Submissiveness Quotes & Sayings

She saw that they felt themselves alone in that crowded room. And Vronsky's face, always so firm and independent, held that look that had struck her, of bewilderment and humble submissiveness, like the expression of an intelligent dog when it has done wrong.
Anna smiled, and her smile was reflected by him. She grew thoughtful, and he became serious. Some supernatural force drew Kitty's eyes to Anna's face. She was enchanting in her simple black dress, enchanting were her round arms with their bracelets, enchanting was her firm neck with its thread of pearls, fascinating the straying curls of her loose hair, enchanting the graceful, light movements of her little feet and hands, enchanting was that lovely face in its animation, but there was something terrible and cruel about her charm. — Leo Tolstoy

Your service will be arduous, it will be painful and rigorous, and the slightest delinquencies will be requited immediately with corporal and afflicting punishments; hence, I must recommend to you prompt exactness, submissiveness, and total self-abnegation that you be enabled to heed naught but our desires; let them be your laws, fly to do their bidding, anticipate them, cause them to be born ... — Marquis De Sade

Submissiveness to fate, the total abdication of your own will in the shaping of your life, the recognition that it was impossible to guess the best and the worst ahead of time but that it was easy to take a step you would reproach yourself for-all this freed the prisoner from any bondage, made him calmer, and even ennobled him. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

During our mortal schooling in submissiveness, we will see the visible crosses that some carry, but other crosses will go unseen. A few individuals may appear to have no trials at all, which, if it were so, would be a trial in itself. Indeed, if, as do trees, our souls had rings to measure the years of greatest personal growth, the wide rings would likely reflect the years of greatest moisture-but from tears, not rainfall. — Neal A. Maxwell

[W]hat we also see in sex is a kind of submissiveness. But not a kind of submissiveness which is simply 'do what you like, I'm just here for you', but it ... is, or can be, very manipulative. It is a way of getting the other person to exercise all his or her efforts towards pleasing you, and in that way controlling what they're thinking, and in particular what they're thinking of you. — Robert C. Solomon

The antidote for pride is humility; meekness; submissiveness...
Let us choose to be humble.
We can choose to humble ourselves by
conquering enmity toward our brothers and sisters,
esteeming them as ourselves,
and lifting them as high or higher than we are...
We can choose to humble ourselves
by receiving counsel and chastisement...
We can choose to humble ourselves by
forgiving those who have offended us...
We can choose to humble ourselves by
rendering selfless service...
We can chose to humble ourselves by
going on missions and preaching the word that can humble others...
We can choose to humble ourselves by
getting to the temple more frequently...
We can choose to humble ourselves by
confessing and forsaking our sins and being born of God...
We can choose to humble ourselves by loving God,
submitting our will to His, and putting Him first in our lives — Ezra Taft Benson

The public must be reduced to passivity in the political realm, but for submissiveness to become a reliable trait, it must be entrenched in the realm of belief as well. — Noam Chomsky

Meekness is marked by silence in the face of abuse and infamy, by submission to God's way, which is higher than our way as heaven is higher than the earth, by submissiveness to others for their welfare. It is the source of inexpressible joy and contentment. — V. Raymond Edman

Mr. Pontellier had been a rather courteous husband so long as he met a certain tacit submissiveness in his wife. But her new and unexpected line of conduct completely bewildered him. It shocked him. Then her absolute disregard for her duties as a wife angered him. When Mr. Pontellier became rude, Edna grew insolent. She had resolved never to take another step backward. — Kate Chopin

There can be a true grandeur in any degree of submissiveness, because it springs from loyalty to the laws and to an oath, and not from baseness of soul. — Simone Weil

Humility is often only a feigned submissiveness by which men hope to bring other people to submit to them; it is a more calculated sort of pride. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

It is one of the triumphs of human wit ... to conquer by humility and submissiveness ... to make oneself small in order to appear great ... such ... are often the expedients of the neurotic. — Alfred Adler

Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity. — Eric Hoffer

Life in the Church means experiencing leaders who are not always wise, mature, and deft. In fact, some of us are as bumpy and uneven as a sackful of old doorknobs. Some of the polishing we experience is a result of grinding against each other. How vital submissiveness is in such circumstances, especially if the lubrication of love is not amply present.
In a church established, among other reasons, for the perfecting of the Saints
an ongoing process
it is naive to expect, and certainly unfair to demand, perfection in our peers. A brief self-inventory is wise before we "cast the first stone." Possessing a few rocks in our own heads, it is especially dangerous to have rocks too ready in our hands. — Neil A. Maxwell

How could it occur to anyone to demonstrate that God exists unless one has already allowed Himself to ignore Him? A king's existence is demonstrated by way of subjection and submissiveness. Do you want to try and demonstrate that the king exists? Will you do so by offering a string of proofs, a series of arguments? No. If you are serious, you will demonstrate the king's existence by your submission, by the way you live. And so it is with demonstrating God's existence. It is accomplished not by proofs but by worship. Any other way is but a thinker's pious bungling. — Soren Kierkegaard

Humility is often merely feigned submissiveness assumed in order to subject others, an artifice of pride which stoops to conquer, and although pride has a thousand ways of transforming itself it is never so well disguised and able to take people in as when masquerading as humility. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

In all probability an outburst of desperation in the midst of general submissiveness will always help. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

While most of our suffering is self- inflicted, some is caused by or permitted by God. This sobering reality calls for deep submissiveness, especially when God does not remove the cup from us. In such circumstances, when reminded about the premortal shouting for joy as this life's plan was unfolded (Job 38:7), we can perhaps be pardoned if, in some moments, we wonder what all the shouting was about. — Neal A. Maxwell

Lazareff believed that "a journalists first duty is to be read," but Camus felt it was to tell the truth as much as possible, with as much style as possible. Camus saw "Lazareffism" as unacceptable journalism, a mixture of political submissiveness, raw crime, and nonsense. Pia and Camus hated the spineless large-circulation press, which followed orders and catered to its readers' lower instincts. — Olivier Todd

These unwritten amenities have been in part responsible for giving our people the feeling of independence and self-confidence, the feeling of creativity. These amenities have dignified the right of dissent and have honored the right to be nonconformists and the right to defy submissiveness. They have encouraged lives of high spirits rather than hushed, suffocating silence. — William O. Douglas

All greatness in style begins, I imagine, with such respect, deep and passionate enough to produce a humility which will not assert itself at the expense even of inanimate things: out of which submissiveness a desire to serve is born, in disinterested accuracy toward the object, whatever it may be. — Freya Stark

Adorable in her not-very-bright submissiveness, charming in her childlike delight in shiny floors, even forgivable in her spiteful competition for the whitest, brightest wash, Madison Avenue's girl-next door is all the American male could wish for: unless, by some miscarriage, he should fancy human companionship. — Vivian Gornick

Objectively, class differences in accent, dress, manners, and general style of life are very much smaller; and one cannot, strolling about the street or travelling on a train, instantly identify a person's social background as one can in England. Subjectively, social relations are more natural and egalitarian, and less marked by deference, submissiveness, or snobbery, as one quickly discovers from the cab-driver, the barman, the air-hostess and the drug-store assistant. — Anthony Crosland

Men insist that they don't mind women succeeding so long as they retain their "femininity". Yet the qualities that men consider "feminine" timidity, submissiveness, obedience, silliness, and self-debasement are the very qualities best guaranteed to assure the defeat of even the most gifted aspirant. — Elizabeth Gould Davis

I think that submissiveness can [be] and is a formidable weapon, which women will use as long as it isn't taken from them. — Anne Desclos

WE ARE DESTROYING OUR COUNTRY - I mean our country itself, our land. This is a terrible thing to know, but it is not a reason for despair unless we decide to continue the destruction. If we decide to continue the destruction, that will not be because we have no other choice. This destruction is not necessary. It is not inevitable, except that by our submissiveness we make it so. — Wendell Berry

Meanwhile, spiritual submissiveness brings about the wiser use of our time, talents, and gifts as compared with our laboring diligently but conditionally to establish our own righteousness instead of the Lord's (D&C 1:16). After all, Lucifer was willing to work very hard, but conditionally in his own way and for his own purposes. — Neal A. Maxwell

If you are doing whatever a shepherd is ordering you to do, then you are a real sheep, a poor submissive being! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

