Not To Hurt Someone's Feelings Quotes & Sayings

Look, in my world slut is a term of endearment. Why do I have to keep explaining this to people? You're going to have to find a new name if you want to actually hurt my feelings. — Tiffany Reisz

This catch-22 happens a lot to men. A man can sense that a woman wants to know if he loves her. He doesn't want to share those feelings because, if he does, she will expect him to marry her and be greatly hurt if he doesn't. In romantic movies, loving someone meant that you wanted to marry her. In real life, it is not always the case. — John N. Gray

When I sing for myself, I probably sing for anyone who has any kind of hurt, any kind of bad feelings, good feelings, ups and downs, highs and lows, that kind of thing. — Etta James

I've definitely been in relationships with friends where I wanted to do something different than I know a friend has. It's that complicated balance between wanting to do what you know is right for you and not wanting to hurt someone's feelings. — Mickey Sumner

Poor Traddles, who had passed the stage of lying with his head upon the desk, and was relieving himself as usual with a burst of skeletons, said he didn't care. Mr. Mell was ill-used. 'Who has ill-used him, you girl?' said Steerforth. 'Why, you have,' returned Traddles. 'What have I done?' said Steerforth. 'What have you done?' retorted Traddles. 'Hurt his feelings, and lost him his situation. — Charles Dickens

Without the heavy set aristocratic man snoring away on his side of the bed, without the fresh-eyed child whose hair ribbon needs retying; without the conversation at meals and the hearty appetites and getting dressed for church on time; without the tears of laughter or the worry about making both ends meet, the unpaid bills, the layoffs, both seasonal and unexpected; without the toys that have to picked up lest somebody trip over them, and the seven shirts that have to be washed and ironed, one for every day in the week; without the scraped knee and the hurt feelings, the misunderstandings that need to be cleared up, the voices calling for her so that she is perpetually having to stop what she is doing and go see what they want - without all this, what have you? A mystery: How is it that she didn't realize it was going to last such a short time? — William Maxwell

I Don't Even Like Him - How Can I Pray for Him? Have you ever been so mad at your husband that the last thing you wanted to do was pray for him? So have I. It's hard to pray for someone when you're angry or he's hurt you. But that's exactly what God wants us to do. If He asks us to pray for our enemies, how much more should we be praying for the person with whom we have become one and are supposed to love? But how do we get past the unforgiveness and critical attitude? The first thing to do is be completely honest with God. In order to break down the walls in our hearts and smash the barriers that stop communication, we have to be totally up-front with the Lord about our feelings. We don't have to "pretty it up" for Him. He already knows the truth. He just wants to see if we're willing to admit it and confess it as disobedience to His ways. If so, He — Stormie O'martian

Actually, I think you have to know that whatever advice you give, they may not take it. The priority should be on keeping the friendship rather than giving the best advice. Your best advice is usually, 'Walk away from him! Tell him you never want to see him again!' But if you are dealing with someone still in love, nothing you say can change their feelings. All you can do is be there for them and pick them up every time they get hurt. Until, that is, they are ready to move on for themselves. — Taylor Swift

When you complain you actually weaken yourself. You generate feelings in yourself of inferiority and inadequacy. You feel angry and resentful. You feel negative and unsure. Your level of self-confidence and self-respect actually declines as you complain about anything to someone else. You hurt yourself by complaining much more than you hurt the target of the complaints, who you may not affect at all. — Brian Tracy

I was talking to my friend and he said his girlfriend was mad at him. I said, "What happened?" He goes: "Well, I guess I, uh ... I guess I said something, and, uh ... and then she got her feelings hurt." That's a weird way to phrase it: "She got her feelings hurt. I said something, and then she ... " Could you more remove yourself from responsibility? "She got her feelings hurt." It's like saying, "Yeah, I shot this guy in the face, and then I guess he got himself murdered. I don't know what happened. He leaned into it." — Louis C.K.

