Harshest Quotes & Sayings

Isolation can be a particular problem for mothers at home with small children. Mothers become isolated from each other because we fear judgement. Other mothers can be our harshest critics. And we anticipate that criticism and don't ask each other for help. — Kathleen A. Kendall-Tackett

To achieve respectability, to be admitted to the debate, they must accept without question or inquiry the fundamental doctrine that the state is benevolent, governed by the loftiest intentions, adopting a defensive stance, not an actor in world affairs but only reacting to the crimes of others ... If even the harshest of critics tacitly adopt these premises, then the ordinary person may ask, who am I to disagree? — Noam Chomsky

In the harshest possible terms, I condemn political killings. — Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo

I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of which they are themselves adding?joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid leaves with disgust. — Jane Austen

It's hard when you read an article saying bad things about you. It is as if someone is sticking a knife on your heart. But I am the harshest critic of my work. — Robin Williams

As a director, you have to go in with a really, really, really clear picture of what you want. That's the point of my commentaries. It's so difficult because you're the harshest critic. — David Slade

No one listens willingly to someone who speaks to them from a position of self-righteousness and judgment. Again and again in the Gospels, Jesus reserves his harshest words for those who ignore their own weakness in order to lord it over others. — Pope Francis

Your harshest critic is always going to be yourself. Don't ignore that critic but don't give it more attention than it deserves. — Michael Ian Black

The boundaries are not to be blurred. I was sent off, struck by his harshest thunderbolt, excommunication. In his eyes I am no longer a man of the cloth. But I yet feel the Lord's hand holding me up. — Yann Martel

The chapter which concerned her began two hundred years ago and was played out in a proud society the bloodiest war and harshest peace in modern history could not destroy, returning, to be played out again on private ground in the twilight of a civilization no wars and no peace could save. Had she insight, could she have pierced — Harper Lee

Acceptance, she thinks, is the harshest lesson life teaches and the one most important to learn. — Rose Tremain

Recent events have shown us that we are a single, interdependent world. But the burden of any world crisis falls most heavily on the developing countries and on their peoples. And everything that we have learnt tells us that it is the children who will be feeling the harshest and the most permanent effects. Can we therefore claim in all earnestness to love our children--the children of the North and the South--if we do not give the most serious attention to preventing a world that has more than enough resources from dividing ever more deeply between rich and poor? — Graca Machel

When states like Alabama and Arizona passed some of the harshest immigration laws in history, my Attorney General took them on in court and we won. — Barack Obama

Your harshest truths are dreams, and your gentlest dreams are true. — Richard Bach

Yes, novels; for I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom, so common with novel-writers, of degrading, by their contemptuous censure, the very performances to the number of which they are themselves adding; joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust. Alas! if the heroine of one novel be not patronised by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard? I cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to the reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure, and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the press now groans. Let us not desert one another- we are an injured body. — Jane Austen

As if Spade's chivalry would allow him to do anything to a woman. The harshest punishment she could imagine him dishing out to Cat would be refusing to open a door for her. — Jeaniene Frost

Throughout history, even the harshest and most shameful measures are regularly accompanied by professions of noble intent - and rhetoric about bestowing freedom and independence. — Noam Chomsky

Maybe I was a bit harsh on some people. But I was harshest on myself, really. — Marc Almond

But colonialism in its harshest forms is not only the exploitation of new nations by old, of dark skins by light, or the subjugation of the poor by the rich. My Nation was once a colony,
and we know what colonialism means; the exploitation and subjugation of the weak by the powerful, of the many by the few, of the governed who have given no consent to be governed, whatever
their continent, their class, their color. — John F. Kennedy

Their relationship was built on friendship, and in matters of friendship he was boundlessly loyal. It was a relationship that would survive the harshest test. — Steig Larsson

That the Jews were unholy was a belief so ingrained by the Church [by the 14th century] that the most devout persons were the harshest in their antipathy, none more so than St. Louis. — Barbara Tuchman

When I am running I inhabit and exit my body in the same moment. I bear witness to the harshest of physical sensations, even while I feel myself flying free and away. I do not want to remember what has happened to me. I do not want to reflect on the past. I can't in a way. I'm not made for regrets. — Carrie Snyder