The ambivalent strategy involves clinging to the care-giver, often with excessive submissiveness, or adopting a role-reversal in which the care-giver is cared for rather than vice versa. Here feelings of anger at the rejection are most conspicuously subjected to defensive exclusion. Although these strategies have the function of maintaining attachment in the face of difficulties, a price has to be paid. The attachment patterns so established are clearly restricted and, if repeated in all relationships, will be maladaptive. — Jeremy Holmes

Humility is often only the putting on of a submissiveness by which men hope to bring other people to submit to them; it is a morecalculated sort of pride, which debases itself with a design of being exalted; and though this vice transform itself into a thousand several shapes, yet the disguise is never more effectual nor more capable of deceiving the world than when concealed under a form of humility. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Failing to induce adulation and submissiveness, the Angkar could only generate hatred. If concealment was the ultimate ploy for the leadership, it backfired and whipped up abhorrence in the
context of total revolution. This might be one of the explanations why repression assumed proportions unknown in other Communist countries. The mask of Angkar was a good tactic to grab
power, but it proved disastrous in government. — Pol Pot

The old lessons of submissiveness and fragility made us victims. Women are so much more than that. You can be a businesswoman, a mother, an artist, and a feminist - whatever you want to be - and still be a sexual being. It's not mutually exclusive. — Beyonce Knowles

Thereafter, he ennobled shame. He bore it in my presence like a burden, like a tiger clinging to his shoulders, the threat of which imparted to his shoulders a most insolent submissiveness. — Jean Genet

What made women's labour particularly attractive to the capitalists was not only its lower price but also the greater submissiveness of women. — Clara Zetkin

But Bruce pushed her back ever so slightly. "In dancing, at least, the guy still takes the lead." His meaning wasn't lost on Jessica. She'd have to be less aggressive if she wanted to keep him interested. "Then I'll follow wherever you lead," she said with uncharacteristic submissiveness. — Francine Pascal

His face contained for me all possibilities of fierceness and sweetness, pride and submissiveness, violence, self-containment. I never saw more in it than I had when I saw it first, because I saw everything then. The whole thing in him that I was going to love, and never catch or explain. — Alice Munro

The completest submissiveness is your lot, and that is all; — Marquis De Sade

Character is the product of daily, hourly actions, words and thoughts: daily forgiveness, unselfishness, kindnesses, sympathies, charities, sacrifices for the good of others, struggles against temptation, submissiveness under trial. It is these, like the blinding colors in a picture, or the blending notes of music, which constitute the person. — John Ross Macduff

Ash is submissiveness, worthlessness, irrelevance itself, and best of all, it is itself pervaded by the belief that it is fit for nothing. Is it possible to be more helpless, more impotent, and more wretched than ash? Not very easily. Could anything be more compliant and more tolerant? Hardly. Ash has no notion of character and is further from any kind of wood than dejection is from exhilaration. Where there is ash there is actually nothing at all. Tread on ash, and you will barely notice that you have stepped on anything. — Robert Walser

The Christian churches and Christianity have nothing in common save in name: they are utterly hostile opposites. The churches are arrogance, violence, usurpation, rigidity, death; Christianity is humility, penitence, submissiveness, progress, life. — Leo Tolstoy

And that's the point; not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength and power. Not wanting to be girls, they don't want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women's strong qualities have become despised because of their week ones. — Jill Lepore

Public convenience or dignity means nothing; police prerogatives assume the status of divine law. Submissiveness is demanded. If a police officer kills a civilian, it is a regrettable circumstance: the officer was possibly over-zealous. If a civilian kills a police officer all hell breaks loose. The police foam at the mouth. All other business comes to a standstill until the perpetrator of this most dastardly act is found out. Inevitably, when apprehended, he is beaten or otherwise tortured for his intolerable presumption ... The police complain that they cannot function efficiently, that criminals escape them. Better a hundred unchecked criminals than the despotism of one unbridled police force. — Jack Vance

For a lot of the players it was their first exposure to the Southern female - the most flagrant cheater in the mutual disarmament pact known as feminism. Lipstick! Hairdos! Submissiveness! — Michael Lewis

There aren't any answers to be found. There are no good choices. Submissiveness to a tyrant or chaos and suffering. — Brandon Sanderson