I didn't get raped, right?" and he shouted, "You were never in danger of getting raped," but I think he just said that to hurt my feelings, and so I retorted, "Oh, I am ALWAYS in danger of being raped, thankyouverymuch," and he was all, "I'm not questioning your rapability. I'M JUST SAYING I CAN'T GO AWAY FOR TWO DAYS WITHOUT YOU OD'ING ON LAXATIVES. — Jenny Lawson

THE FINE LINE BETWEEN FEAR AND COURAGE "I tell my kids, what is the difference between a hero and a coward? What is the difference between being yellow and being brave? No difference. Only what you do. They both feel the same. They both fear dying and getting hurt. The man who is yellow refuses to face up to what he's got to face. The hero is more disciplined and he fights those feelings off and he does what he has to do. But they both feel the same, the hero and the coward. People who watch you judge you on what you do, not how you feel." - CUS D'AMATO, LEGENDARY BOXING TRAINER — Ben Horowitz

If you have the courage to be honest with everyone, including yourself, you may hurt a few people's feelings, but they will forever value your opinion more than your half truths. — Steven Aitchison

It hurt the economic historians, the Marxists and the fabians, to admit that the Ten Hour Bill, the basic piece of 19th century legislation, came down from the top, out of aa nobleman's private feelings about the Gospel, or that the abolition of the slave trade was achieved, not through the operation of some "law" of profit and loss, but peurlet as the result of tyhe new humanitarianism of the Evangelicals. — Barbara Tuchman

I worry for you. If you love everyone, you'll end up having hurt feelings most of the time. I suppose, relative to the length of your life, you feel as if you've known me a rather long time. Your perspective of time is really very warped, Maya. But I am old and soon, you'll forget you even knew me. — Gabrielle Zevin

When love is real, even when you can't find it under mountains of hurt feelings and shuttered emotions, it's not really gone. All it takes is finding one new reason to fall in love. Just one, and all the other reasons become clear again. — Amy E. Reichert

When people are hurting, what they really need is someone who is fully there for them - not someone who is condescending or officious. The only way for you to be there for them is by facing your fear or anger, whatever feelings cause you to shut down. — Pema Chodron

There are words that I wouldn't say because they hurt people's feelings. I just happen to be a white guy who writes for a lot of black comedians but if I wrote for a lot of gay comedians there might be stuff I would say then. — Neal Brennan

If you get into a fight and somebody punches you, you get two feelings. One: That really hurts. Two: That relief in the realness of, like, Wow, this is what it is. It's not an intellectual process. — John Darnielle

I do not think reading the mystics would hurt you myself: you say you must avoid books which deal with 'feelings' - but the mystics don't deal with feelings but with love which is a very different thing. You have too many 'feelings,' but not nearly enough love. — Evelyn Underhill

- Child is abused, perpetrator threatens to hurt mother. Child feels protective of mother.
- Struggle to escape perp reinforces feelings of mutual protection. It's Mom and I against the world.
- Something necessary at the time later creates "enmeshment." Child doesn't see her actions as separate from mother. Even during normal adolescent individuation. But
- Normal individuation doesn't happen in abuse survivors. They don't feel normal, so they
- Act out in unhealthy or self-destructive ways, which creates
- Fear and pain for mother, which creates
- Guilt for child who still feels responsible for mother's emotional health.
- Child seeks release from the guilt and from not feeling normal, which leads to
- Escape to the world of other not normal people, where mother can't see her child self-destruct, which leads to
"The bad news. — Claire Fontaine

You could really feel physically wounded if someone hurt your feelings badly enough. — Anne Tyler

I think ... and if you ever repeat what I'm saying right now I will cheerfully beat you to death, but I think that would hurt Jessica's feelings — Stephenie Meyer

Hurt feelings or discomfort of any kind cannot be caused by another person. No one outside me can hurt me. That's not a possibility. It's only when I believe a stressful thought that I get hurt. And I'm the one who's hurting me by believing what I think. This is very good news, because it means that I don't have to get someone else to stop hurting me. I'm the one who can stop hurting me. It's within my power.
What we are doing with inquiry is meeting our thoughts with some simple understanding, finally. Pain, anger, and frustration will let us know when it's time to inquire. We either believe what we think or we question it: there's no other choice. Questioning our thoughts is the kinder way. Inquiry always leaves us as more loving human beings. — Byron Katie

