
Quotes about spite
A collection of quotes on the topic of spite, doing, use, other.
Quotes about spite


15 July 1944; Variant translations:
It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.
I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.
I simply can't build my hopes on a foundation of confusion, misery, and death...and yet...I think...this cruelty will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.
Source: The Diary of a Young Girl (1942 - 1944)
Context: It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. It's utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more. In the meantime, I must hold on to my ideals. Perhaps the day will come when I'll be able to realize them!

Source: The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967

“In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
Variant: Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.

Source: Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917), Chapter One
Source: Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism: Full Text of 1916 Edition

Source: The Diary of a Young Girl

“The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable.”

Introduction; part of this has sometimes been paraphrased : Our civilization has not yet fully recovered from the shock of its birth — the transition from the tribal or 'closed society', with its submission to magical forces, to the 'open society' which sets free the critical powers of man.
The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)

July 1944. Quoted in "Why the Allies Won" - Page 170 - by R. J. Overy - History - 1995

Srimad Bhagavatam, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1999. Canto 2, Chapter 3, verse 11, purport. Vedabase http://www.vedabase.com/en/sb/2/3/11
Quotes from Books: Loving God, Quotes from Books: Regression of Science

Original preface to Animal Farm; as published in George Orwell: Some Materials for a Bibliography (1953) by Ian R. Willison

“Man starts over again everyday, in spite of all he knows, against all he knows.”
A Short History of Decay (1949)
“He decided in favor of life out of sheer spite and malice.”
Source: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Speech in the House of Commons, after taking office as Prime Minister (13 May 1940) This has often been misquoted in the form: "I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat and tears ..."
The Official Report, House of Commons (5th Series), 13 May 1940, vol. 360, c. 1502. Audio records of the speech do spare out the "It is" before the in the beginning of the "Victory"-Part.
The Second World War (1939–1945)
Context: You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.
Context: I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.' We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.

“Common sense is in spite of, not the result of, education.”

“For books continue each other, in spite of our habit of judging them separately.”
Source: A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas

Justine or The Misfortunes of Virtue (1787)

XXXIX, 22, p. 172
‘The Second Part’, Chapters IV-XLI

Boisgeloup, winter 1934
As quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 313
Quotes, 1930's

"If We are to Survive this Dark Time", The New York Times Magazine (3 September 1950)
1950s

“The time is out of joint: O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!”
Hamlet, Act I, scene v.
Hamlet (1600–1)

Quoted in "The Devil's Disciples: Hitler's Inner Circle" - Page 807 - by Anthony Read - History - 2004.

Unpublished (and probably unsent) letter to the Providence Journal (13 April 1934), quoted in Collected Essays, Volume 5: Philosophy, edited by J. T. Joshi, pp. 115-116
Non-Fiction, Letters

To my Cigar, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

as quoted in The Origin of Negative Dialectics (Free Press: 1977), p. 187

"On Induction"
1910s, The Problems of Philosophy (1912)

Second Dialogue; translated by Judith R. Bush, Christopher Kelly, Roger D. Masters
Dialogues: Rousseau Judge of Jean-Jacques (published 1782)

Letter to Colette, December 28, 1916
1910s
Source: The Psychology of Personal Constructs, 1955, p. 831

1850s, Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society (1859)

Epode, lines 1-4
The Works of Ben Jonson, First Folio (1616), The Forest

C'est une plaisante chose que la pensée dépende absolument de l'estomac, et malgré cela les meilleurs estomacs ne soient pas les meilleurs penseurs.
Letter to Jean le Rond d'Alembert (20 August 1770)
Citas

1900s, Address at the Prize Day Exercises at Groton School (1904)

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1 (2010), pp. 21–22

Introduction, p. 6
1910s, Proposed Roads To Freedom (1918)

Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1765-1770; published 1782), On the musicians of the Ospedale della Pieta (book VII)

1900s, A Free Man's Worship (1903)

" The Jumblies http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ns/jumblies.html", st. 1, in Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany, and Alphabets (1871).

Except for Fabre's investigation of the behavior of insects, I do not know any equally striking example of inability to learn from experience.
Part II: Man and Man, Ch. 14: Economic Co-operation and Competition, pp. 132–3
1950s, New Hopes for a Changing World (1951)

À en croire certains esprits bornés, — c'est le qualificatif qui leur convient, — l'humanité serait renfermée dans un cercle de Popilius qu'elle ne saurait franchir, et condamnée à végéter sur ce globe sans jamais pouvoir s'élancer dans les espaces planétaires! Il n'en est rien! On va aller à la Lune, on ira aux planètes, on ira aux étoiles, comme on va aujourd'hui de Liverpool à New York, facilement, rapidement, sûrement, et l'océan atmosphérique sera bientôt traversé comme les océans de la Lune!
Tr. Walter James Miller (1978)
Variant: If we are to believe certain narrow minded people — and what else can we call them? — humanity is confined within a circle of Popilius from which there is no escape, condemned to vegetate upon this globe, never able to venture into interplanetary space! That's not so! We are going to the moon, we shall go to the planets, we shall travel to the stars just as today we go from Liverpool to New York, easily, rapidly, surely, and the oceans of space will be crossed like the seas of the moon.
Source: From the Earth to the Moon (1865), Ch. XIX: A Monster Meeting (Charles Scribner's Sons "Uniform Edition", 1890, p. 93)

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1846/may/15/corn-importation-bill-adjourned-debate in the House of Commons (15 May 1846).
1840s

“Commitment is healthiest when it is not without doubt but in spite of doubt.”
Source: The Courage to Create (1975), Ch. 1 : The Courage to Create, p. 21
Context: The relationship between commitment and doubt is by no means an antagonistic one. Commitment is healthiest when it is not without doubt but in spite of doubt.

