A Quote by Samuel Johnson

An infallible characteristic of meanness is cruelty.

Samuel Johnson

Quote Topics

Characteristic Cruelty Infallible Meanness

Quote Author

Samuel Johnson
English - Writer
September 18, 1709 - December 13, 1784

An infallible characteristic of meanness is cruelty. Men who have practiced tortures on animals without pity, relating them without shame, how can they still hold their heads among human beings?

Samuel Johnson

The myth of hell represents all the meanness, all the revenge, all the selfishness, all the cruelty, all the hatred, all the infamy of which the heart of man is capable.

Robert Green Ingersoll

The great, God-blessed churches in the world today have one common characteristic: an insistence upon an exposition of God's infallible Word.

O. S. Hawkins

Akri infallible. Well, except for a couple of things, and we don’t talk about those ‘cause it makes akri cranky. I like that word ‘infallible.’ It just like me. Infallible. (Simi)

Sherrilyn Kenyon

Perhaps I had better inform my Protestant readers that the famous Dogma of Papal Infallibility is by far the most modest pretension of the kind in existence. Compared with our infallible democracies, our infallible medical councils, our infallible astronomers, our infallible judges, and our infallible parliaments, the Pope is on his knees in the dust confessing his ignorance before the throne of God, asking only that as to certain historical matters on which he has clearly more sources of information open to him than anyone else his decision shall be taken as final.

George Bernard Shaw

There is something in meanness which excites a species of resentment that never subsides, and something in cruelty which stirs up the heart to the highest agony of human hatred.

Thomas Paine

All traditions are also full of meanness for the sake of meanness.

George Saunders

Our consciences are not infallible, and they can become warped or weakened if not kept aligned by the infallible Word of God.

J. Oswald Sanders

Cruelty is cruelty, whether it's cruelty to children, to the elderly, to dogs and cats, or to chickens.

Russell Simmons

Our line of work is very cynical, and a lot of it is driven by cynicism, cruelty, and meanness. It's easier to believe the negative stuff than the positive stuff. The feel-good stories don't usually spend a lot of time on the front pages.

Shawn Michaels

Cruelty to dumb animals is one of the distinguishing vices of low and base minds. Wherever it is found, it is a certain mark of ignorance and meanness; a mark which all the external advantages of wealth, splendour, and nobility, cannot obliterate. It is consistent neither with learning nor true civility.

William Jones

Just as lavishness leads easily to presumption, so does frugality to meanness. But meanness is a far less serious fault than presumption.

Confucius

Cruelty is, perhaps, the worst kid of sin. Intellectual cruelty is certainly the worst kind of cruelty.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened.

George Orwell

It struck him that the truly characteristic thing about modern life was not its cruelty and insecurity, but simply its bareness, its dinginess, its listlessness. Life, if you looked about you, bore no resemblance not only to the lies that streamed out of the telescreens, but even to the ideals that the party was trying to achieve.

George Orwell

The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare.