Negative Quotations

Not all quotations are positive, as this category proves. These will offer only pessimistic or negative views on a variety of subjects.

Showing 73 through 108 of 137 quotations in this category.

"There is so much trouble in coming into the world, and so much more, as well as meanness, in going out of it, that 'tis hardly worth while to be here at all."

-Viscount Henry St. John Bolingbroke

"Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts."

-Albert Einstein

"All our lauded technological progress -- our very civilization - is like the axe in the hand of the pathological criminal."

-Albert Einstein

"Man has always sacrificed truth to his vanity, comfort and advantage. He lives by makebelieve."

-W. Somerset Maugham

"In almost every act of our lives whether in the sphere of politics or business in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind."

-Edward L. Bernays

"One disturbing trend is an inverse relationship between wealth (social success) and number of children. Sucessful families having 1.2 children (below the replacement level; their genes are effectively selected against). Poverty-level families having 3.6 children (geneticaly sucessful). We are effectively selecting against being successful."

-Alsee (from the web)

"Scientists in the 19th century postulated that in time, the world would be taken over by morons. My belief is that this actually happened, but we are now too stupid to realise."

-Kirruth (from the web)

"You just can't escape the conclusion that half the people you know are below average."

-Scaramouche

"There are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots."

-unknown

"As a connoisseur of madness, I believe we all carry the seeds of self-treachery, that we sometimes secretly seek out people who hold the keys to our own destruction."

-Cary Tennis

"Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so men are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them."

-Ecclesiastes 9:12

"In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia."

-George Orwell

"We live in an age when pizza gets to your home before the police."

-Jeff Marder

"There is an incessant influx of novelty into the world, and yet we tolerate incredible dullness."

-Henry David Thoreau

"If you don't like yourself, you can't like other people."

-Robert Heinlein

"In art, there are tears that do lie too deep for thought."

-Louis Kronenberger

"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad."

-Aldous Huxley

"We are ashamed of everything that is real about us; ashamed of ourselves, of our relatives, of our incomes, of our accents, of our opinions, of our experience, just as we are ashamed of our naked skins."

-George Bernard Shaw

"That which has been believed by everyone, always and everywhere, has every chance of being false."

-Paul Valéry

"Man no longer dreams over a book in which a soft voice, a constant companion, observes, exhorts, or sighs with him through the pangs of youth and age. Today he is more likely to sit before a screen and dream the mass dream which comes from outside."

-Loren Eiseley

"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets."

-Voltaire

"Although it is a gloomy view to suppose that life will die out, sometimes when I contemplate the things that people do with their lives I think it is almost a consolation."

-Bertrand Russell

"Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones."

-Bertrand Russell

"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever."

-Napoleon Bonaparte

"Most people can't think, most of the remainder won't think, the small fraction who do think mostly can't do it very well."

-Robert Heinlein

"If at first you don't succeed, please go somewhere else and fail quietly."

-oldspewey (Slashdot.org)

"Maybe this world is another planet's hell."

-Aldous Huxley

"If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm."

-Vince Lombardi

"The pious pretense that evil does not exist only makes it vague, enormous and menacing."

-Aleister Crowley

"Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so."

-Bertrand Russell

"Patriotism is a pernicious, psychopathic form of idiocy."

-George Bernard Shaw

"You think that way as you begin to get grayer and you see pretty plainly that the game is not going to end as you planned."

-Loren Eiseley

"Never underestimate the power of human stupidity."

-Robert Heinlein

"Madness is rare in individuals--but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule."

-Friedrich Nietzsche

"Finding bad reasons for what one believes for other bad reasons - that's philosophy."

-Aldous Huxley

"Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again."

-Andre Gide