Quotations about:
    misanthropy


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A democracy is a means whereby we channel our contempt for our fellow man into a lively scorn for those elected to represent him.

Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry (b. 1957) British actor, writer, comedian
“Trefusis on Any Questions,” Loose Ends, BBC Radio 4 (c. 1987)
    (Source)

Reprinted in Paperweight (1992)
 
Added on 4-Oct-23 | Last updated 4-Oct-23
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There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.

Jane Austen
Jane Austen (1775-1817) English novelist
Pride and Prejudice, ch. 24 [Elizabeth] (1813)
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Added on 28-Sep-23 | Last updated 28-Sep-23
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Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.

Ayn Rand (1905-1982) Russian-American writer, philosopher
The Fountainhead, ch. 18 [Roark] (1943)
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Added on 5-Oct-22 | Last updated 5-Oct-22
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I don’t hate people, I just feel better when they aren’t around.

Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) German-American author, poet
Barfly (1987)
    (Source)

From the movie screenplay by Bukowski.

This is the way the phrase is usually quoted, but it's actually a series of lines when Henry (a character standing in for Bukowski himself) first meets Wanda.

WANDA: I can't stand people. I hate them.
HENRY: Yeah?
WANDA: You hate them?
HENRY: No, but I seem to feel better when they're not around.

Bukowski is actually in the scene as the barfly closest to Wanda before Henry moves next to her. Video clip.
 
Added on 17-Nov-21 | Last updated 17-Nov-21
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It is just as foolish to complain that people are selfish and treacherous as it is to complain that the magnetic field does not increase unless the electric field has a curl. Both are laws of nature.

John von Neumann (1903-1957) Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, inventor, polymath [János "Johann" Lajos Neumann]
(Attributed)
    (Source)

More in Eugene Wigner, "John von Neumann (1903-1957)," Yearbook of the American Philosophical Society (1958); later collected in Wigner's Symmetries and Reflections.
 
Added on 1-Jun-21 | Last updated 1-Jun-21
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Many people believe that they are attracted by God, or by Nature, when they are only repelled by man.

William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) English prelate [Dean Inge]
More Lay Thoughts of a Dean, Part 4, ch. 1 (1931)
 
Added on 24-Aug-20 | Last updated 24-Aug-20
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To believe that man’s aggressiveness or territoriality is in the nature of the beast is to mistake some men for all men, contemporary society for all possible societies, and, by a remarkable transformation, to justify what is as what needs must be; social repression becomes a response to, rather than a cause of, human violence.

Leon Eisenberg (1922-2009) American psychiatrist and medical educator
“The Human Nature of Human Nature,” Science (14 Apr 1972)
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Based on an address at Faculty of Medicine Day, McGill University Sesquicentennial Celebration, Montreal, Canada (1 Oct 1971).
 
Added on 4-Aug-20 | Last updated 4-Aug-20
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Phryne was feeling most displeased with a species to which, she reminded herself, she belonged. She took an egg sandwich and a gulp of tea and strove to adjust her philosophy.

Kerry Greenwood (b. 1954) Australian author and lawyer
Urn Burial (1996)
 
Added on 4-Oct-18 | Last updated 4-Oct-18
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Man is a social animal who dislikes his fellow man.

[L’homme es un animal sociable qui déteste ses semblables.]

Eugène Delacroix (1799-1863) French painter [Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix]
The Journal of Eugène Delacroix, 17 November 1852 (1951)
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Added on 26-Feb-18 | Last updated 26-Feb-18
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That sort of thing wears thin — for when one’s cynicism becomes perfect and absolute, there’s no longer anything amusing in the stupidity and hypocrisy of the herd. It is all to be expected — what else could human nature produce? — so irony annuls itself by means of its own victories!

H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) American fabulist [Howard Phillips Lovecraft]
Letter to August W. Derleth (Jan 1928)

Regarding Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary.
 
Added on 11-Apr-17 | Last updated 11-Apr-17
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The cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one. He is the human owl, vigilant in darkness, and blind to light, mousing for vermin, and never seeing noble game.

Beecher - cynic human owl - wist_info quote

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American clergyman and orator
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit (1870)
 
Added on 6-Sep-16 | Last updated 6-Sep-16
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I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.

Baretti - hate mankind - wist_info quote

Giuseppe Baretti (1719-1789) Italian-English literary critic and translator [a.k.a. Joseph Baretti]
(Attributed)

Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791).
 
Added on 8-Mar-16 | Last updated 10-Mar-16
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A psychologist once asked a group of college students to jot down, in thirty seconds, the initials of the people they disliked. Some of the students taking the test could think of only one person. Others listed as many as fourteen. The interesting fact that came out of this bit of research was this: Those who disliked the largest number were themselves the most widely disliked. When we find ourselves continually disliking others, we ought to bring ourselves up short and ask ourselves the question: “What is wrong with me?”

James Keller (1900-1977) American Catholic priest, inspirational speaker, television personality
Three Minutes a Day (1950)
 
Added on 21-Oct-15 | Last updated 21-Oct-15
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Yet malice never was his aim;
He lashed the vice but spared the name.
No individual could resent,
Where thousands equally were meant.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
“Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift,” l. 459 (1731)
 
Added on 10-Sep-15 | Last updated 10-Sep-15
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Man was made at the end of the week’s work, when God was tired.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Mark Twain’s Notebook, 23 May 1903 [ed. Paine (1935)]
 
Added on 19-Dec-11 | Last updated 26-Jan-19
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It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake.

H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
A Little Book in C Major, ch. 5, § 23 (1916)
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Variants:

EVIL. That which one believes of others. It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake.
A Book of Burlesques, "The Jazz Webster" (1924)

Evil is that which one believes of others. It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake.
Chrestomathy, ch. 30 "Sententiae" (1949)

 
Added on 17-Feb-10 | Last updated 17-Jan-24
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The human race consists of the damned and the ought-to-be-damned.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Mark Twain’s Notebook [ed. Paine (1935)]
 
Added on 1-Jun-09 | Last updated 26-Jan-19
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