
“That's what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.”
Source: The God of Small Things
My Day (1935–1962)
Context: Little by little it dawned upon me that this law was not making people drink any less, but it was making hypocrites and law breakers of a great number of people. It seemed to me best to go back to the old situation in which, if a man or woman drank to excess, they were injuring themselves and their immediate family and friends and the act was a violation against their own sense of morality and no violation against the law of the land. (14 July 1939)
“That's what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.”
Source: The God of Small Things
Pt. I, sec. 1, "The Principle of Economy"
The Philosophy of Style (1852)
Context: There can be little question that good composition is far less dependent upon acquaintance with its laws, than upon practice and natural aptitude. A clear head, a quick imagination, and a sensitive ear, will go far towards making all rhetorical precepts needless.
"Postscript", p. 153.
The Anarchist Cookbook (1971)
“I make it easier for people to leave by making them hate me a little.”
Source: The Book of Tomorrow
On the Zeitnot problem.
Source: Chess Life, Vol. 16-18, 1961. p. 113.
Of Man's Progress in Virtue
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)