Quotes & Sayings About Demoralizing

A tramp, therefore, is a celibate from the moment when he takes to the road. He is absolutely without hope of getting a wife, a mistress, or any kind of woman except - very rarely, when he can raise a few shillings - a prostitute.
It is obvious what the results of this must be: homosexuality, for instance, and occasional rape cases. But deeper than these there is the degradation worked in a man who knows that he is not even considered fit for marriage. The sexual impulse, not to put it any higher, is a fundamental impulse, and starvation of it can be almost as demoralizing as physical hunger. The evil of poverty is not so much that it makes a man suffer as that it rots him physically and spiritually. And there can be no doubt that sexual starvation contributes to this rotting process. Cut off from the whole race of women, a tramp feels himself degraded to the rank of a cripple or a lunatic. No humiliation could do more damage to a man's self-respect. — George Orwell

I never went too long without a job. The problem was a lot of the early jobs are almost more demoralizing than unemployment. — Nick Offerman

To give up power to change for the better is inherently distasteful to everyone, and to force people to affirm that they are addicts or alcoholics so they can speak in a meeting is shameful and demoralizing. — Chris Prentiss

Man, anytime the ball goes through the basket. It doesn't matter if it's a jumper or a drive. Any time the ball goes through the basket, and it's going through consistently, it's demoralizing for any opponent. — Dwyane Wade

Lord Henry, you are quite delightful and dreadfully demoralizing. — Oscar Wilde

To be loved is very demoralizing. — Katharine Hepburn

Like every aspect of cancer I've weathered thus far, today's experience was not at all demoralizing, expensive or humiliating. No, it was just plain fun. — April Winchell

Most certainly prize-fighting is not half as brutalizing or demoralizing as many forms of big business and of the legal work carried on in connection with big business. — Theodore Roosevelt

But the true evil of drink lies in the disillusion: that the initial pleasure very soon evaporates, leaving a demoralizing craving for more, which is not even temporarily pleasurable. Which then leads to deterioration of the faculties of both body and mind; plus a bewildering lack of co-operation between the two. — Caitlin Thomas

Owning and maintaining a fraud had a way of gradually demoralizing one. — Philip K. Dick

Doing great work is a struggle. It's draining, it's demoralizing, it's frightening - not always, but it can feel that way when we're deep in the middle of it. — Ryan Holiday

He had never fainted in his life, and while he knew it was this whole life-mate, mind-blowing-sex business, it was still damned demoralizing to be fainting like a breathless virgin at the end of every encounter. — Lynsay Sands

Nothing can be more demoralizing than a clinging and abject dependance upon another human being. This often amounts to the demand for a degree of protection and love that no one could possibly satisfy. So our hoped-for protectors finally flee, and once more we are left alone - either to grow up or to disintegrate. — Bill W.

Without standards, you end up accepting any morsel of paying work that comes your way, like a hungry mouse devours a crumb. You remain stuck in that gut-tightening, demoralizing position of doing work you despise, for clients you don't like, just because you need the money. — Pete Savage

To stop for years and then discover that the audience is getting smaller and smaller would be demoralizing. — Alexis Taylor

When companies create ridiculous and demoralizing rules to halt the outlandish behavior of a few individuals, it's a management problem. There's no sense in alienating your entire workforce because you don't know how to manage performance. It makes a bad situation that much worse. — Travis Bradberry

We hear very often declarations on the demoralizing tendency of war, but as much as I hate war, I cannot be of the opinion that frequent wars are so corrupting to human nature as long peaces. — John Adams

A new educational system in which all children born shall have the same advantage of physical, industrial, mental and moral culture, and thus be equally prepared at maturity to enter upon active, responsible and useful lives ... In so doing, it strikes a fatal blow at ... the most demoralizing of all monopolies ... educational superiority. — Victoria Woodhull

Individuals bearing witness cannot do the work of social movements, but they can break a corrosive and demoralizing silence. — Ellen Willis

It is because of the Biblical curse on man's search for knowledge, which has so paralyzed his mind during the past ages, and its detrimental effect upon progress, that makes the Bible the most wicked, the most detestable, the most pernicious, and the most obnoxious book ever published. It has been a curse to the human race.
It is the duty of every brave and honest man and woman to do everything in his and her power to destroy the influence of this utterly stupid and vicious book, with its infantile concept of life and its nonsense concerning the universe. It is their duty to do everything within their power to stop its demoralizing and paralyzing influence upon the life of man.
We will never achieve intellectual liberty until the wickedness of this book has been discarded with the belief in the flatness of the earth. — Joseph Lewis

