Slights Quotes & Sayings

When did your childhood end? How badly did you get hurt, when you did, when you were this little wee little hurtable thing, nothing but big eyes, a heart, a few hundred words? Isn't it wonderful how we never recover? Injuries and wounds, ladies and gents. Slights and abuses, oh, what a paradise. Living in fear, suiting the hurt to our need. What a happy life. What a good game. Who can stand the most, the most life, and still smile, still grin into the coming night and say more, more, encore, encore, you fuckers, you fates, just give me more of the bloody bloody same. — Will Eno

After spending most of her life scanning the horizon for slights and threats, genuine and imagined, she knew the real threat to her happiness came not from the dot in the distance, but from looking for it. Expecting it. Waiting for it. And in some cases, creating it. Her father had jokingly accused her of living in the wreckage of her future. Until one day she'd looked deep into his eyes and saw he wasn't joking. He was warning her. — Louise Penny

Failing at everything except his fear of success. Passed over yet again. Archivist of slights. Everyone else's good fortune is food out of your mouth or a hug you never got from someone who should have loved you better. Halfway through lunch she realized glass ceilings allow glimpses up into another person's hell. — Colson Whitehead

A good conscience fears no witness, but a guilty conscience is solicitous even in solitude. If we do nothing but what is honest, let all the world know it. But if otherwise, what does it signify to have nobody else know it, so long as I know it myself? Miserable is he who slights that witness. — Seneca The Younger

One very beautiful virtue one can master is to learn to ignore; to ignore perceived and intended slights no matter how infuriating they might feel.
Not to ignore in anger, rather, to ignore with understanding. However, to keep account for future purposes, to ignore with adept skill and less hurt.
Life just becomes easier and more beautiful. — Ufuoma Apoki

He sins against this life, who slights the next. — Edward Young

September 10, 2001. A storm is brewing in New York City. A clash is about to begin. Tempers will soon rise as historical conquests and slights are remembered and renewed on the eve of this fight between ancient and embittered foes. Yes, the Boston Red Sox are playing the New York Yankees. — Hugh Howey

All important persons have about them someone in a subordinate position who has their ear. These dependents are very susceptible to slights, and, when they are not treated as they think they should be, will by well-directed shafts, constantly repeated, poison the minds of their patrons against those who have provoked their animosity. It is well to keep in with them. — W. Somerset Maugham

To this military attitude of the soul we give the name of Heroism ... It is a self-trust which slights the restraints of prudence, in the plenitude of its energy and power to repair the harms it may suffer. The hero is a mind of such balance that no disturbances can shake his will ... — Ralph Waldo Emerson

not warrant or represent at any time that the contents within are accurate due to the rapidly changing nature of the Internet. While all attempts have been made to verify information provided in this publication, the Author and Publisher assume no responsibility for errors, omissions, or contrary interpretation of the subject matter herein. Any perceived slights of specific persons, people, or organizations are unintentional. In practical advice books, like anything else in life, there are no guarantees of results. Readers are cautioned to rely on their own judgment about their individual circumstances — Homer

It belongs to small-mindedness to be unable to bear either honor or dishonor, either good fortune or bad, but to be filled with conceit when honored and puffed up by trifling good fortune, and to be unable to bear even the smallest dishonor and to deem any chance failure a great misfortune, and to be distressed and annonyed at everything. Moreover the small-minded man is the sort of person to call all slights an insult and dishonor, even those that are due to ignorance or forgetfulness. Small-mindedness is accompanied by pettiness, querulousness, pessimism and self-abasement. — Aristotle.

She is not old, she is not young, The Woman with the Serpent's Tongue. The haggard cheek, the hungering eye, The poisoned words that wildly fly, The famished face, the fevered hand, Who slights the worthiest in the land, Sneers at the just, contemns the brave, And blackens goodness in its grave ... — William Watson

Notwithstanding his ignorance of the lore of Christianity, Thomas Wingfold was, in regard to some things, gifted with what I am tempted to call a divine stupidity. Many of the distinctions and privileges after which men follow, and of the annoyances and slights over which they fume, were to the curate inappreciable: he did not and could not see them. — George MacDonald

Gentleness is the ability to bear reproaches and slights with moderation, and not to embark on revenge quickly, and not to be easily provoked to anger, but be free from bitterness and contentiousness, having tranquility and stability in the spirit. — Aristotle.