Veal, by definition, is the product of a sick, anemic, deliberately malnourished calf, a newborn dragged away from his mother in the first hours of life. Veal calves are dealt the harshest of punishments for the least essential of meats. — Matthew Scully

Father, One day, a woman walked into my life. I hurt her deeply with the harshest words possible. I pushed her away as much as I could. But, she still came back to me. She is so much like me; I look at myself often when I look at her. She has the physical wounds that I have. The tears that fill my brain are flowing through her heart as well. I gave her those wounds. I made her cry. I should not have met her. I should not have allowed her to come into the life of a guy like me. Father, I'm regretting it. This is the first time ... that I have ever regretted anything in my life. — Ma-Roo

If we fail now, then we will have forgotten in abundance what we learned in hardship: that democracy rests on faith; freedom asks more than it gives; and the judgment of God is harshest on those who are most favored. — Lyndon B. Johnson

The harshest tyranny is that which acts under the protection of legality and the banner of justice. — Baron De Montesquieu

If you have faith in the public sector, as I do, you must be the harshest critic of corruption, waste and fraud in government. — Eric Schneiderman

Loveless work, boring work, work valued only because others haven't got even that much, however loveless and boring
this is one of the harshest human miseries. — Wislawa Szymborska

Had she been able to think, Jean Louise might have prevented events to come by considering the day's occurrences in terms of a recurring story as old as time: the chapter which concerned her began two hundred years ago and was played out in a proud society the bloodiest war and harshest peace in modern history could not destroy, returning, to be played out again on private ground in the twilight of civilization no wars and no peace could save. — Harper Lee

Have you never known a cruel wind? What an easy, balmy, tropical life you must have! I never tease, madam! I coax, I beguile, I stomp, I throw tantrums, and for certain, I freeze - I am the Coldest and Harshest of all the Harsh Airs! I am the shiver of the world! But I do not tease. You can cause ever so much more trouble by taking folk seriously, asking just what they're doing and doing just what they ask. — Catherynne M Valente

At the moment when the road looks the harshest, and you think you cannot continue on that is when you relearn your first mode of transportation; you crawl. You dig your fingers into the dirt, and propel yourself forward with your toes, but you never give up. You've gotta learn to bend with the sway. You never know what is around the next curve. — Sai Marie Johnson

Arrakis is ours because we have taken it," Selim announced. "We have learned to survive under the harshest circumstances, without depending upon the benevolence of strangers or trade with offworld intruders. — Brian Herbert

Life is messy, Ren. It's not easy and it's definitely not for the timid. Everyone has a past. Things that stab them right between the eyes. Old grudges. Old shame. Regrets that steal your sleep and leave you awake until you fear for your own sanity. Betrayals that make your soul scream so loud you wonder why no one else hears it. In the end, we are all alone in that private hell. But life isn't about learning to forgive those who have hurt you or forgetting the past. It's about learning to forgive yourself for being human and making mistakes. Yes, people disappoint us all the time. But the harshest lessons come when we disappoint ourselves. When we put our trust and our hearts into the hands of the wrong person and they do us wrong. And while we may hate them for what they did, the one we hate most is ourself for allowing them into our private circle. How could I have been so stupid? How could I let them deceive me? We all go through that. It's humanity's brotherhood of misery. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

the black church helped African Americans survive the harshest forms of oppression and developed a revolutionary appeal for universal communal spirituality. The black church didn't just theorize about democracy, it practiced democracy. From its roots there flowered the civil rights movement - creative, inclusive, and nonviolent. — U.S. Department Of State

They say the truest beauty is in the harshest land and that God can be found there by those with open eyes. — Alice Hoffman

As I wrote more I became more critical of myself and I think that you have to be your harshest judge. I don't ever believe that what I write is my best work. I always think that I can hone it. I can always think that I can make it a little bit better. — Homer Hickam

Only through the hottest fires, whispers the radio, can purification be achieved. Only through the harshest tests can God's chosen rise. — Anthony Doerr

The wicked have weakness other than their willingness to kill and maim. Even the bleakest, cruelest soul can have its tender spots. Even the harshest desert has its pools, its shady trees and gentle streams. — Paul Hoffman

Women are the harshest critics of other women. — Joy Bryant

The capacity to be overwhelmed by the beautiful is astonishingly sturdy and survives amidst the harshest distractions. — Susan Sontag

And violent hearts set harshest flame, Roque murmurs from his knee. — Pierce Brown

I'm probably my own harshest critic. If I get a hundred good reviews and one really bad one, it's that one out of a hundred that I remember. I think we actors are hard on ourselves, and I don't know why that is. — Tim Daly

The scientists not only sanctified human feelings, but also found an excellent evolutionary reason to do so. After Darwin, biologists began explaining that feelings are complex algorithms honed by evolution to help animals make correct decisions. Our love, our fear and our passion aren't some nebulous spiritual phenomena good only for composing poetry. Rather, they encapsulate millions of years of practical wisdom. When you read the Bible you are getting advice from a few priests and rabbis who lived in ancient Jerusalem. In contrast, when you listen to your feelings, you follow an algorithm that evolution has developed for millions of years, and that withstood the harshest quality-control tests of natural selection. Your feelings are the voice of millions of ancestors, each of whom managed to survive and reproduce in an unforgiving environment. — Yuval Noah Harari

We Venusians are sturdier than that. One can't even become part of the Protectorate until we've survived, naked and unarmed, in the harshest jungles of Venus. Only after a warrior crawls into civilization wearing the pelt of the fearsome screeching five-horned fiend do they pass the test. — A. Lee Martinez

History will not judge HIV/AIDS kindly ... the harshest words will be reserved for how the world responded, or rather failed to respond, to the epidemic. — Seth Berkley

Sometimes the harshest lessons were the most valuable. — S.M. Stirling

In the harshest place on Earth, ... love finds a way. — Morgan Freeman

The length of sentences depends upon the criminal's wealth and type of legal help more than upon the seriousness of his transgression. Court procedures are slow and cumbersome. It is the poor and stupid criminal who gets the heaviest sentences - so the aim of criminals is to become rich and cunning, and thus avoid the harshest penalties. — Sydney J. Harris

Grande is Mexico's harshest and most secure prison, and — Don Winslow

The harshest criticism, I noticed, often seemed to come from other women. I didn't want to be that kind of woman, I decided; it wasn't right to hurt others in a way I'd been hurt. From then on, I vowed, I would never say anything negative about a woman's appearance. It had nothing to do with them as a person, and it wasn't something they could easily change. If I didn't want looks to matter, I would have to stop talking and acting like they did. — Mara Wilson

I'm a sensitive guy, and I'm already one of my harshest critics, so if other people are hard on me, it just amplifies how hard I already am on myself. — Steve Grand

At the age of five she has already come to terms with one of the life's harshest lessons: that the world isn't fair. — Tabitha Suzuma

Lately even the harshest critics of President Bush have been forced to admit maybe he's right about freedom's march around the globe. What if we are watching an example of presidential leadership that will be taught in American schools for generations to come? It's an idea gaining more currency. — Brian Williams

Most of the earth's inhabitants work to get by. They work because they have to. They didn't pick this or that kind of job out of passion; the circumstances of their lives did the choosing for them. Loveless work, boring work, work valued only because others haven't got even that much, however loveless and boring
this is one of the harshest human miseries. And there's no sign that coming centuries will produce any changes for the better as far as this goes. — Wislawa Szymborska

Momofuku is not me. It's everyone. I'm just the facade. We have to exceed expectations and be our harshest critics. — David Chang

I have for some days held and controlled every avenue by which the people and garrison of Savannah can be supplied, and I am therefore justified in demanding the surrender of the city ... I am prepared to grant liberal terms to the inhabitants and garrison; but should I be forced to resort to assault, or the slower and surer process of starvation, I shall then feel justified in resorting to the harshest measures, and shall make little effort to restrain my army - burning to avenge the national wrong which they attach to Savannah and other large cities which have been so prominent in dragging our country into civil war. — William T. Sherman

We're all the harshest judges of ourselves. — Susan Anton

What I've learned about comedy people is that they're defined by the harshest level they've been to, their personal Auschwitz. — Bob Saget

...and according to Kings, at some point you sent two bears to maul a bunch of children. I believe forty-two of them, for taunting a bald child?"