Startups are painful, stressful and at times demoralizing. You need to be a true believer in the vision of what you are doing. You need to passionate about it and love what you're doing. If you don't, there is no way you can sustain the hours, stress and disappointment. There's no way you're going to be able to convince investors, customers and most importantly recruit a world-class team if you not building something you think is going to change the world. — Steve Blank

I love watching reality TV, but being part of making it was just demoralizing. — Sia Furler

My friends and family have been so well trained that they know I really mean it when I say that I don't care if the review is good, because that can be as dangerous as when it's bad. It's less demoralizing, but it can be just as confusing. — Richard Greenberg

Few realizations are as demoralizing as knowing that the only thing standing between you and what you want is yourself, — Kate Bolick

I don't read newspapers in the morning. I take a look at the dailies in the afternoon, but only when I've finished my work for the day. Reading about what is happening in Turkey once again would only be demoralizing for me. — Orhan Pamuk

The experience of this demoralizing crisis [of the Babylonian exile], which appeared to negate all the central elements that Yahweh had ordained for Israel's well-being, could easily have meant the end of Israel's religion. Remarkably, it provoked instead an almost explosive flowering of theological literature during the exilic period. (p. 139) — Rainer Albertz

Convictions that outcomes are determined by one's own actions can be either demoralizing or heartening, depending on the level of self-judged efficacy. People who regard outcomes as personally determined, but who lack the requisite skills, would experience low self-efficacy and view the activities with a sense of futility — Albert Bandura

The two of them didn't even stop jitterbugging during the intervals. I felt myself shrinking to a small black dot against all those red and white rugs and that pine paneling. I felt like a hole in the ground.
There is something demoralizing about watching two people get more and more crazy about each other, especially when you are the only extra person in the room. — Sylvia Plath

There is something demoralizing about watching two people get more and more crazy about each other, especially when you are the only extra person in the room. It's like watching Paris from an express caboose heading in the opposite direction
every second the city gets smaller and smaller, only you feel it's really you getting smaller and smaller and lonelier and lonelier, rushing away from all those lights and excitement at about a million miles an hour. — Sylvia Plath

American democracy is a chess-game in which pawns imagine themselves to be free individuals with wills of their own: that delusion is one of the rules of the game, without which the game could not continue. I doubt anyone, no matter how sharp and sharp-tongued, could succeed in getting across to high school students how vital an acute mind is for just keeping a grip on one's life and earnings in our mendacious politics and economics. No wonder our school system is devoutly dedicated to demoralizing and blunting such minds. — Kenny Smith

In the modern Christian attempt to take a stand as Christ did, and maybe for others, win the approval of the world, the Christian will often think that it consists of targeting and demoralizing fellow Christians and only fellow Christians. It is one thing to stand against religious hypocrisy when one sees it, but it is another to go on snorting at anything or anyone who might seem 'too Christian' to us. The irony is that by doing this we are further advocating hypocrisy and 'half-hearted Christians'. — Criss Jami

I may as well cut my losses and make a hasty exit while I still had enough self-esteem to walk upright. Crawling was so demoralizing — Darynda Jones

At last, liveried in the costume of the age, reality entered the room in the shape of a servant to tell the duchess that her carriage was waiting. She wrung her hands in mock despair. "How annoying!" she cried. "I must go. I have to call for my husband at the club, to take him to some absurd meeting at Willis's Rooms, where he is going to be in the chair. If I am late he is sure to be furious, and I couldn't have a scene in this bonnet. It is far too fragile. A harsh word would ruin it. No, I must go, dear Agatha. Good-bye, Lord Henry, you are quite delightful and dreadfully demoralizing. I am sure I don't know what to say about your views. You must come and dine with us some night. Tuesday? Are you disengaged Tuesday? — Oscar Wilde

When spontaneous demoralizing thoughts seep into your conscience, don't trip ... allowing them to fester. These are random tests of your conviction and determination. Large or small, your reaction to such intrusions is a defining moment for which no one else, but you, can mitigate. — T.F. Hodge