Nothing goes to waste, you put it all to use, the old wounds and long-ago slights become the stuff of competitive energy. — Lance Armstrong

Sometimes grief is a comfort we grant ourselves because it's less terrifying than trying for joy. Nobody wants to admit it. We'd all declare we want to be happy, if we could. So why, then, is pain the one thing we most often hold on to? Why are slights and griefs the memories on which we choose to dwell? Is it because joy doesn't last but grief does? — Megan Hart

Languages are no more than the keys of Sciences. He who despises one, slights the other. — Jean De La Bruyere

He that takes not up a pin, slights his wife. — George Herbert

When a person has adequate self-esteem little slights offer no threat at all - they are simply "passed over" and ignored. Even deeper emotional wounds are likely to heal faster and cleaner, with no festering sores to poison life and spoil happiness. — Maxwell Maltz

When resentment and contention threatened to destroy his administration, he refused to be provoked by petty grievances, to submit to jealousy, or to brood over perceived slights. Through the appalling pressures he faced day after day, he retained an unflagging faith in his country's cause. — Doris Kearns Goodwin

In heaven there are few while in hell there are many. But those who are in heaven are the Champions of time who have conquered over sin and slothfulness."
"The fool slights the things in life and seeketh heaven after death.
"Verily, Verily I say unto you, he shall not find it. But the spirit of him that establishes a heaven on earth shall dwell in heaven everlasting. — Robert Athlyi Rogers

Snobs are people who look down on other people, but that does not justify our looking down on them. Who can say what dark fears of being inferior lurk behind their superior airs or what they suffer in private for the slights they dish out in public? — Frederick Buechner

There is no passion in the mind of man so weak, but it mates and masters the fear of death ... Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; honor aspireth to it; grief flieth to it. — Francis Bacon

Even if i'm setting myself up for failure, I think it's worth trying to be a mother who delights in who her children are, in their knock-knock jokes and earnest questions. A mother who spends less time obseessing about what will happen, or what has happened, and more time reveling in what is. A mother who doesn't fret over failings and slights, who realizes her worries and anxieties are just thoughts, the continuous chattering and judgement of a too busy mind. A mother who doesn't worry so much about being bad or good but just recognizes that she's both, and neither. A mother who does her best, and for whom that is good enough, even if, in the end, her best turns out to be, simply, not bad. — Ayelet Waldman

Tyra's always standing up for herself and her "race" over perceived slights. For example, she'll say, "You just pushed me because I'm black!" No, I pushed you because the train was coming right at you, you bulimic twit. — Joan Rivers

She wept easily. This did not mean that she felt things more deeply than others did. It certainly did not mean that she was fragile or sentimental or ready to bring that sodden leverage to bear on the slights that came with being the baby of the family. — Marilynne Robinson

When you challenge other people's ideas of who or how you should be, they may try to diminish and disgrace you. It can happen in small ways in hidden places, or in big ways on a world stage. You can spend a lifetime resenting the tests, angry about the slights and the injustices. Or, you can rise above it. — Carly Fiorina

What starts the process are the laughs and snubs and slights that you get when you are a kid. But if you are reasonably intelligent and if your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn that you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance, while those who have everything are sitting on their fat butts. — Anonymous

Almost alone among successful politicians, he took slights personally. — Rick Perlstein

If someone stops where they should not, they'll stop anywhere. If someone slights a person they should treat generously, they'll slight anyone. And if someone races ahead, they retreat in a hurry. — Mencius

It is typical of women to fester and ferment over disappointments, slights, annoyances, angers, etc. — Laura Schlessinger

Of ill-temper there are three kinds: irascibility, bitterness, sullenness. It belongs to the ill-tempered man to be unable to bear either small slights or defeats but to be given to retaliation and revenge, and easily moved to anger by any chance deed or word. Ill-temper is accompanied by excitability of character, instability, bitter speech, and liability to take offence at trifles and to feel these feelings quickly and on slight occasions. — Aristotle.

To be a woman and a writer is double mischief, for the world will slight her who slights "the servile house," and who would rather make odes than beds. — Dilys Laing

He never had been good at arguing with women; they tapped into pools of resentment over slights that had steeped for years. — Martin Cruz Smith

Dislike required energy and a good memory for slights; geniality was so much less demanding, and at the end of the day felt better too. — Alexander McCall Smith

I SIT and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame;
I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with themselves, remorseful after deeds done;
I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying, neglected, gaunt, desperate;
I see the wife misused by her husband - I see the treacherous seducer of young women;
I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love, attempted to be hid - I see these sights on the earth; 5
I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny - I see martyrs and prisoners;
I observe a famine at sea - I observe the sailors casting lots who shall be kill'd, to preserve the lives of the rest;
I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon laborers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like;
All these - All the meanness and agony without end, I sitting, look out upon,
See, hear, and am silent. — Walt Whitman

She says to me, but were we ever intimate? How intimate were we really? Sure, there were the ordinary familiarity-type things - our bodies, our bodily discharges and stains and seepages, an encyclopedic knowledge of each other's family grudges, knowledge of each other's early school yard slights, our dietary peccadilloes, our tv remote control channel-changing styles. And yet ...
And yet?
And yet in the end did we ever really give each other completely to the other? Do either of us even know how to really share ourselves? Imagine the house is on fire and I reach to save one thing - what is it? Do you know? Imagine that I am drowning and I reach within myself to save that one memory which is me - what is it? Do you know? What things would either of us reach for? Neither of us know. After all these years we just wouldn't know. — Douglas Coupland

