Meanly Quotes & Sayings

A party spirit betrays the greatest men to act as meanly as the vulgar herd. — Jean De La Bruyere

Learn to admire rightly; the great pleasure of life is that. Note what the great men admired; they admired great things; narrow spirits admire basely, and worship meanly. — William Makepeace Thackeray

How meanly and grossly do we deal with nature! — Henry David Thoreau

I am always moved, with grateful wonder, by the goodness of people. For the few who are prying or meanly critical, for the very few who rejoice in the grief of others, there are the thousands who are kind. I have come to believe that the natural human heart is good, and I have observed that this goodness is found in all varieties of people, and that it can and does prevail in spite of other corruptions. This human goodness alone provides hope enough for the world. I have sometimes — Pearl S. Buck

The woman who thinks meanly of herself is any man's purchase. — Samuel Richardson

We do ourselves wrong, and too meanly estimate the holiness above us, when we deem that any act or enjoyment good in itself, is not good to do religiously. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

A flippant, frivolous man may ridicule others, may controvert them, scorn them; but he who has any respect for himself seems to have renounced the right of thinking meanly of others. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Humility is not thinking meanly of oneself, but rather it means not thinking of oneself at all. — Vance Havner

It wasn't his, it wasn't my fault, we both had nothing except patience, but Death has none. I saw him come (how meanly!) and I watched him as he took and took: none of it I could claim as mine. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Sherrie would be there, and the last time I'd seen her at a social event she burst into tears when she saw me and ran out of the room. You're upset, I'd yelled after her, meanly. — Aimee Bender

Were in the habit of spending more than they ought, and of associating with people of rank, and were therefore in every respect entitled to think well of themselves, and meanly of others. — Jane Austen

If you love yourself meanly, childishly, timidly, even so shall you love your neighbor. — Maurice Maeterlinck

Capricious, wanton, bold, and brutal Lust Is meanly selfish; when resisted, cruel; And, like the blast of Pestilential Winds, Taints the sweet bloom of Nature's fairest forms. — John Milton

That kindness is invincible, provided it's sincere - not ironic or an act. What can even the most vicious person do if you keep treating him with kindness and gently set him straight - if you get the chance - correcting him cheerfully at the exact moment that he's trying to do you harm. "No, no, my friend. That isn't what we're here for. It isn't me who's harmed by that. It's you." And show him, gently and without pointing fingers, that it's so. That bees don't behave like this - or any other animals with a sense of community. Don't do it sardonically or meanly, but affectionately - with no hatred in your heart. And not ex cathedra or to impress third parties, but speaking directly. Even if there are other people around. — Marcus Aurelius

Dark-green and gemm'd with flowers of snow, With close uncrowded branches spread Not proudly high, nor meanly low, A graceful myrtle rear'd its head. — James Montgomery

Think meanly of me, Lina," said he. "Men, in general, are a sort of scum, very different to anything of which you have an idea; I make no pretension to be better than my fellows. — Charlotte Bronte

The true felicity of a lover of books is the luxurious turning of page by page, the surrender, not meanly abject, but deliberate and cautious, with your wits about you, as you deliver yourself into the keeping of the book. This I call reading. — Edith Wharton

While we're talking, time will have meanly run on ... pick today's fruits, not relying on the future in the slightest. — Horace

He who meanly admires a mean thing is a snob
perhaps that is a safe definition of the character. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Say and do what you mean, but never say and do it meanly. — Harvey MacKay

Books, says Lord Bacon, can never teach us the use of books; the student must learn by commerce with mankind to reduce his speculations to practice. No man should think so highly of himself as to think he can receive but little light from books; no one so meanly, as to believe he can discover nothing but what is to be learned from them. — Samuel Johnson

Still we live meanly like ants. — Henry David Thoreau

Only sweet people with good virtues can go to fairyland. Those who treat others meanly and without respect can never go there. — Janaki Sooriyarachchi

It is better to believe in men too rashly, and regret, than believe too meanly. Men could be more than they are, if they would try for it. He has shown them that. — Mary Renault

Let it be enough for you to have bread and live virtuously and poorly like Christ, as I do here. I live meanly and don't bother about life or honor ... and I live with the greatest toil and a thousand worries. It is now about 15 years since I had a happy hour. — Michelangelo

In common life we esteem but meanly and contemptibly a fellow who anoints his hair, and palpably smells of that anointing. In truth, a mature man who uses hair-oil, unless medicinally, that man has probably got a quoggy spot in him somewhere. As a general rule, he can't amount to much in his totality. — Herman Melville

It was the winter wild, While the Heaven-born child, All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies. — John Milton

As we keep or break the Sabbath Day we nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope by which man rises. — Abraham Lincoln

There are two things which ought to teach us to think but meanly of human glory; the very best have had their calumniators, the very worst their panegyrists. — Charles Caleb Colton

I am never rich in money, and I am never meanly poor. — Henry David Thoreau

A man with delicately-strung nerves often says and does things which often lead us to think more meanly of him than he deserves. It is his great misfortune constantly to present himself at his worst. On the other hand, a man provided with nerves vigorously constituted, is provided also with a constitutional health and a hardihood wich express themselves brightly in his manners, and which lead to a mistaken impression that his nature is what it appears to be on the surface. Having good health, he has good spirits. Having good spirits, he wins as an agreeable companion on the persons with whom he comes in contact - although he may be hiding all the while, under an outer covering which is physically wholesome, an inner nature which is morally diseased. — Wilkie Collins

