Reviled Quotes & Sayings

A body of work may be reviled
mostly by those who have no knowledge of its workings
and yet still carry elements of what can only be considered eternal truths. — Charles De Lint

I suggest this passage from the German "philosopher" (this passage was detected, translated, and reviled by Karl Popper): Sound is the change in the specific condition of segregation of the material parts, and in the negation of this condition; merely an abstract or an ideal ideality, as it were, of that specification. But this change, accordingly, is itself immediately the negation of the material specific subsistence; which is, therefore, real ideality of specific gravity and cohesion, i.e. - heat. The heating up of sounding bodies, just as of beaten and or rubbed ones, is the appearance of heat, originating conceptually together with sound. Even a Monte Carlo engine could not sound as random as the great philosophical master thinker (it would take plenty of sample runs to get the mixture of "heat" and "sound." People call that philosophy and frequently finance it with taxpayer subsidies! — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

In fact, we live in a culture where intelligence, exceptional or not, is reviled. — Fran Lebowitz

Merchandise from Wal-Mart has become as ubiquitous as the water supply. Yet, still, the company is rebuked and reviled by anyone claiming a social conscience and is lambasted by legislators as if its bad behavior places it somewhere between investment bankers and the Taliban. — Charles Platt

I will say, I think it odd that I am loved by one for a kindness I never did, and reviled by so many for my finest act. — George R R Martin

Here is how the harmful becomes profitable: That which yesterday was reviled today ends up in Urban Outfitters. The critic Rebecca Solnit has summarized it this way: 'Eat your heart out on a plastic tray,' say the Sex Pistols. Now, we know where to buy the tray and what the heart tastes like. — Josh Kun

Accordingly, it must and dare not be considered a trifling matter but a most serious one to seek counsel against this and to save our souls from the Jews, that is, from the devil and from eternal death. My advice, as I said earlier, is:
First, that their synagogues be burned down, and that all who are able toss in sulphur and pitch; it would be good if someone could also throw in some hellfire. That would demonstrate to God our serious resolve and be evidence to all the world that it was in ignorance that we tolerated such houses, in which the Jews have reviled God, our dear Creator and Father, and his Son most shamefully up till now but that we have now given them their due reward. — Martin Luther

Noting that Huckleberry Finn was originally both valued and reviled because it shows the reader that the accepted moral code and social hierarchy is not always correct. — Robert Vaughan

When a film is reviled, you open a film and people say "Oh, it's the stupidest thing, it's the worst movie." You think: oh, nobody's going to ever speak to you again. But, it doesn't happen. Nobody cares. You know, they read it and they say "Oh, they hated your film." You care, at the time. But they don't. Nobody else cares. — Woody Allen

At this time, Snowden, a thirty-one-year-old man without a country, remains in Russia under temporary asylum, recently joined by his girlfriend, regularly interviewed by visiting reporters, and broadcasting his story and viewpoints to audiences worldwide over the Internet. His residence permit recently was extended for three more years, as he negotiates safe harbor in other countries, evading extradition and facing an indictment in the United States for espionage and theft of government property for which he faces thirty years in prison. Reviled for recklessness and praised for self-sacrifice, his actions already have generated the beginnings of reforms. — Ronald Goldfarb

Hierarchy is is much reviled in the present day. — Mary Douglas

Just as the England football manager starts with bells and flags and balloons and ends up reviled, so do prime ministers. Tony Blair - is there anyone more despised now? Gordon Brown - all right, nobody voted for him but, you know ... just think of any of them. Margaret Thatcher. John Major. Steve McLaren. Fabio Capello. — Terry Wogan

For telling a good and incisive religious joke, you should be praised. For telling a bad one, you should be ridiculed and reviled. The idea that you could be prosecuted for the telling of either is quite fantastic. — Rowan Atkinson

I would tell him how he almost made us lose interest in passion by his obsession with the gestures empty of their emotions, and how we reviled him, because he almost caused us to take vows of chastity, because what he wanted us to exclude was our own aphrodisiac - poetry. — Anais Nin

If the politicization of art and education represents one large part of the counterculture's legacy, the coarsening of feeling and sensibility is another. No phenomenon has done more to advance this coarsening than rock music. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of rock music to the agenda of the cultural revolution. It is also impossible to overstate its soul-deadening destructiveness. The most reviled part of Allan Bloom's book The Closing of the American Mind was his chapter criticizing the effects of rock. But Bloom was right in insisting that rock music is a potent weapon in the arsenal of emotional anarchy. The triumph of rock was not only an aesthetic disaster of giant proportions: it was also a moral disaster whose effects are nearly impossible to calculate precisely because they are so pervasive. — Roger Kimball

What was once justified as sanctioned by God is now properly reviled as an unconscionable violation of human rights. — Hillary Clinton

The Rakshasa," said Percy pedantically, "are a different breed altogether from our vampires. Much in the same way that poodles and dachshunds are different breeds of dog. Rakshasas are reviled in India. Their position as tax collectors is an attempts by the crown to integrate them in a more progressive and mundane manner."
Rue said, "Oh, how logical. Because we all know ordaining someone as a tax collector is the surest way to get them accepted by society. — Gail Carriger

So where does one begin if one wants to eat something as unusual and traditionally reviled as bugs? — Daniella Martin

Very few people go into politics to be reviled. — Andrew Cuomo

Will Jehovah go down and be perfect? Not even one tiny sin? Think about that, Ammon. Is it possible? He will be spit upon and reviled, mocked, and hated by far lesser men, and yet he will never, not once, have an uncharitable thought, not a single pang of regret or ounce of self-pity. He will be hated and beaten, like some mongrel dog, while lesser men pass their judgment - and you believe he will never, not once, feel any anger or wish for revenge? Remember, it won't be good enough that he do the right thing. He can't even feel the wrong way, for that too is a sin. He must have perfect control over his body, his will, and his mind. He can't experience a moment of selfish anger or miss a single opportunity to serve. He can't entertain one self-serving notion, unkind thought, or harsh word! Not even one sin! What can do that, I ask? — Chris Stewart

It seldom happens that a man, though extolled as a saint, is really without blemish; or that another, though reviled as a devil, is really without humanity. — Fanny Burney

There remains an experience of incomparable value ... to see the great events of world history from below; from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled
in short, from the perspective of those who suffer ... to look with new eyes on matters great and small. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

In Vietnam, our soldiers came back and they were reviled as baby killers, in shame and humiliation. It isn't happening now, but I will tell you, there has never been an American army as violent and murderous as our army has been in Iraq. — Seymour Hersh

Did you realize that much of the original Bible included chapters of Gnostic wisdom?" Ambrose said. "They were purged from the King James Version, many of them lost and destroyed. Lost wisdom destroyed out of fear and narrow-mindedness. They were misunderstood, reviled, much like your own Mormon texts, as not fitting with the clockwork view of the universe as presented by the lying god's groveling servants. — R.S. Belcher

It's irrelevant to me what young Singaporeans think of me. I've lived long enough to know that you may be idealised in life and reviled after you're dead. — Lee Kuan Yew

The father and mother themselves talk before the children in the most disparaging way about the teacher and the school and they are much more inclined to insult the teachers than to put their offspring across the knee and knock sound reason into him. What the little fellow hears at home does not tend to increase respect for his human surroundings. Here nothing good is said of human nature as a whole and every institution, from the school to the government, is reviled. Whether religion and morals are concerned or the State and the social order, it is all the same; they are all scoffed at. When the young lad leaves school, at the age of fourteen, it would be difficult to say what are the most striking features of his character, incredible ignorance in so far as real knowledge is concerned or cynical impudence combined with an attitude towards morality which is really startling at so young an age. — Adolf Hitler

That is the American experiment. An ethnic group arriving on America's shores, to be reviled and hazed, living in squalor, or if they are lucky Squalor Heights, working hard to give their children or grandchildren the opportunity to sh*t on the next group landing on our shores. — Jon Stewart

I do well with peoples' parents, but I've certainly had friends who were not. One of my best friends is pretty consistently reviled by his girlfriends' parents! — Connor Paolo

