bettering the human condition. — Ban Ki-moon

It may seem demeaning to the vanity of some individuals, but like all elements of the mind, God and all its correlated sensations of divinity are the majestic creations of neurobiology. — Abhijit Naskar

The glorious insanities of the English language mean that you can do all sorts of odd and demeaning things to a book. You can cook it. — Mark Forsyth

The celebrity culture demands a camera-ready-at-all-times look or else the photo is circulated in a demeaning headline. — Zoe Cassavetes

If there were more temple work done in the Church, there would be less of selfishness, less of contention, less of demeaning others. — Gordon B. Hinckley

Persecution means an attempt to drive out, attempt to subjugate, and there are various ways that that can be done. Sarah Palin's opponents and her critics would like to see her leave the public square by insulting, degrading, demeaning, abusing and ridiculing her, and - by pretending that she has nothing to say. — Matthew Continetti

A man with money to pay for a meal can talk about hunger without demeaning himself ... But for a man with no money hunger is a disgrace. — Vicki Baum

If God is inside our nature and our history, he can take over our lives. What is an opportunity for believers - finding freedom in surrendering our lives and our selves to God - is overwhelming and demeaning for others. And it is true that to invite Jesus into one's life is to be changed. Christ breaks down our defenses, including the habits of ordinary life. — Francis George

Some people think it's demeaning to victims if you ever say anything out-loud about sexual abuse of children. I don't know if that's true. — Louis C.K.

In no way am I demeaning writing or any other form of art because it's popular. What I'm saying is that anything fed into the industrial machinery to comply with rules of size and length and shelf-life has a hard time surviving as art. — Alberto Manguel

I know what it's like to be growing up, called 'deaf and mute' and 'deaf and dumb.' They're words that are very degrading and demeaning to people who are deaf and hard of hearing. It's almost ... it's almost libelous, if you want to say that. — Marlee Matlin

She wished she could give Isabel a shield, like the ones riot police held, to protect her from male attention, that feeling of being scored each time you walked down a street, the demeaning comments yelled out of cars, that casual sweep of the eyes. — Liane Moriarty

As the mother of a son, I do not accept that alienation from me is necessary for his discovery of himself. As a woman, I will not cooperate in demeaning womanly things so that he can be proud to be a man. I like to think the women in my son's future are counting on me. — Letty Cottin Pogrebin

Beyond love, beyond unrequited love, perhaps even beyond any other passion known to humanity, deep, deep in the depths of the turgid, clinging, swamplike pit of despair that lies dormant within every soul, lurks JEALOUSY. Jealousy, that most demeaning and debilitating of emotions. Jealousy, which can double the strength of the love upon which it is based, but whilst doubling it, warp and pervert it, untill it is no longer recognizable as the thing of beauty it once was. Jealous love is no more like true love than Mr Hyde was like Dr Jekyll or a stagnant swamp is like a freshwater lake. — Ben Elton

Far from being demeaning to human spiritual values, scientific rationalism is the crowning glory of the human spirit. — Richard Dawkins

You know... the word "homeless", gives you this very negative image. A filthy raggedy hobo... it's no good. It's too demeaning of a word if you ask me. It's just not politically correct enough... If it were up to me, I'd rather we be called "residentially challenged — Nobuyuki Fukumoto

Obama's pop-cultural focus may seem demeaning to the office of the presidency. It may be mockable. But it is also tremendously effective. — Ben Shapiro

Remember, to hate, to be violent, is demeaning. It means you're afraid of the other side of the coin
to love and be loved. — James A. Baldwin

If you mean to be wicked, here's my first piece of advice: never fish for compliments by demeaning yourself. Assume there is no place I'd rather be than by your side."
"But I know that's not true."
"It doesn't matter what my truth is. Know your worth and assume others do, too. Modesty, if you consider it, is the most unforgivable sort of falsehood: it's a lie that does damage to no one but yourself."
She laughed. "Damage? I like that. Of course, you're a heretic by profession. Most gentlemen consider modesty very becoming to a lady."
"No doubt they do," he agreed. ... "The same gentlemen who liken ladies to flowers, no doubt." ... "Others of us," he said courteously as his hand dropped, "do not believe a woman's main aim is to decorate a room. — Meredith Duran