Quotations about:
    sensitivity


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My great wish is to go on in a strict but silent performance of my duty: to avoid attracting notice and to keep my name out of newspapers, because I find the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter (1789-093-13) to Francis Hopkinson
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Added on 5-Aug-24 | Last updated 5-Aug-24
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Bad reviews jar me down to the instep. I will never become philosophically resigned to a negative reaction to something I’ve written.

Rod Serling (1924-1975) American screenwriter, playwright, television producer, narrator
Patterns, Introduction (1957)
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Added on 6-Sep-22 | Last updated 6-Sep-22
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“Are you seeing a psychiatrist?” as a conversation opener would nowadays earn you a punch in the nose, but for fifty years it was a compliment. It meant, “One can plainly see you are sensitive, intense, and interesting, and therefore neurotic.” Only the dullest of clods trudged around without a neurosis.

Barbara Holland (1933-2010) American author
Wasn’t the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon’s Fond Memories (1999)
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Added on 21-Feb-22 | Last updated 21-Feb-22
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For a man of sensitivity and compassion to exercise great powers in a time of crisis is a grim and agonizing thing.

Richard Hofstadter (1916-1970) American historian and intellectual
The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made It, Part 5, ch. 7 (1958)
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Referring to Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War.
 
Added on 24-Mar-20 | Last updated 24-Mar-20
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I believe in aristocracy, though — if that is the right word, and if a democrat may use it. Not an aristocracy of power, based upon rank and influence, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet. They represent the true human tradition, the one permanent victory of our queer race over cruelty and chaos. Thousands of them perish in obscurity, a few are great names. They are sensitive for others as well as for themselves, they are considerate without being fussy, their pluck is not swankiness but the power to endure, and they can take a joke.

E. M. Forster (1879-1970) English novelist, essayist, critic, librettist [Edward Morgan Forster]
“What I Believe,” The Nation (1938-07-16)
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Collected in Two Cheers for Democracy (1951).
 
Added on 5-Feb-20 | Last updated 25-Mar-24
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Nothing is more embarrassing in the ordinary intercourse of life than this irritable patriotism of the Americans. A stranger may be well inclined to praise many of the institutions of their country, but he begs permission to blame some of the peculiarities which he observes — a permission which is however inexorably refused.

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French writer, diplomat, politician
Democracy in America, Vol. 1, “Public Spirit in the United States” (1835) [tr. Reeve (1839)]
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Added on 21-Nov-18 | Last updated 21-Nov-18
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Guilt hath very quick ears to an accusation.

Henry Fielding (1707-1754) English novelist, dramatist, satirist
Amelia, ch. 11 (1751)
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Added on 8-Jun-17 | Last updated 8-Jun-17
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Just because you’re offended, doesn’t mean you’re right.

Ricky Gervais (b. 1961) English comedian, actor, director, writer
Tweet (12 Oct 2013)
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Added on 8-Sep-16 | Last updated 8-Sep-16
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It really hurts me very much to suppose that I have wronged anybody on earth.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Quincy, Illinois (13 Oct 1858)
 
Added on 4-Jan-16 | Last updated 4-Jan-16
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A weak mind does not accumulate force enough to hurt itself; stupidity often saves a man from going mad.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) American poet, essayist, scholar
Article (1857-12), “The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table,” Atlantic Monthly
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Collected in The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, ch. 2 (1858).
 
Added on 18-Dec-14 | Last updated 23-Dec-24
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Other nations have been called thin-skinned, but the citizens of the Union have, apparently, no skins at all; they wince if a breeze blows over them, unless it be tempered with adulation.

Frances Trollope (1779-1863) English novelist and writer
Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832)
 
Added on 25-Jun-14 | Last updated 25-Jun-14
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The Americans, in their intercourse with strangers, appear impatient of the smallest censure and insatiable of praise.

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French writer, diplomat, politician
Democracy in America, Vol. 2, sec. 3, ch. 16 (1840)
 
Added on 18-Jun-14 | Last updated 18-Jun-14
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Every man who attacks my belief, diminishes in some degree my confidence in it, and therefore makes me uneasy; and I am angry with him who makes me uneasy.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Comment (3 Apr 1775)

In James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
 
Added on 11-Apr-14 | Last updated 11-Apr-14
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HARRIS: I’ve been thinking about myself and I think I can become the kind of person that’s worth you staying for. First of all, I’m a man who can cry. Now it’s true, it’s usually when I’ve hurt myself, but it’s a start.

Steve Martin (b. 1945) American comedian, actor, writer, producer, musician
L. A. Story (1991)
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Added on 16-May-12 | Last updated 30-Sep-24
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