Kenneth was a sitting duck. In fewer than three years he would kneel alone in this very room, on the exact spot where he now stood, emptying the contents of his desk into cardboard boxes from the liquor store while his gaunt bitter wife reviled him in the Goldbergs' living room and choked the Goldbergs' big brass ashtray with with unfiltered cigarette butts, and if anyone were then to ask him for the secret of a happy life, he would answer: Stasis. — Jincy Willett

There is nothing so revered yet so reviled as war; for even as it brings out the worst in men, it also brings out the best in them. — Neil Lowe

It dropped so low in my regard
I heard it hit the ground,
And go to pieces on the stones
At bottom of my mind;
Yet blamed the fate that fractured, less
Than I reviled myself
For entertaining plated wares
Upon my silver shelf. — Emily Dickinson

Ever reviled, accursed, ne'er understood,
Thou art the grisly terror of our age.

"Wreck of all order," cry the multitude,
"Art thou, & war & murder's endless rage."

0, let them cry. To them that ne'er have striven
The 'truth that lies behind a word to find,

To them the word's right meaning was not given.
They shall continue blind among the blind.

But thou, O word, so clear, so strong, so true,
Thou sayest all which I for goal have taken.

I give thee to the future! Thine secure
When each at least unto himself shall waken.

Comes it in sunshine? In the tempest's thrill?
I cannot tell - but it the earth shall see!

I am an Anarchist! Wherefore I will
Not rule, & also ruled I will not be! — John Henry Mackay

Voltaire argued that if God did not exist Man would be obliged to invent him, and was reviled for the remark. — Carl Sagan

Even more than this, however, the sick - like lepers - were often reviled because people believed that they had brought their torments upon themselves. — Peter Lewis Allen

He loved her for being so beautiful, and he hated her for it. He loved how she put shiny stuff on her lips for him, and he also reviled her for it. He wanted her to walk home alone, and he wanted to run after her and grab her up before she could take another step. — Ann Brashares

Truman left in the middle of an unpopular war, a war of choice. Truman didn't have to go into South Korea. And he was reviled and ridiculed for the stalemate that resulted. Now, he's seen as one of the great presidents of the 20th century. — Charles Krauthammer

Although the human heart is selfish and arrogant, so many struggle against their selfishness and learn humility; because of them, as long as there is life, there is hope that beauty lost can be rediscovered, that what has been reviled can be redeemed. — Dean Koontz

When the Gauls laid waste Rome, they found the senators clothed in their robes, and seated in stern tranquillity in their curule chairs; in this manner they suffered death without resistance or supplication. Such conduct was in them applauded as noble and magnanimous; in the hapless Indians it was reviled as both obstinate and sullen. How truly are we the dupes of show and circumstances! How different is virtue, clothed in purple and enthroned in state, from virtue, naked and destitute, and perishing obscurely in a wilderness. — Washington Irving

Damn you!" he reviled her, "damn you for your physical charms! — Jessica Steele

Society is a long series of uprising ridges, which from the first to the last offer no valley of repose. Whenever you take your stand, you are looked down upon by those above you, and reviled and pelted by those below you. Every creature you see is a farthing Sisyphus, pushing his little stone up some Liliputian mole-hill. This is our world. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

It has always been my concern to touch people with leprosy, trying to show in a simple action that they are not reviled, nor are we repulsed. — Princess Diana

As you say, I am honoured and famous and rich. But as I have to do all the hard work, and suffer an increasing multitude of fools gladly, it does not feel any better than being reviled, infamous and poor, as I used to be. — George Bernard Shaw

And yet because of my attempt at sincerity I have been condemned, hooted at, reviled; filthy rumors have been circulated about me, not about my characterizations but about me personally, my private self. — Erich Von Stroheim

Nobody's told me anything to date that I've been completely reviled by. — Chuck Palahniuk

