A Quote by William Hazlitt

Nothing precludes sympathy so much as a perfect indifference to it

William Hazlitt

Quote Topics

Indifference Much Nothing Perfect Sympathy

Quote Author

William Hazlitt
English - Critic
April 10, 1778 - September 18, 1830

Perfect behavior is born of complete indifference. Perhaps this is why we always love madly someone who treats us with indifference.

Cesare Pavese

There is so much indifference in the face of suffering. May we overcome indifference with concrete acts of charity.

Pope Francis

Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response. Indifference is not a beginning; it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor - never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten.

Elie Wiesel

Faith, sympathy - fiery faith and fiery sympathy! Life is nothing, death is nothing, hunger nothing, cold nothing. Glory unto the Lord - march on, the Lord is our General. Do not look back to see who falls - forward - onward! Thus and thus we shall go on, brethren. One falls, and another takes up the work

Swami Vivekananda

It is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought.

Oscar Wilde

Salvation is not a divine transaction that takes place because you are morally perfect, but much more is an organic unfolding, a becoming who you already are, an inborn sympathy with and capacity for the very One who created you.

Richard Rohr

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.

Elie Wiesel

The world is full of tragedy; and sympathy, a little common sympathy, can do so much to soften the worst of grief. It is for the lack of that, that people despair and go down.

Mona Caird

It has been strange to me to return to life and to feel that I have any sympathy with human beings, after the long interval of quiet and indifference which succeeded my marriage.

Julia Ward Howe

Any sympathy won for Aileen Wuornos based on a lie is not sympathy at all. The question is, can we have sympathy for the circumstances of someone's life? That's what I was interested in.

Patty Jenkins

There is so much that is deaf and dumb in man, and so much that is paralyzed, so much that is shrunken, that nothing short of a miraculous touch of re-creation can make them at death perfect beings.

Henry Ward Beecher

I gave you sympathy. *I* want sympathy!" "Are you kidding me? You have the sexiest man on the planet wanting you. You're getting laid regularly. No sympathy for you!

Jill Shalvis

Nothing excites men's curiosity so much as Mystery, concealing things which they desire to know; and nothing so much increases curiosity as obstacles that interpose to prevent them from indulging in the gratification of their desires. Of this the Legislators and Hierophants took advantage, to attract the people to their sanctuaries, and to induce them to seek to obtain lessons from which they would perhaps have turned away with indifference if they had been pressed upon them.

Albert Pike

Smile and others will smile back. Smile to show how transparent, how candid you are. Smile if you have nothing to say. Most of all, do not hide the fact you have nothing to say nor your total indifference to others. Let this emptiness, this profound indifference shine out spontaneously in your smile.