Maybe I did hurt him, but I don't think I could have hurt him much. He was one of the best-protected human beings who ever lives. People couldn't get at him because he just wasn't interested in people. — Kurt Vonnegut

I have occupied this idle, empty winter with writing a story. It has been written to please myself, without thought of my own vanity or modesty, without regard for other people's feelings, without considering whether I shock or hurt the living, without scrupling to speak of the dead.

The world, I know, is changing. I am not indifferent to the revolution that has caught us in its mighty skirts, to the enormity of the flood that is threatening to submerge us. But what could I do? In the welter of the surrounding storm, I have taken refuge for a moment on this little raft, constructed with the salvage of my memory. I have tried to steer it into that calm haven of art in which I still believe. I have tried to avoid some of the rocks and sandbanks that guard its entrance.

[from the introduction] — Dorothy Bussy

When a "runner" runs, they run. But in time the "runner" finds themselves in a no-brain situation. They are faced with the choice of living in pain from the separation from the twin soul, or returning and facing that deep love, working through their fears (often unfounded) of possible rejection and reaching their own personal Eden. — Chimnese Davids

Did you bathe in Chenz and Pitiri's blood?" Darling asked him. Nykyrian gave him a condemning stare. "I would have, had someone not detonated their charges prematurely." "Yeah, Cruel. You have to watch that premature detonation problem of yours." Darling tossed a throwing knife at Hauk's head. Hauk caught it and laughed as he tossed it back at Darling who caught it just as easily. "You keep doing that, human, and you're going to hurt my feelings." "You don't have feelings, Andarion." "Not true. Compared to Nykyrian, I'm as sensitive as a woman." "God knows you're beginning to whine like one. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Culturally, though not theologically, I'm a Christian. I was born a Protestant of the white Anglo-Saxon persuasion. And while I do love that great teacher of peace who was called Jesus, and while I do reserve the right to ask myself in certain trying situations what indeed He would do, I can't swallow that one fixed rule of Christianity insisting that Christ is the only path to God. Strictly speaking, then, I cannot call myself a Christian. Most of the Christians I know accept my feelings on this with grace and open-mindedness. Then again, most of the Christians I know don't speak very strictly. To those who do speak (and think) strictly, all I can do here is offer my regrets for any hurt feelings and now excuse myself from their business. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Did you bathe in Chenz's and Petiri's blood?" Darling asked him.
Nykyrian gave Darling a condemning stare. "I would have, had someone not detonated their charges prematurely."
"Yeah, Cruel. You have to watch that premature detonation problem of yours."
Darling tossed a throwing knife at Hauk's head.
Hauk caught it and laughed before he tossed it back at Darling who caught it just as easily. "You keep doing that, human, and you're going to hurt my feelings."
"You don't have feelings, Andarion."
"Not true. Compared to Nykyrian, I'm as sensitive as a woman."
"God knows you're beginning to whine like one."
-Darling, Nykyrian, & Hauk — Sherrilyn Kenyon

If someone tells me that I've hurt their feelings, I say, 'I'm still waiting to hear what your point is.'
In this country, I've been told, 'That's offensive' as if those two words constitute an argument or a comment. Not to me they don't.
And I'm not running for anything, so I don't have to pretend to like people when I don't. — Christopher Hitchens

Everyone's pain is different," Reece went on. "I don't like when people compare. I don't like when people marginalize their feelings because they think they're not allowed to have them. Someone will always have a tougher go than you. Does that mean you're not allowed to feel hurt? To be sad? — S. Walden

If I was someone else, I'd leave and give them privacy, but I'm not. I won't leave her out here with him. My brain knows he'd never hurt her and she doesn't have feelings for him. My heart, however, tells me to take her by the waist and pull her away... — Michelle Dare

I've learned not to take things personally. We can get offended by anything if we want to. It's not hard to hurt someone's feelings; all they have to do is believe what the offender is saying to be true. No one knows me like I know me, and therefore, no one can hurt me. — Melanie Iglesias

I can tell you that it's okay to feel whatever it is you're feeling right now. It's okay to miss him and it's okay to hurt and it's okay to feel lost-just as long as you come to me, or your friends, or your family, when all those feelings try to overwhelm you. Because in amongst all those feelings, some of you are going to be angry, and some of you will need someone to blame. It's okay to be angry. I can't tell you if it's right or wrong to feel blame, but what I can say is don't be angry for too long and don't hold on to the blame forever. That kind of anger can take away a piece of you, a piece of you that you might not get back. — Samantha Young

It's funny how a hello is always accompanied with a goodbye. It's funny how good memories can make you cry, it's funny how forever never seems to last, it's funny how much you would lose if you forgot about your past, it's funny how friends can just leave when you're down, it's funny how when you need someone they never are around, it's funny how people change and think they're so much better, it's funny how some many lies are packed into one love letter, it's funny how one night can hold so much regret, it's funny how you can forgive but not forget, it's funny how ironic life turns out to be, but the funniest part of all, is that none of that is funny to me. — Auliq Ice

You've got a lot of responsibility now," Jace said to Julian. "You'll have to make sure Emma winds up with a guy who deserves her."
Julian was strangely white-faced. Maybe he was feeling the effects of the ceremony, Emma thought. It had been strong magic; she still felt it sizzling through her blood like champagne bubbles. But Jules looked as if he'd been slapped.
"What about me?" Emma said, quickly. "Don't I have to make sure Jules winds up with someone who deserves him?"
"Absolutely. I did it for Alec, Alec did it for me - well, actually, he hated Clary at first, but he came around."
"I BET you didn't like Magnus much, either," said Julian, still with the same odd, stiff look on his face.
"Maybe not," said Jace, "but I never would have said so."
"Because it would have hurt Alec's feelings?" Emma asked.
"No," said Jace, "because Magnus would have turned me into a hat rack. — Cassandra Clare

Here's a good test to know whether or not truth-telling springs from love. Truth will not only pain those who hear it; it will pain those who speak it. If we don't love someone, it won't hurt at all to speak truth. We'll tell them what we think with no regard for their feelings. If — Philip Gulley

Yeah, you're right. It's lonely being by yourself. But, unless you do something about the situation ... things will never change. If you want to get closer to someone, you have to show him who you really are. Your loneliness, your doubts ... It takes courage to show your weakness. And you'll probably get hurt, but ... Your true feelings can heal you.
You have to believe, you might not care about me as much as I care about you, but ... I want to get closer ... I want to touch your heart, I want to hold you ... So I will open up my heart to you. — Kaori Naruse

When you want to learn, sometimes you have to take risks. Someone might laugh at you; your feelings might get hurt. But then you'll feel good because you were brave enough to try. Whether you pronounce the words right is not what will matter - not right now. What will matter is that you tried. Her dark eyes found — Rachael Wade

I don't like to hurt people's feelings, and I don't like to knock other writers as a matter of principle. — Lydia Davis

You reach a certain age when reality grabs you by the scruff of the neck and shouts in your face:"Hey, look, this is what life is." And you have to open your eyes and look at it, listen to it, smell it: people who don't like you, things you don't want to do, things that hurt, things that scare you, questions without answers, feelings you don't understand, feelings you don't want but have no control over.
Reality.
When you gradually come to realise that all that stuff in books, films, television, magazines, newspapers, comics - it's all rubbish. It's got nothing to do with anything. It's all made up. It doesn't happen like that. It's not real. It means nothing. Reality is what you see when you look out of the window of a bus: dour faces, sad and temporary lives, millions of cars, metal, bricks, glass, rain, cruel laughter, ugliness, dirt, bad teeth, crippled pigeons, little kids in pushchairs who've already forgotten how to smile ... — Kevin Brooks