He sat there, the master, the artist who had achieved his dignity, the author of "A Wretched Man," who, employing a form of exemplary purity, had renounced bohemianism and the dismal chasm, had broken with the abyss and reviled all vileness. He had risen high, transcending his knowledge and outgrowing all irony, he had adjusted his responsibilities toward the public and its trust in him-he, whose fame was official, whose name was ennobled, and whose style was a model for schoolboys. — Thomas Mann

Only silly Dorothys arrive in a magical land and want to go home. You don't want to be a silly stinking Dorothy, do you? They're reviled throughout every wondrous land. Did you know the name Dorothy translates as "squandered opportunity"? — Bill Willingham

[ ... ] atheists are the most reviled minority in the United States. Polls indicate that being an atheist is a perfect impediment to running for high office in our country (while being black, Muslim, or homosexual is not). — Sam Harris

Therefore, I bind these lies and slanderous accusations to my person as an ornament; it belongs to my Christian profession to be vilified, slandered, reproached and reviled, and since all this is nothing but that, as God and my conscience testify, I rejoice in being reproached for Christ's sake. — John Bunyan

He thought back to the first moment in Hong Kong when he had wanted her and recoiled. That, perhaps, was when his poles had shifted. Missing the small signs, focused on other aims, he had reviled himself for wayward urges, mistaking them as signs of his own weakness. Had he realized then that she was well worth wanting, he might have found the courage to do what came to her so naturally: to look around a locked room, and see opportunities worth breaking windows for. — Meredith Duran

Almighty Father! let thy lowly child,
Strong in his love of truth, be wisely bold,
A patriot bard, by sycophants reviled.
Let him live usefully, and not die old! — Ebenezer Elliott

in seeking only to stay upright, you fall, are banished then cursed and reviled, condemned to wander a continent you don't even know where you're going, only when you're expected, which is every Friday at sundown though your calendars were never coordinated and what you always thought had been west was really only a left turn taken with your back to the north, in haste and with little sleep, then upon your forehead, the development of a worrying mark. — Joshua Cohen

Blair's best-remembered legacies, goes beyond the trouble and money wasted on it. The disdain Britons reserve for politicians is fuelled by doubts about their efficacy as well as their motives, and the ban invites both. Many rural folk consider it malicious; semi-interested townies tend to approve of it, which is why it may never be repealed, but must also note the ineptitude it represents. That is bad for politicians of all stripes; and the Labour crusaders responsible for the mess should reflect on it. In banning hunting they thought to weaken a reviled establishment, and so they have; but the establishment in question, it turns out, includes themselves. — Anonymous

If the numbers mean anything, they tell us that vastly more life is left in the reviled internal-combustion engine than any of the blue-state lefties could imagine. First, that madman Bush wins, and now this news. How depressing. — Brock Yates

A soldier fought better when he knew that he was not only needed, but appreciated back home. There were few things as degrading to man than to come home to the people you served, only to be shunned and reviled by them. — Evan Currie

When US-led forces toppled the Taliban government in November 2001, Afghans celebrated the downfall of a reviled and discredited regime. — Anand Gopal

We are reviled but we do not intend to speak evil in return. We are in desperate straits but do not despair. We are persecuted but not forsaken. It's easy to humiliate and crush people who are open, but when I am weak, then I am strong. — Nadezhda Tolokonnikova

To Harmodius, descended from the ancient Harmodius, when he reviled Iphicrates [a shoemaker's son] for his mean birth, "My nobility," said he, "begins in me, but yours ends in you. — Plutarch

I shook my head, smiling in spite of myself, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Adrian. My husband. If anyone had told me a year ago that I'd be married, I would've said they were joking. If they'd told me I'd be married to a vampire, I would've said they were delusional. Looking at Adrian now, I felt a surge of love well up within me, despite our earlier tension. I could no longer imagine a life without him in it. It was impossible. Could I imagine a life with him that didn't involve us being trapped in a suite of rooms with his mother while both our people reviled us and made plans against us? Definitely. There were any number of futures I'd love to have for us, but his was our current path until something spectacular happened. Outside, the Court's gates, my people wanted to imprison me. Inside them, his people wanted to assault him. At least in this suite, we were safe. Most importantly, we were together. — Richelle Mead