"I know it seems a bit harsh now, but you have to understand, that was a long time ago. These were the days of the Hammurabic and Draconian Code. If you wanted to get someone's attention, you had to have the harshest penalties. People were going crazy for that kind of stuff. Besides, those kids were taunting one of my followers named Elisha. — Dylan Callens

What I've realized is that we're our own harshest critics. We give ourselves limitations. But I want to push through that wall, on a creative and personal level. — Carla Gugino

The bleakest situations bring out the hospitality in all of us, but it's during the harshest we find out how strong we really are. — Evan Meekins

Is it always in the interest of the public safety to seek the prosecutor's traditional solution
the harshest penalty possible? Or is the public best served by finding ways to change a kid's lot in life for the better, even if that means opening the prison door? — Edward Humes

Looking at her was like stepping into a patch of spring sunlight after the harshest winter. — Kate Evangelista

Well, well, well. The mighty Uthman-ul-Dosht comes with mercy, and offers peace. These are strange times we live in, eh, Tulkis? Have the Gurkish learned to love their enemies? Or simply fear them?'
'One need not love one's enemy, or even fear him, to desire peace. One need only love oneself.'
'Is that so?'
'It is. I lost two sons in the wars between our peoples. One at Ulrioch in the last war. He was a priest, and burned in the temple there. The other died not long ago, at the siege of Dagoska. He led the charge when the first breach was made.'
Glokta frowned and stretched out his neck. A hail of flatbow bolts. Tiny figures, falling in the rubble. 'That was a brave charge.'
'War is harshest on the brave. — Joe Abercrombie

People that criticize the harshest usually are the ones who would trade places the fastest — Gary Hopkins

I am telling you before anything, that the blood of the martyrs and the injured will not go in vain. And I would like to affirm, I will not hesitate to punish those who are responsible fiercely. I will hold those in charge who have violated the rights of our youth with the harshest punishment stipulated in the law. — Hosni Mubarak

I'm my best and harshest critic. I know what's good and what isn't. — Anne Frank

To do for yourself the best that you have it in you to do - to grit your teeth and clench your fists in order to survive the world at its harshest and worst - is, by that very act, to be unable to let something be done for you and in you that is more wonderful still. The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed — Frederick Buechner

I relate to the feeling that Da Vinci was often plagued by the idea that what he did wasn't good enough, that he was his harshest critic. He'd sometimes destroy what he was working on. — David S.Goyer

The best incentive for an artist are the harshest criticism — Miguel El Portugues

'Great Expectations' has been described as 'Dickens's harshest indictment of society.' Which it is. After all, it's about money. About not having enough money; about the fever of the getting of money; about having too much money; about the taint of money. — Felix Dennis

There are many harsh lessons to be learned from the gambling experience, but the harshest one of all is the difference between having Fun and being Smart. — Hunter S. Thompson

I fought as an infantry Marine on one of the Vietnam War's harshest battlefields. After leaving the Marine Corps, I studied law and found a fulfilling career as an author and journalist. But again and again, I came back to the personal fulfillment that can only come from public service. — Jim Webb

I think everyone is their harshest critic, but I strive for excellence as much as I can because I think it shows. — Zachary Levi

The harshest people I've met over the years have had two things in common: they don't fully trust anybody, and they view relationships as a means to an end. — Donald Miller

It is the mind that creates our wealth, and this goes with us into exile, and in the harshest desert places it finds sufficient to nourish the body and revels in the enjoyment of its own goods. — Seneca.