I am sorry to have to introduce the subject of Christmas. It is an indecent subject; a cruel, gluttonous subject; a drunken, disorderly subject; a wasteful, disastrous subject; a wicked, cadging, lying, filthy, blasphemous and demoralizing subject. Christmas is forced on a reluctant and disgusted nation by the shopkeepers and the press: on its own merits it would wither and shrivel in the fiery breath of universal hatred; and anyone who looked back to it would be turned into a pillar of greasy sausages. — George Bernard Shaw

He'd experienced it as a private trauma. Failure in American schools was demoralizing and to be avoided at all costs. American kids could not handle routine failure, or so adults thought. — Amanda Ripley

We attach to most of our chapels a cultural hall so that our youth may have a place to dance, to perform their talents in musicals and other uplifting entertainment, and we hope our youth leaders as trustees of the building will see to it that only wholesome, uplifting activities are performed in this building. Should you have any reservations whether or not an activity, a style of dancing or tempo of music is in accord with Church standards, may I suggest this guide: Does it uplift and inspire one to higher ideals? Does it develop wholesome relationships between young men and women, or appeal to and arouse their baser instincts? Will it cause one to be a better Latter-day Saint and lead one closer to the Savior? Avoid all activities and dances which bring the world's demoralizing standards into this sacred meeting place. — Ezra Taft Benson

Most professionals specialize in only part of the complex community revitalization process. Incomplete efforts usually create messy, expensive, demoralizing failures. Few specialists understand how to bring a place back to life with a holistic approach. If anyone understands the complete revitalization process, it's Storm Cunningham. He's spent over a decade rigorously studying successes and failures worldwide. He can look at a community, regional, or organizational regeneration or redevelopment process, and quickly spot what's wrong ... what's missing. — Lindsey Davis

Outrage, combining as it does shock, anger, reproach, and helplessness, is perhaps the most unmanageable, the most demoralizing of all the emotions. — Margery Allingham

The loss of Abu Talib's protection was certainly demoralizing, if not detrimental to Muhammad's physical security. But returning home after one of his painfully violent revelatory experiences, or after suffering another indignity from the Quraysh - his head covered in dirt, his tunic defiled with blood - and not having Khadija there to wrap him in her cloak and hold him in her arms until the terror subsided must have been an unimaginable sorrow for the Prophet. — Reza Aslan

The love song I wrote that day... I got embarrassed and never sang it for her.

Oh yeah... I'll sing it to her when I go home.

I'll go home.

I'll hurry home. — Inio Asano

Despite some standout events, 2012 was demoralizing. The Met felt adrift, and New York City Opera couldn't claw its way back to artistic health. — David Edelstein

Tutelage is a comfortable relationship for the senior partner, but it is demoralizing in the long run. It breeds illusions of omniscience on one side and attitudes of impotent irresponsibility on the other. — Henry A. Kissinger

I have learned that there lies dormant in the souls of all men a penchant for some particular musical instrument an an unsuspected yearning to play on it, which are bound to wake up an demand attention someday. Therefore you who rail at such that disturb your slumbers with unsuccessful and demoralizing attempts to subjugate a guitar, beware! For sooner or later your own time will come. — Mark Twain

Far more demoralizing to Americans than British operations in New England was their invasion of the Chesapeake. In 1814 London officials ordered Major General Robert Ross "to effect a diversion on the coasts of the United States of America in favor of the army employed in the defence of Upper and Lower Canada." At the same time, Prevost, who was angry over the burning of Dover and other depredations in Upper Canada, asked Vice Admiral Alexander Cochrane to "assist in inflicting that measure of retaliation which shall deter the enemy from a repetition of similar outrages."104 The British had successfully targeted the Chesapeake in 1813, and both Ross and Cochrane regarded it the best place to achieve their goals in 1814. The bay's extensive shoreline remained exposed, and the region's two most important cities - Washington and Baltimore - offered inviting targets. — Donald R. Hickey

The model of the human habitat dictated by zoning is a formless, soul-less, centerless, demoralizing mess. It bankrupts families and townships. It disables whole classes of decent, normal citizens. It ruins the air we breathe. It corrupts and deadens our spirit. — James Howard Kunstler