They?" he said, sounding apprehensive.
"Me. They're like me."
"Don't be a jackass," Roswell said, but not meanly. "No one's like you. — Brenna Yovanoff

Few have abilities so much needed by the rest of the world as to be caressed on their own terms; and he that will not condescend to recommend himself by external embellishments must submit to the fate of just sentiment meanly expressed, and be ridiculed and forgotten before he is understood. — Samuel Johnson

Hard-bitten had a double meaning: bitten hard by life, like her, or clamping meanly down on other people. But, as though belying his thoughts, she said, "I hope your days are good."
"If only. My eyes, you know, are like Swiss cheese, the doctor says. I see through the holes. — Edward Hoagland

Stories don't teach us to be good; it isn't as simple as that. They show us what it feels like to be good, or to be bad. They show us people like ourselves doing right things and wrong things, acting bravely or acting meanly, being cruel or being kind, and they leave it up to our own powers of empathy and imagination to make the connection with our own lives. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. It isn't like putting a coin in a machine and getting a chocolate bar; we're not mechanical, we don't respond every time in the same way ...
The moral teaching comes gently, and quietly, and little by little, and weighs nothing at all. We hardly know it's happening. But in this silent and discreet way, with every book we read and love, with every story that makes its way into our heart, we gradually acquire models of behaviour and friends we admire and patterns of decency and kindness to follow.
Philip Pullman from his Award Lecture, Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award Recipient 2005 — Philip Pullman

To be nobly wrong is more manly than to be meanly right. — Thomas Paine

What had once been grand houses were divided meanly into many small apartments, let at prices out of all proportion to what wages it was possible to earn. Rooms were sub-let, and sub-let again, so that what constituted a family had long been forgotten. — Sarah Perry

Not because they were servants were we so reserved, for many noble persons are forced to serve through necessity, but by reason the vulgar sort of servants are as ill bred as meanly born, giving children ill examples and worse counsel. — Margaret Cavendish

Where is the reward of virtue? and what recompense has nature provided for such important sacrifices as those of life and fortune, which we must often make to it? O sons of earth! Are ye ignorant of the value of this celestial mistress? And do ye meanly inquire for her portion, when ye observe her genuine beauty? — David Hume

We shall meanly lose or nobly save the last hope of earth. — Abraham Lincoln

How you choose to see others is how they will appear to you. If you choose to think meanly of them, then you will likely think only of the negative explanations for their actions. If you choose to think well of them, you may discover a side that you had not previously considered. — Penelope Swan

As parents, we can have no joy, knowing that this government is not sufficiently lasting to ensure any thing which we may bequeath to posterity: And by a plain method of argument, as we are running the next generation into debt, we ought to do the work of it, otherwise we use them meanly and pitifully. In order to discover the line of our duty rightly, we should take our children in our hand, and fix our station a few years farther into life; that eminence will present a prospect, which a few present fears and prejudices conceal from our sight. — Thomas Paine

Still we live meanly like ants, though the fable tells us we were long ago changed into men. — Henry David Thoreau

In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free
honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth — Abraham Lincoln

He who meanly admires mean things is a Snob. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Who gives a trifle meanly is meaner than the trifle. — Johann Kaspar Lavater

Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea. — Samuel Johnson

Alec drew his hand back with a low whistle. "The Inquisitor meant business."
"Of course she did. I'm a dangerous criminal. Or hadn't you heard?" Jace heard the acid in his own tone, saw Alec flinch, and was meanly, momentarily, glad.
"She didn't call you a criminal, exactly ... "
"No, I'm just a very naughty boy. I do all sorts of bad things. I kick kittens. I make rude gestures at nun — Cassandra Clare

Do not act meanly, do not be unkind, because the time for setting things right may pass before your heart changes course.
Isabel Dalhousie — Alexander McCall Smith

We cannot speak a loyal word and be meanly silent, we cannot kill and not kill in the same moment; but a moment is room wide enough for the loyal and mean desire, for the outlash of a murderous thought and the sharp bakcward stroke of repetance. — George Eliot

True humility is intelligent self respect which keeps us from thinking too highly or too meanly of ourselves. It makes us modest by reminding us how far we have come short of what we can be. — Ralph W. Sockman

Remember to say what you mean, but don't say it meanly. — Elizabeth George

myself. We constantly portray and judge people only in false terms, we judge them unjustly and portray them meanly, I said to myself, in every instance, no matter how we portray, no matter how we judge them. Such — Thomas Bernhard

See nations slowly wise, and meanly just, to buried merit raise the tardy bust. — Samuel Johnson

I often used to think myself in the case of the fox-hunter, who, when he had toiled and sweated all day in the chase as if some unheard-of blessing was to crown his success, finds at last all he has got by his labor is a stinking nauseous animal. But my condition was yet worse than his; for he leaves the loathsome wretch to be torn by his hounds, whilst I was obliged to fondle mine, and meanly pretend him to be the object of my love. — Sarah Fielding

Ari scoffed meanly, "God, between you and Charlie it's a wonder I haven't gone into frickin' dentistry."
"What does that even mean?"
She grunted. "It's like pulling teeth to get anything out of you two."
Jai shrugged, still looking bewildered. "We're guys."
Ari shook her head, hating everyone and everything at that moment. "You're asshats. — Samantha Young