I watched you try on suits in Hugo Boss.'For the big job,' you said. And I laughed, because I knew I would never see it. I'd never get up and watch you put it on and walk out of the door. I would never be the one that you came home to. — Kate Chisman

The last four days
where everything has finally made some sense. And why is she so ready to throw this away? Because.
Because eventually every relationship she's been in has turned to shit. Eventually she ends up
screwing everything up. So maybe it's better to leave now before people's feelings get hurt. — Joe Meno

Don't ever believe that Narcissists don't understand they have hurt you. They know exactly what they did and why they did it. The reason they can't stop their abuse is because the narcissistic supply is their addiction. Unlike, drug addicts that need their fix to feel normal, narcissists need to feel significant. This is their addiction. Even if it takes destructive ways to have this emotional balance they will pursue it. Your feelings don't count only the supply does. The greater the supply the greater the drama in your life as they pursue it. So, get over believing they don't understand. They do understand. You just found out and got in the way of their easy access to greater supply than you. — Shannon L. Alder

Don't make the mistake of letting pride get in the way of forgiveness. You still love him. He still loves you. Don't throw it all away just because your feelings are hurt. — Marian Keyes

I'm really sensitive. And they don't understand that, because my most comfortable feeling is anger. So I'll get angry if you said something to hurt my feelings or you're making me uncomfortable, I'll get angry, and be ready to do something about it. — Curtis Jackson

For four years at Yale, he'd sat at the center of his circle with free rein to utter whatever was on his mind. He was well known for calling people out on their "bullshit." But he'd been able to exercise that tendency with the concrete awareness that his words had no consequences, not real ones. Maybe someone's feelings would get hurt; maybe there'd be an argument. Even so, nobody at Yale would ever come at him, no one carried lethal weapons, no one constructed the particular walls around his pride that, if penetrated, might impel him to want to inflict severe physical harm. The situation was different in Newark - more so now than ever, since the gang explosion had begun. — Jeff Hobbs

One day Samuel strained his back lifting a bale of hay, and it hurt his feelings more than his back, for he could not imagine a life in which Sam Hamilton was not privileged to lift a bale of hay. He felt insulted by his back, almost as he would have been if one of his children had been dishonest — John Steinbeck

Black trauma is never given space to heal because we have to make sure the white people who hurt us don't feel too bad about it. Even as victims, we're told to care about the feelings of those who harm us. — Luvvie Ajayi

I was finally tired of hiding behind bravado. My family had hurt me so many times that I had started to lie about my feelings to everyone. To Sarah. To Maddie. To Ethan. And to myself. I was like an iceberg, with ninety percent of my real feelings submerged so no one would know how vulnerable I truly felt. I lied so much, and so often, that even I didn't know my true feelings anymore. — T.B. Markinson

The best defense against being hurt is to feel good about yourself and the way a person responds to you says more about them, than about you. — Brenda Shoshanna

It hurt her to stir up these feelings, but yet she knew that that was the best part of her soul, and that that part of her soul would quickly be smothered in the life she was leading. — Leo Tolstoy

I always find the worst lies are told in relationships - I learned to never lie about your happiness in order to save someone's feelings from being hurt. — Kirsten Prout

It is difficult to deal successfully, he decided, with a woman whose feelings cannot be hurt. — Ellen Glasgow

McChrystal's defenders at the Pentagon were making the case Tuesday that the president and his men - (the McChrystal snipers spared Hillary) - must put aside their hurt feelings about being painted as weak sisters. Obama should not fire the serially insubordinate general, they reasoned, because that would undermine the mission in Afghanistan, and if that happens, then Obama would be further weakened.
So the commander in chief can be bad-mouthed as weak by the military but then he can't punish the military because that would make him weak? It's the same sort of pass-the-Advil vicious circle reasoning the military always uses. — Maureen Dowd

