Quotations about:
    negativity


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To make our idea of morality centre on forbidden acts is to defile the imagination and to introduce into our judgments of our fellow-men a secret element of gusto.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
Essay (1888-12), “A Christmas Sermon,” sec. 1, Scribner’s Magazine, Vol. 4
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Originally written in the winter of 1887-88. Collected in Across the Plains, ch. 12 (1892).
 
Added on 10-Jan-25 | Last updated 31-Jan-25
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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 author
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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To everything there is a bright side and a dark side; and I hold it to be unwise, unphilosophic, unkind to others, and unhealthy for one’s own soul, to form the habit of looking on the dark side.

Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880) American abolitionist, activist, journalist, suffragist
Letter to Lucy Osgood (1865)
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Added on 22-Feb-23 | Last updated 22-Feb-23
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I questioned the desire to attribute the worst aspects of human behaviour to characters whose only useful function, as I see it, aside from simply entertaining young people and anyone else who fancies an uplifting holiday in a storybook world far from the grinding monotony of pessimism and disillusion, is to provide a primary-coloured cartoon taste of how we all might be if we had the wit and the will and the self-sacrifice it takes to privilege our best selves and loftiest aspirations over our base instincts. While that great day is unlikely to happen any time soon in any halfway-familiar real world, why not let comic book universes be playgrounds for the kind of utopian impulses that have in the past brought out the best in us?

Grant Morrison
Grant Morrison (b. 1960) Scottish comic book writer and playwright
“SUPERMAN and THE AUTHORITY annotations Pt 2,” blog entry (16 Feb 2022)
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Added on 15-Jul-22 | Last updated 15-Jul-22
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ANTON EGO: In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.

Brad Bird (b. 1957) American director, animator and screenwriter [Phillip Bradley Bird]
Ratatouille (2007)
 
Added on 12-Feb-20 | Last updated 12-Feb-20
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Listen to the MUSTN’Ts, child,
Listen to the DON’Ts
Listen to the SHOULDN’Ts
The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON’Ts
Listen to the NEVER HAVEs
Then listen close to me —
Anything can happen, child,
ANYTHING can be.

Shel Silverstein (1930-1999) American poet, singer-songwriter, cartoonist, children's author
“Listen To The Mustn’ts,” Where the Sidewalk Ends (1974)
 
Added on 31-Jan-17 | Last updated 31-Jan-17
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