Flagellation Quotes & Sayings

Squash - that's not exercise, it's flagellation. — Noel Coward

When something startlingly new comes up, young people, especially, seize it. You can't complain about that. I think its heyday has passed, but it's had an effect and will continue to have an effect. — M.H. Abrams

Logically enough, the office and the nunnery have been singularly popular in the imaginations of pornographers. We should not be surprised to learn that the erotic novels of the early modern period were overwhelmingly focused on debauchery and flagellation amongst clergy in vespers and chapels, just as contemporary Internet pornography is inordinately concerned with fellatios and sodomies performed by office workers against a backdrop of work stations and computer equipment. — Alain De Botton

We humans are born egocentric. The sky thunders and children believe that God is mad at them for something they've done - parents divorce and children believe it's their fault for not being good enough. Growing up means putting aside our egocentricity for truth. Still, some people cling to this childish mind-set. As painful as their self-flagellation may be, they'd rather believe their crises are their fault so they can believe they have control. In doing so they make fools and false gods of themselves. — Richard Paul Evans

Our God ... is a consuming fire. And if we, by love, become transformed into Him and burn as He burns, His fire will be our everlasting joy. But if we refuse His love and remain in the coldness of sin and opposition to Him and to other men then will His fire (by our own choice rather than His) become our everlasting enemy, and Love, instead of being our joy, will become our torment and our destruction. — Thomas Merton

When the world around is ready to back one unconditionally, one can become as unreasonable, unfair, and coldly sadistic as one likes. — Pawan Mishra

Maybe there are logical reasons for a gay person not to have a great relationship with their parents - not because there's a parent who made him gay, but just because it may be difficult to understand everything. — BD Wong

Writing is a form of self-flagellation. — William Styron

The Englishman is under no constitutional obligation to believe that all men are created equal. The American agony is therefore scarcely intelligible, like a saint's self-flagellation viewed by an atheist. — John Updike

I don't know if you made the world, Father Kolkan. And I don't know if you made my people or if they made themselves. But if it was your words they taught me as a child, and if it's your words that encourage this vile self-disgust, this ridiculous self-flagellation, this incredibly damaging idea that to be human and to love and to risk making mistakes is wrong, then... Well, I guess fuck you, Father Kolkan. — Robert Jackson Bennett

I think there's a very strong Calvinistic bias against a free lunch. The idea that you could achieve a spiritual insight without suffering, soul-searching, flagellation, and that sort of thing, is abhorrent to people because they believe that the vision of these higher dimensions should be vouchsafed to the good, and probably to them only after death. It is alarming to people to think that they could take a substance like psilocybin or DMT and have these kinds of experiences. — Terence McKenna

For a true spiritual transformation to flourish, we must see beyond this tendency to mental self-flagellation. Spirituality based on self-hatred can never sustain itself. Generosity coming from self-hatred becomes martyrdom. Morality born of self-hatred becomes rigid repression. Love for others without the foundation of love for ourselves becomes a loss of boundaries, codependency, and a painful and fruitless search for intimacy. But when we contact, through meditation, our true nature, we can allow others to also find theirs. — Sharon Salzberg

Even more than the depression, it was my anxiety and agitation that became the defining symptoms of my illness. Like epileptic seizures, a series of frenzied anxiety attacks would descend upon me without warning. My body was possessed by a chaotic, demonic force which led to my shaking, pacing and violently hitting myself across the chest or in the head. This self-flagellation seemed to provide a physical outlet for my invisible torment, as if I were letting steam out of a pressure cooker. — Douglas Bloch

Born again?! No, I'm not. Excuse me for getting it right the first time. — Dennis Miller

Still, he could not think of the mass of Moroccans without contempt. He had no patience with their ignorance and backwardness; if he damned the Europeans with one breath, he was bound to damn the Moroccans with the next. No one escaped but him, and that was because he hated himself most of all. — Paul Bowles

When God hands you a gift, he also hands you a whip; and the whip is intended for self-flagellation solely. — Truman Capote

He points out that mystics have always worked systematically to modify their brain chemistry, whether through fasting, self-flagellation, sleeplessness, hypnotic movement, or chanting.* The brain can be made to drug itself, as seems to happen with certain placebos. We don't merely imagine that the placebo antidepressant is working to lift our sadness or worry - the brain is actually producing extra serotonin in response to the mental prompt of swallowing a pill containing nothing but sugar and belief. What all this suggests is that the workings of consciousness are both more and less materialistic than we usually think: chemical reactions can induce thoughts, but thoughts can also induce chemical reactions. — Michael Pollan

...radiating honest ignorance — Terry Pratchett

One day, I started writing, not knowing that I had chained myself for life to a noble but merciless master. When God hands you a gift, he also hands you a whip; and the whip is intended solely for self-flagellation ... I'm here alone in my dark madness, all by myself with my deck of cards - and, of course, the whip God gave me. — Truman Capote

That's why Kathleen." Alfred doesn't answer. We sit in silence until he says, "I'm sorry you walked in on us. I'm a hypocrite. Maybe you even like that I'm one." "Come on, Alfred." He looks up at me. "At least let me be ashamed of myself." "Too late. Self-flagellation is not going to help you now." "It's over. With Kathleen, I mean." "That's a start." "What else can I do? I can't even face myself. I have to tell Pamela." "Oh — Adriana Trigiani

I'm here with Eggie."
All eyes focused on Ric and he suddenly felt like he'd just been handed a speedy death sentence.
"Not for that!" Miss Darla gasped, then added with a firm nod. "Don't you worry one bit, Ulrich.
I made Eggie fill in that shallow grave before we drove up here."
Lock grimaced and Ric swallowed. "Thank you? — Shelly Laurenston

There are men who have themselves whipped simply to increase their sexual pleasure. These, in contrast with true masochists, regard flagellation as a means to an end. — Richard Von Krafft-Ebing

After many years of self-flagellation, I've realised that beating myself up doesn't get me anywhere. — Chris Pine

Trying to understand fundamental processes that take place as organisms develop and how their various cells interact with one another - one can see what happens with those cells by asking questions about the fundamentals of biology. — Martin Chalfie

It is a curious thing how poets tend to become ascetics ... Even a debauch for them is a self-flagellation. They go on the loose in cruelty against themselves, admitting that they are pandering to, and despising, the lower self. — D.H. Lawrence

No, actors go out with actresses as a form of self-flagellation. — John Cusack

What is needed is, in the end, simply this: solitude, great inner solitude. — Rainer Maria Rilke

I never see any difference in boys. I only know two sorts of boys. Mealy boys and beef-faced boys. — Charles Dickens

Between what is said and not meant, and what is meant and not said, most of love is lost. — Kahlil Gibran

Study first, play afterwards. — Daniel D. Palmer

When you know yourself, your 'I'ness vanishes and you know that you and Allah are one and the same. — Ibn Arabi

It had been nine months since Riko Moriyama and Kevin Day stood in the same room together, nine months since Riko destroyed Kevin's hand, and now they were reunited on live television. The audience cheered their hearts out, delighted by Kathy's surprise, but they weren't quite loud enough to drown out Kevin's soft voice at Neil's side.
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The words sounded like a desperate prayer. — Nora Sakavic