1860s, Speeches to Ohio Regiments (1864), Speech to One Hundred Forty-eighth Ohio Regiment (1864)
Context: It is vain and foolish to arraign this man or that for the part he has taken, or has not taken, and to hold the government responsible for his acts. In no administration can there be perfect equality of action and uniform satisfaction rendered by all. But this government must be preserved in spite of the acts of any man or set of men. It is worthy your every effort. Nowhere in the world is presented a government of so much liberty and equality. To the humblest and poorest amongst us are held out the highest privileges and positions. The present moment finds me at the White House, yet there is as good a chance for your children as there was for my father's.

A Manifesto for a Skeptical Africa (2012)
Context: Most Africans cannot think freely or express their doubts openly because these religions have placed a huge price on freethinking and critical inquiry. Because these belief systems rely on paranormal claims themselves, Africans feel they cannot speak out against superstition as a whole, or they will be ostracized or even killed by religious zealots. Belief in demonic possession, faith healing, and the “restorative” power of holy water can have deadly consequences for believers and whole communities. Africans must reject superstitious indoctrination and dogmatization in public institutions. Africans need to adopt this cultural motto: Dare to think. Dare to doubt. Dare to question everything in spite of what the superstitious around you teach and preach. Africans must begin to think freely in order to ‘emancipate themselves from mental slavery’ and generate ideas that can ignite the flame of an African enlightenment.

Antic Hay (1923)
Context: There are quiet places also in the mind', he said meditatively. 'But we build bandstands and factories on them. Deliberately — to put a stop to the quietness. … All the thoughts, all the preoccupations in my head — round and round, continually What's it for? What's it all for? To put an end to the quiet, to break it up and disperse it, to pretend at any cost that it isn't there. Ah, but it is; it is there, in spite of everything, at the back of everything. Lying awake at night — not restlessly, but serenely, waiting for sleep — the quiet re-establishes itself, piece by piece; all the broken bits … we've been so busily dispersing all day long. It re-establishes itself, an inward quiet, like the outward quiet of grass and trees. It fills one, it grows — a crystal quiet, a growing, expanding crystal. It grows, it becomes more perfect; it is beautiful and terrifying … For one's alone in the crystal, and there's no support from the outside, there is nothing external and important, nothing external and trivial to pull oneself up by or stand on … There is nothing to laugh at or feel enthusiast about. But the quiet grows and grows. Beautifully and unbearably. And at last you are conscious of something approaching; it is almost a faint sound of footsteps. Something inexpressively lovely and wonderful advances through the crystal, nearer, nearer. And, oh, inexpressively terrifying. For if it were to touch you, if it were to seize you and engulf you, you'd die; all the regular, habitual daily part of you would die … one would have to begin living arduously in the quiet, arduously in some strange, unheard of manner.

While signing the Bill Providing Restitution for the Wartime Internment of Japanese-American Civilians, quoting himself at the funeral of Kazuo Masuda in December 1945 (10 August 1988) http://history.wisc.edu/archdeacon/404tja/redress.html
1980s, Second term of office (1985–1989)
Context: Blood that has soaked into the sands of a beach is all of one color. America stands unique in the world: the only country not founded on race but on a way, an ideal. Not in spite of but because of our polyglot background, we have had all the strength in the world. That is the American way.

“I believe, in spite of all, in truth's victory.”
Light (1919), Ch. XXII - Light
Context: I believe, in spite of all, in truth's victory. I believe in the momentous value, hereafter inviolable, of those few truly fraternal men in all the countries of the world, who, in the oscillation of national egoisms let loose, stand up and stand out, steadfast as the glorious statues of Right and Duty.

Source: On War (1832), Book 1, Chapter 3.
Context: Strength of character does not consist solely in having powerful feelings, but in maintaining one’s balance in spite of them. Even with the violence of emotion, judgment and principle must still function like a ship’s compass, which records the slightest variations however rough the sea.

Speech (10 January 1930) as quoted in The Communist International (1936) Vol. 13

No one can, in case of affairs, abandon the conviction that the future is co-determined by his transactions.
Antimonies
Gesammelte Mathematische Werke (1876)

To the good God, nothing is little because He is so great and we so small- that is why He stoops down and takes the trouble to make those little things for us- to give us a chance to prove our love for Him.
Source: Knoansw, A Simple Path Quotes – The Inspiring Book Of Mother Teresa, September 03, 2020 https://knoansw.com/a-simple-path-quotes-mother-teresa/
“My talent was the uncompromising ability to feel spite.”
Source: Grotesque

"Sermons in Cats the musical"
Music at Night and Other Essays (1931)
Source: The Bride and the Beast

1964 Memorial Edition, p. 266 http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations/Profiles-in-Courage-quotations.aspx
Variant: A man does what he must — in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures — and that is the basis of all human morality.
Source: Pre-1960, Profiles in Courage (1956)
Context: The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of a final moment; but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy. A man does what he must — in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers, and pressures — and that is the basis of all human morality. In whatever area in life one may meet the challenges of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follows his conscience — the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men — each man must decide for himself the course he will follow. The stories of past courage can define that ingredient — they can teach, they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this each man must look into his own soul.
Context: For without belittling the courage with which men have died, we should not forget those acts of courage with which men — such as the subjects of this book — have lived. The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of a final moment; but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy. A man does what he must — in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers, and pressures — and that is the basis of all human morality. In whatever area in life one may meet the challenges of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follows his conscience — the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men — each man must decide for himself the course he will follow. The stories of past courage can define that ingredient — they can teach, they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this each man must look into his own soul.
Source: The Edge of Desire