Respect! I believe young people are quick enough to observe and imitate; and why or how should they respect whom no one else respects, and everybody slights? — Charles Dickens

Not everyone can look past an insult and continue to work with the person who slights them — Jean Johnson

What starts the process, really, are laughs and slights and snubs when you are a kid. If your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn that you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance. — Richard M. Nixon

Imagined slights could be more poisonous than real ones. — C.E. Murphy

As the culture war rages on, Lord give us wisdom to see the difference between defending our rights and protesting our slights. — Kevin DeYoung

I've taped a list to my bathroom mirror. It's my Most Violated List ... Anger. I gave the finger to an ATM. You see, the ATM charged me a $1.75 fee for withdrawl. A dollar seventy-five? That's bananas. So I flipped off the screen. As Julie tells me, when you start making rude gestures to inanimate objects, it's time to work on your anger issues. Mine is not the shouting, pulsing-vein-in-the forehead rage. Like my dad, I rarely raise my voice. My anger problem is more one of long-lasting resentment. It's a heap of real or perceived slights that eventually build up into a mountain of bitterness ... get some perspective ... I ask myself the question God asked Jonah. 'Do you do well to be angry?' ... The world will not end ... Mute your petty resentment. — A. J. Jacobs

Love and war are exactly alike. It is lawful to use tricks and slights to obtain a desired end. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

So perhaps there are no phantom pains after all; perhaps all pain is real; perhaps each long-ago blow lives on into eternity in some different permutation and shape; perhaps the body is this hypersensitive, revengeful entity, a ledger book, a warehouse of remembered slights and cruelties. — Thrity Umrigar

Fond of those hives where folly reigns,
And cards and scandal are the chains,
Where the pert virgin slights a name,
And scorns to redden into shame. — Jonathan Swift

The hundred-point man is one who is true to every trust; who keeps his word; who is loyal to the firm that employs him; who does not listen for insults nor look for slights; who carries a civil tongue in his head; who is polite to strangers without being fresh; who is considerate toward servants; who is moderate in his eating and drinking; who is willing to learn; who is cautious and yet courageous. — Elbert Hubbard

Who teaches young people to be so exquisitely sensitive to perceived slights, so ready to read affronts into routine events in everyday life? Their teachers no doubt. — George F. Will

It is easier to recount grievances and slights than it is to set down a broad redress of such grievances and slights. The reason is that one fears to be thought of as an arrant braggart. — Elizabeth Kenny

I had no epiphany, no singular revelation, no moment of truth, but a steady accumulation of a thousand slights, a thousand indignities and a thousand unremembered moments produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people. There was no particular day on which I said, Henceforth I will devote myself to the liberation of my people; instead, I simply found myself doing so, and could not do otherwise. — Nelson Mandela

People did not pick up the sexual connotations that often make even the most innocent expression of affection seem sexual to our sensibilities today. Perfectly respectable nineteenth-century women wrote to each other in terms like these: "[T]he expectation once more to see your face again, makes me feel hot and feverish." They carved their initials into trees, set flowers in front of one another's portraits, danced together, kissed, held hands, and endured intense jealousies over rivals or small slights.24 — Stephanie Coontz

See others' slights or outright insults as opportunities to show equanimity, spurring observers to do the same, unified with you around a best side of us. Opportunity Makers demonstrate that being a strong team player is as important as being the leader. Think well of yourself. The subconscious can't take a joke. — Kare Anderson

The edge came from the slights I've had throughout my life, the slights I have dealt with through the entirety of my life. It wasn't one day when somebody said something and that made me upset and now I'm over it. I'm not going to stop playing with an edge because that's what got me here. That's just how I play the game. I can't play any other way. — Richard Sherman

Political correctness and so many of the political fashions of the day ... could only be perpetrated in adolescent minds: minds, that is, that are trained to search out one thing and one thing only ... Only an adolescent would find it worthwhile to devote his or her attention chiefly to the hunting of offenses, the possibility of slights, real and imagined. — Joseph Epstein

[Leaves of Grass is] monstrous because it pretends to persuade the soul while it slights the intellect; because it pretends to gratify the feelings while it outrages the taste. — Henry James

One might be tempted to think that the many slights and rejections we scientists must suffer are somehow a necessary part of our education. But I don't think that way anymore. My experience with the music business has taught me to cherish every bit of feedback I can get, and not to think of the hundreds of unreturned phone calls or ignored pitches I must face as signs of personal failings. It was this change of perspective,
and the pressure it removed from my life, that first made me want to try systematically applying what I learned in the music business to the world of science. — Marc J. Kuchner