Betrayals that make your soul scream so loud you wonder why no one else hears it. In the end, we are all alone in that private hell. But life isn't about learning to forgive those who have hurt you or forgetting the past. It's about learning to forgive yourself for being human and making mistakes. Yes, people disappoint us all the time. But the harshest lessons come when we disappoint ourselves. When we put our trust and our hearts into the hands of the wrong person and they do us wrong. And while we may hate them for what they did, the one we hate most is ourself for allowing them into our private circle. How could I have been so stupid? How could I let them deceive me? — Sherrilyn Kenyon

And, I think, this greening does thaw at the edges, at least, of my own cold season. Joy sneaks in: listening to music, riding my bicycle, I catch myself feeling, in a way that's as old as I am but suddenly seems unfamiliar, light. I have felt so heavy for so long. At first I felt odd- as if I shouldn't be feeling this lightness, that familiar little catch of pleasure in the heart which is inexplicable, though a lovely passage of notes or the splendidly turned petal of a tulip has triggered it. It's my buoyancy, part of what keeps me alive: happy, suddenly with the concomitant experience of a sonata and the motion of the shadows of leaves. I have the desire to be filled with sunlight, to soak my skin in as much of it as I can drink up, after the long interior darkness of this past season, the indoor vigil, in this harshest and darkest of winters, outside and in. — Mark Doty

We are often our own harshest critics — Megan Hart

Don't judge. That was a joke. How could I not? Everyone judged whether we admitted to it or not, usually saving the harshest criticisms for ourselves. — Donna Augustine

He who graduates the harshest school, succeeds. — Thucydides

The wide open nature of any truly creative artistic endeavor is one of its most important virtues, and one of its harshest realities. Only the most determined, hardest working, capable and creative will make their way to earning a good living by their art. — Mike Svob

The police are there to do the job, not to think about it,' was the line used by critics, the harshest of which were often other police. But police officers see and hear at first hand the things that ail a society, and along the way they gain trememdous insight into how to fix problems or processes, even if they can't change people's behaviours or attitudes. With the right systems and resources, their personal capacity for creating a safer society is far more powerful than the guns they carry. This would be the thinking driving my direction when I later came to Victoria to take charge of its police force. — Christine Nixon

N the harshest days of leaf-bare clanmate turns upon clanmate danger lurks behind familiar faces and one more warrior may be lost forever — Erin Hunter

Fear was a wicked monster clinging to every insecurity, whispering the harshest things.
And salvation could also be dirty. — V. Theia

In order for us, black and white, to disenthrall ourselves from the harshest slavemaster, racism, we must disinter our buried history ... We are all the Pilgrim, setting out on this journey. — Studs Terkel

The territorial aristocracy of former ages was either bound by law, or thought itself bound by usage, to come to the relief of its serving-men and to relieve their distress. But the manufacturing aristocracy of our age first impoverishes and debases the men who serve it and then abandons them to be supported by the charity of the public. This is a natural consequence of what has been said before. Between the workman and the master there are frequent relations, but no real association.
I am of the opinion, on the whole, that the manufacturing aristocracy which is growing up under our eyes is one of the harshest that ever existed in the world; but at the same time it is one of the most confined and least dangerous. Nevertheless, the friends of democracy should keep their eyes anxiously fixed in this direction; for if ever a permanent inequality of conditions and aristocracy again penetrates into the world, it may be predicted that this is the gate by which they will enter. — Alexis De Tocqueville

The harshest winter finds an invincible summer in us. — Albert Camus

If I think I weigh too much, I'll lose weight; if my hair looks stupid, I'll cut it. I guess I'm my harshest critic. I'm not easily satisfied. — Marilyn Manson

It is because the fight against the harshest aspects of unrestricted capitalism is therefore a political problem and not an intellectual one that community action remains so essential. — Barney Frank

What I think of as a mistake might be something that does really well at the box office, so I'm my own harshest critic - as we all are, really. — Cate Blanchett

He smelled of cold. Like ice and snow on the harshest days of winter. — Amanda Hocking

A king does not abide within his tent while his men bleed and die upon the field. A king does not dine while his men go hungry, nor sleep when they stand at watch upon the wall. A king does not command his men's loyalty through fear nor purchase it with gold; he earns their love by the sweat of his own back and the pains he endures for their sake. That which comprises the harshest burden, a king lifts first and sets down last. A king does not require service of those he leads but provides it to them ... A king does not expend his substance to enslave men, but by his conduct and example makes them free. — Steven Pressfield

Those who never sail stormy waters are the quickest and harshest judges of bad seamanship. — Susan Glaspell