I had been a veteran of pretty challenging job searches, so I knew firsthand how frustrating, confusing, and demoralizing the job search process can be. Even after you get a job, many people join companies and discover in the first couple weeks that they aren't a good match with the personality and values of the company. — Kathryn Minshew

It's better to grow your employees, steer them into a place that they can learn and succeed, and want to work hard and be loyal, than to have a revolving door of employees. That's demoralizing. — Glen Mazzara

For those of us with introverted tendencies, many think that hard work and good results is what matters most. It would be great if that were the case, but it's wrong to believe that to be true. Superb performance on the job is important, but if you don't have a supportive network, you're in for some big disappointments. We speak to people continuously who suffer from the missing component of good networking in their career path. Those people find that their missed opportunities or promotions are demoralizing and certainly frustrating. — Dorothy Tannahill-Moran

When political leaders fail to denounce anti-Semitic violence and slurs, the void is not only demoralizing to the victims, but silence actually enables the wrongdoing. Silence by elected officials in particular conveys approval - or at least acquiescence - and can contribute to a climate of fear and a sense of vulnerability. — Chris Smith

There's nothing more demoralizing than a leader who can't clearly articulate why we're doing what we're doing. — James M. Kouzes

It is a horrible demoralizing thing to be a lawyer. You look for such low motives in everyone and everything. — Katharine Tynan

Here by far the most frustrating gumption trap is inadequate tools. Nothing's quite so demoralizing as a tool hang-up. Buy good tools as you can afford them and you'll never regret — Robert M. Pirsig

Only let the North exert as much moral influence over the South, as the South has exerted demoralizing influence over the North, and slavery would die amid the flame of Christian remonstrance, and faithful rebuke, and holy indignation. — Angelina Grimke

If Americans can transform Memorial Day, technically a remembrance of all our war dead ever, into the official kickoff of summer, we can handle adapting one demoralizing battle into a wholesome, chipper get-together. — Sarah Vowell

I thought of how many women told me dispiritedly about how their husbands waited for them to ask - or to make a list - and how demoralizing that was for them. I could not help thinking that there was some element of passive aggression in this recurrent theme of nice men, good, playful dads, full of initiative and motivation at work, who "waited to be asked" to do the more tedious baby-related work at home, until the asking was finally scaled back or stopped. — Naomi Wolf

I am fearful that the paper system will ruin the state. Its demoralizing effects are already seen and spoken of everywhere. I therefore protest against receiving any of that trash. — Andrew Jackson

Here, then, is our situation at the start of the twenty-first century: We have accumulated stupendous know-how. We have put it in the hands of some of the most highly trained, highly skilled, and hardworking people in our society. And, with it, they have indeed accomplished extraordinary things. Nonetheless, that know-how is often unmanageable. Avoidable failures are common and persistent, not to mention demoralizing and frustrating, across many fields - from medicine to finance, business to government. And the reason is increasingly evident: the volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits correctly, safely, or reliably. Knowledge has both saved us and burdened us. That — Atul Gawande

I find everything demoralizing,' Dennis said. — Paul Zindel

Is not 'casual' labour the very secret and safety-valve of a safe and sound labour system generally?...In a complicated and commercial state constant employment at regular wages is impossible; while dole-supported unemployment, at anything like the wages of employment, is demoralizing to begin with and ruinous at its more or less quickly arriving end. — George Saintsbury

I'll be honest, watching the music industry collapse has been demoralizing and disheartening at times. — Trent Reznor

the purpose of 'systematically shaking the foundations, systematically undermining society and all principles; for the purpose of demoralizing everyone and throwing everything into chaos, and then, once society had begun to totter as a result - and was sick and weakened, cynical and devoid of beliefs, yet still yearning for some guiding idea and self-preservation - they would suddenly take it into their hands, raising the banner of rebellion and relying on a complete network of groups of five, which would all be active at the same time, recruiting and making practical efforts to search out all the means and all the weak spots that could be exploited'. He concluded that here, in our town, Pyotr Stepanovich had organized only the first experiment in such systematic disorder, — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

