22 Quotes About Meanness

Some people are just mean by nature. Some are mean because they’ve been hurt. But aren’t all of us mean to some extent? We often do mean things, and we often wonder why we do them. While we can never change who we are, we can learn to be more aware and responsible with how we treat others and ourselves Read more

So if you think you’re a bit of a bully, or you just need a little help navigating the tricky waters of relationships, check out our collection of the most amazing meanness quotes for some inspiration.

1
In stating these matters, I speak an open and disinterested language, dictated by no passion but that of humanity. To me, who have not only refused offers, because I thought them improper, but have declined rewards I might with reputation have accepted, it is no wonder that meanness and imposition appear disgustful. Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good. Thomas Paine
Unfulfilled expectations bring unhappiness. Comparisons fill life with meanness. Avoid...
2
Unfulfilled expectations bring unhappiness. Comparisons fill life with meanness. Avoid both to fill life with joyfulness. Debasish Mridha
3
Poetry destroyed? Genius banished? No! Mediocrity, no: do not let envy prompt you to the thought. No; they not only live, but reign, and redeem: and without their divine influence spread everywhere, you would be in hell--the hell of your own meanness. Unknown
I'd be more willing to accept religion, even if I...
4
I'd be more willing to accept religion, even if I didn't believe it, if I thought it made people nicer to each other but I don't think it does. Andy Rooney
5
We do not engage in idle or intentional gossip which undermines someone else's integrity or which spreads the seeds of fear by talking unthinkingly about illness, disasters, and all the other fears which run rampant in the world. Donna Goddard
6
In my 14 years of existence, I've never had a girl write nice things about me. I want to cry, and I think of that night with my mother, at the school social and how nice she and Noah were, and how kindness punches you in the heart more than meanness ever can. It's the most powerful weapon there is. And I wonder why people don't use it more often. Megan Jacobson
7
I saw cities, and roads of marvelous construction. I saw cruelty and greed, but I've seen them here too. I saw a people live a life that was strange in many ways, but also much the same as anywhere else."" Then why are they so cruel?" There was an earnestness to the girl's face, an honest desire to know. "Cruelty is in all of us, " he said. "But they made it a virtue. Anthony Ryan
8
Mean girls go far in high school. Kind women go far in LIFE. Mandy Hale
9
In this world where too many are willing to see only the light that is visible, never the Light Invisible, we have a daily darkness that is night, and we encounter another darkness from time to time that is death, the deaths of those we love, but the third and most constant darkness is with us everyday, at all hours of every day, is the darkness of the mind, the pettiness and meanness and hatred, which we have invited into ourselves, and which we pay out with generous interest. Dean Koontz
10
No mean person is mean all the time. The whole point of being mean is to fluctuate so that you can hold out the hope for someone. So someone will hold out the hope that they're gonna catch you on the sunny side or that you're gonna be nice this time. The tyranny is inconsistency. Somebody thats consistently mean is something that is pretty easy to sort out. The reality is that the meanest people can be wonderful sometimes. That's the whole point of meanness because otherwise it's too obvious. It's the niceness that gets you trapped in the dysfunction. That is the problem and so the fact that you have this belief that there is hope in the relationship is foundational to the dysfunction. Stefan Molyneux
11
That was when I learned that kindness could break a heart just as sure as meanness. The difference was the kindness made that broken heart softer. Meanness just made the heart want to be hard. Susie Finkbeiner
12
A mistake made by many people with great convictions is that they will let nothing stand in the way of their views, not even kindness. Bryant McGill
13
Because they are mean is no reason why I should be. I hate such things, and though I think I've a right to be hurt, I don't intend to show it. (Amy March) Louisa May Alcott
14
Meanness is a monster that usurps your self-control because you cowardly allow it to conquer you. Richelle E. Goodrich
15
Playful, positive sarcasm is different from negative mean sarcasm, and many people don't know the difference. Bryant McGill
16
Sometimes you never feel meaner than the moment you stop being mean. It's like how turning on a light makes you realize how dark the room had gotten. And the way you usually act, the things you would have normally done, are like these ghosts that everyone can see but pretends not to. Rebecca Stead
17
Love is responsible for nearly every kind of insanity in the world though greed, vanity, and pure meanness contribute their portion to general misery. P.N. Elrod
18
If you're insulting people on the internet, you must be ugly on the inside. Phil Lester
19
Inside the music like this, she understood many things. She understood that Simon was a disappointed man if he needed, at this age, to tell her he had pitied her for years. She understood that as he drove his car back down the coast toward Boston, toward his wife with whom he had raised three children, that something in him would be satisfied to have witnessed her the way he had tonight, and she understood that this form of comfort was true for many people, as it made Malcolm feel better to call Walter Dalton a pathetic fairy, but it was thin milk, this form of nourishment; it could not change that you had wanted to be a concert pianist and ended up a real estate lawyer, that you had married a woman and stayed married to her for thirty years, when she did not ever find you lovely in bed. Elizabeth Strout
20
She wondered if all boys were like this, their meanness a self defense. Omar El Akkad
21
When someone would mistreat, misinform, misuse, misguide, mishandle, mislead… or any other "mis"… to others, they’re obviously missing something from their lives. Donald L. Hicks