There are two insults which no human being will endure: The assertion that he hasn’t a sense of humor, and the doubly impertinent assertion that he has never known trouble.
Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) American novelist, playwright
Main Street, ch. 31, sec. 2 (1920)
(Source)
Quotations about:
impertinence
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A man always is to be himself the judge of how much of his mind he will show to other men; even to those he would have work along with him. There are impertinent inquiries made: your rule is to leave the inquirer uninformed on that matter; not, if you can help it, misinformed; but precisely as dark as he was!
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Lecture (1840-05-22), “The Hero as King,” Home House, Portman Square, London
(Source)
The lecture notes were collected by Carlyle into On Heroes, Hero-Worship, & the Heroic in History, Lecture 6 (1841).