In our marriage it was our practice not to share anything that was upsetting, depressing, demoralizing, tedious - unless it was unavoidable. Because so much in a writer's life can be distressing - negative reviews, rejections by magazines, difficulties with editors, publishers, book designers - disappointment with one's own work, on a daily/hourly basis! - it seemed to me a very good idea to shield Ray from this side of my life as much as I could. For what is the purpose of sharing your misery with another person, except to make that person miserable, too? — Joyce Carol Oates

Most corporate infrastructures are massive time-wasters and demoralizing energy suckers. — Bill Jensen

Identifying as a writer is a matter of self-acceptance. It's not a thing that can be given to you, or bestowed upon you. You are a writer if you write. That's it. If what you are seeking is to be acknowledged as a writer by other people, many of them strangers, you're in for a demoralizing journey. It is a silly club where those who have been 'accepted' are loathe to permit others into. It's sort of like how we Americans love denying our own immigrant origins while railing against immigration. — Vincent Louis Carrella

Too much success is the enemy, too much failure is demoralizing. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Insisting that we must tax and take and demonize those who have already achieved the American Dream. That may turn out to be a good re-election strategy for President Obama, but is a demoralizing message for America. — Chris Christie

You have to protect it too, you can't let just any stupid person take it and do something demoralizing with it. At the same time, I don't believe in being so rigid about controlling what happens either. — Paul Auster

American voices, country voices, high-pitched and without mercy. He lies freezing, wondering if the bedsprings will give him away. For possibly the first time he is hearing America as it must sound to a non-American. Later he will recall that what surprised him most was the fanaticism, the reliance not just on flat force but on the rightness of what they planned to do ... he'd been told long ago to expect this sort of thing from Nazis, and especially from Japs - we were the ones who always played fair - but this pair outside the door now are as demoralizing as a close-up of John Wayne (the angle emphasizing how slanted his eyes are, funny you never noticed before) screaming BANZAI! — Thomas Pynchon

Too much money is as demoralizing as too little, and there's no such thing as exactly enough.. — Mignon McLaughlin

How marriage ruins a man! It is as demoralizing as cigarettes, and far more expensive. — Oscar Wilde

While negativity is politically useful, it is also demoralizing unless it is accompanied - and to some extent overshadowed - by elevated and inspiring ideas about the American future. — John Podhoretz

Why is it that at a bachelor's establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne? I ask merely for information.
I attribute it to the superior quality of the wine, sir. I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand.
Good Heavens! Is marriage so demoralizing as that?
I believe it is a very pleasant state, sir. I have had very little experience of it myself up to the present. I have only been married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person. — Oscar Wilde

There's nothing in the world so demoralizing as money. — Sophocles

I realize now that there's a strength in dunking that I can use to my advantage. When you dunk all the time it isn't as demoralizing to the opponent, but when you dunk at a key moment in the game you can use it to change the momentum. — Kobe Bryant

The tango, by 1914, had been officially declared immoral, and dancers went through its showy steps under threat of being dragged off the floor to jail unless light was visible between the partners and they refrained from doing any demoralizing dance steps, like "snake-wiggling" at the shoulders. — Christine Wiltz

Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing. — Harriet B. Braiker

Apparently "London" gave out my address! that's what they're saying ... not just London, though! Brazzaville, too! ... and said that I'm a dirty pornographer ... a letch besides being the most despicable traitor of the century! ... I'd make a urinal blush! that what we need is to cleanse France and the French language of this smut-writing, demoralizing, grammaclast who's sullying our sacred homeland and its literary heritage! — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

It takes courage to have a conscience when you seem to see others getting something tangible out of not bothering to struggle with the morality of a situation. It gets frustrating and demoralizing. This is precisely where character comes in. All throughout history special people have felt compelled to do what they objectively saw as right and good - even in the face of humiliation or rejection or expulsion or torture or death. That is because they believed that certain ideas were more important than individual well-being. — Laura Schlessinger

True, sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between authentic anger and bullshit and that's why the following exercise is designed to help you express your resentments with integrity, and not with demoralizing bullshit — Will Jelbert

There is nothing more demoralizing than a small but adequate income. — Edmund Wilson

Jesus' disciples are not people lacking resources, but they are poor because they belong to this people under the oppressive and demoralizing dominion of a foreign power (e.g., Lk 6:20). They are indeed thus poor in spirit (Mt 5:3). Jesus does not focus on a concern for the poor in the sense of people who lacked resources. In — John E. Goldingay