I'm so tired of men who are afraid to hurt women's feelings. — Sam Kinison

Occasionally they would hear a harsh croak or a splash as some amphibian was disturbed, but the only creature they saw was a toad as big as Will's foot, which could only flop in a pain-filled sideways heave as if it were horribly injured. It lay across the path, trying to move out of the way and looking at them as if it knew they meant to hurt it.
'It would be merciful to kill it,' said Tialys.
'How do you know?' said Lyra. 'It might still like being alive, in spite of everything.'
'If we killed it, we'd be taking it with us,' said Will. 'It wants to stay here. I've killed enough living things. Even a filthy stagnant pool might be better than being dead.'
'But if it's in pain?' said Tialys.
'If it could tell us, we'd know. But since it can't, I'm not going to kill it. That would be considering our feelings rather than the toad's.'
They moved on. — Philip Pullman

Most adult children of toxic parents grow up feeling tremendous confusion about what love means and how it's supposed to feel. Their parents did extremely unloving things to them in the name of love. They came to understand love as something chaotic, dramatic, confusing, and often painful - something they had to give up their own dreams and desires for. Obviously, that's not what love is all about. Loving behaviour doesn't grind you down, keep you off balance, or create feelings of self-hatred. Love doesn't hurt, it feels good. Loving behaviour nourishes your emotional well-being. When someone is being loving to you, you feel accepted, cared for, valued, and respected. Genuine love creates feelings of warmth, pleasure, safety, stability, and inner peace. — Susan Forward

If I hurt your feelings we ought to discuss it. I don't like this kiss-and-forget.'
'But I don't want to argue. I think it's wonderful that we can kiss and forget, and when we can't it'll be time to argue. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Today I introduced myself to my very own Heart,
In silent agony, after all these years it bled apart. — Ankita Singhal

If I were to disclose all their rituals, I think that it would be easy to prove that witches are not diabolists; but the oaths are solemn and the witches are my friends. I would not want to hurt their feelings. They have secrets which to them are sacred. They have good reason for their secrecy. — Gerald Gardner

I was angry with myself because I still loved her, or at least I loved that dream of our togetherness. My feelings were unreasonable, irrational, and I couldn't change them. That hurt. — Abraham Verghese

But books were full of stories and stories were full of lies and lies hurt Jesus's feelings, so I didn't know what to think. I blamed my family. They were the ones who taught me so much about telling stories, and how not to do it, and then, in inspired moments of surprise, how to tell one so good you forgot what day it was, and I liked forgetting what day it was, so I made certain life choices that would allow me to get paid to forget what day it was and teach others to forget what day it was, which is, after all, what I think heaven probably is: the whole world, forgetting what day it is. You have to, I bet, with an endless supply of them. — Harrison Scott Key

That's the funny thing about old hurts- they just wait for new heartache to come along and then show up, just as sharp and horrible as the first day you woke up with the world changed all around you. — Lilith Saintcrow

Love is not a Subject, but it has some great lessons..! — Sarvesh Jain

Fathers can seem powerful and overwhelming to their daughters. Let her see your soft side. Express your feelings and reactions. Tell her where you came from and how you got there. Let her see that you have had fears, failures, anxious times, hurts, just like hers, even though you may look flawless to her. — Stella Chess

There's not a thing that any of you guys can say bad about me that would hurt my feelings ... I'm not coming at you, what I'm saying is that, I'm willing to take that heat for my team, if we're playing well or if we're not playing well. — Vince Carter

Sometimes when we're feeling sad, it's important just to feel the sadness. Like a snake shedding its skin, old feelings of remorse and regret and hurt and anger often have to come up in order to be released. On the other side we're a better person, capable of a happier life ... who we are when we're no longer burdened by the buried feelings that weighed us down, or the self - defeating patterns that the pain produced. — Marianne Williamson

This blessing of loneliness was not really loneliness. Real loneliness was something unendurable. What one wanted when exhausted by the noise and impact of physical bodies was not no people but disembodied people; all those denizens of beloved books who could be taken to one's heart and put away again, in silence, and with no hurt feelings. — Elizabeth Goudge