Selected indifference quotes

1. Thy praise or dispraise is to me alike; One doth not stroke me, nor the other strike.

2. Spring is noticed, if at all By people sitting in railway trains.

3. The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.

4. Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference.

5. The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.

6. When we believe ourselves in possession of the only truth, we are likely to be indifferent to common everyday truths.

7. He has great tranquility of heart who cares neither for the praises nor the fault-finding of men.

8. If moderation is a fault, then indifference is a crime.

9. Mistrust the person who finds everything good, and the person who finds everything evil, and mistrust even more the person who is indifferent to everything.

10. The sea - this truth must be confessed - has no generosity. No display of manly qualities - courage, hardihood, endurance, faithfulness - has ever been known to touch its irresponsible consciousness of power.

11. I have a very strong feeling that the opposite of love is not hate - it's apathy. It's not giving a damn.

12. Winner knows nothing about food.

13. If I never saw another fistfight or car chase or Doberman attack, I wouldn't have any feeling of loss. And that goes for Rottweilers, too.

14. And the world said, Child, you will not be missed. You are cheaper than a wrench, your back is a road; Your death is a table in a book. You had our wit, our heart was sealed to you: Man is the judgment of the world.

15. I haven't spoken to my wife in years. I didn't want to interrupt her.

16. We must have friendship for all; we must be merciful toward those that are in misery; when people are happy, we ought to be happy; and to the wicked we must be indifferent. These attitudes will make the mind peaceful.

17. So, then, Oxford Street, stonyhearted stepmother, thou that listenest to the sighs of orphans, and drinkest the tears of children, at length I was dismissed from thee.

18. The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.

19. Soon, if we are not prudent, millions of people will be watching each other starve to death through expensive television sets.

20. Nothing can contribute more to peace of soul than the lack of any opinion whatever.

21. Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance.

22. Let the long contention cease! Geese are swans, and swans are geese.

23. When a man steals your wife there is no better revenge than to let him keep her.

24. I can levitate birds. No one cares.

25. Go on, prove me wrong. Destroy the fabric of the universe. See if I care.

26. 'Lies are told only to convey to someone that one has no need either of him or his good opinion.'

27. When evil-doing comes like falling rain, nobody calls out 'stop!' When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When sufferings become unendurable the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer.

28. If a Black Death could spread throughout the world once in every generation, survivors could procreate freely without making the world too full. ... The state of affairs might be somewhat unpleasant, but what of it? Really high-minded people are indifferent to happiness, especially other people's.

29. Fear not your enemies, for they can only kill you. Fear not your friends, for they can only betray you. Fear only the indifferent, who permit the killers and betrayers to walk safely on the earth.[[1]]

30. Disraeli felt that 'nothing could compensate his obscure youth, not even a glorious old age.' Practically all writers and artists are aware of their destiny and see themselves as actors in a fateful drama. With me, nothing is momentous: obscure youth, glorious old age, fateful coincidences - nothing really matters. I have written a number of good sentences. I have kept free of delusions. I know I am going to die soon.

31. Give us back our suffering, we cry to Heaven in our hearts - suffering rather than indifferentism; for out of nothing comes nothing. But out of suffering may come the cure. Better have pain than paralysis! A hundred struggle and drown in the breakers. One discovers the new world. But rather, ten times rather, die in the surf, heralding the way to that new world, than stand idly on the shore!

32. What does the court want with you? It receives you when you come and it dismisses you when you go.

33. The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.

34. The great writers to whom the world owes what religious liberty it possesses, have mostly asserted freedom of conscience as an indefeasible right, and denied absolutely that a human being is accountable to others for his religious belief. Yet so natural to mankind is intolerance in whatever they really care about, that religious freedom has hardly anywhere been practically realised, except where religious indifference, which dislikes to have its peace disturbed by theological quarrels, has added its weight to the scale. (p. 13)

35. For all that has been said of the love that certain natures (on shore) have professed to feel for it, for all the celebrations it had been the object of in prose and song, the sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.

36. 3) Mother Nature doesn't care if you're having fun.

37. [The] chief [of the gods of Cimmeria] is Crom. He dwells on a great mountain. What use to call on him? Little he cares if men live or die. Better to be silent than to call his attention to you; he will send you dooms, not fortune! He is grim and loveless, but at birth he breathes power to strive and slay into a man's soul. What else shall men ask of the gods? ... There is no hope here or hereafter in the cult of my people. In this world men struggle and suffer vainly, finding pleasure only in the bright madness of battle; dying, their souls enter a gray misty realm of clouds and icy winds, to wander cheerlessly throughout eternity.

38. 'For most people, self-awarness and self-pity blossom simultaneously in early adolescence. Its about that time that we start viewing the world as something other than a whoop-de-doo playground, we start to experience personally how threatening it can be, how cruel and unjust. At the very moment when we become, for the first time, both introspective and socially conscientious, we receive the bad news that the world, by and large, doesn't give a rat's ass'

39. I am not one of those weak-spirited, sappy Americans who want to be liked by all the people around them.I don't care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it. My affections, being concentrated over a few people, are not spread all over Hell in a vile attempt to placate sulky, worthless shits.

40. Against Nature's silence I use action In the vast indifference I invent a meaning I don't watch unmoved I intervene and say that this and this are wrong and I work to alter them and improve them The important thing is to pull yourself up by your own hair to turn yourself inside out and see the whole world with fresh eyes

41. If moderation is a fault, then indifference is a crime.

42. Gennifer Flowers: I'm here with the Intercontinental Champion-- The Rock: Whoa, actually, Genny, it's The People's Intercontinental Champion. GF: Excuse me... The People's Intercontinental Champion, The Rock. Now, Rock, the people want to know--if you were the leader of this country, how would you run things? TR: Well, actually, Genny, The Rock feels like this. First and foremost, the term 'leader' is really beneath The Rock. The Rock feels like a more appropriate term would... 'ruler.' GF: OK, if you were the ruler, how would you handle the homeless situation? TR: I'll tell you what, Genny, that's a touchy subject for The Rock, the homeless situation in America. The Rock feels like this: as long as The Rock still has his palatial palace down on South Beach in Miami, FL, he really couldn't give a damn whether they live in a Frigidaire box or a Kenmore box. As long as those homeless pieces of trash keep their cardboard boxess off The Rock's freshly mowed grass, everything will be copasetic. GF: Well, how about the judicial system? TR: Well, first and foremost, as long as The Rock's fans across the country realize that The Rock is the judge and the jury, everything should be fine. Actually, after The Rock has contemplated that for a second, if The Rock were the jury, nine times out of ten he'd be a hung jury... if ya smell what The Rock is cooking. GF: How would you run the White House? TR: Tough job, tough question. But The Rock of course is up to answering it. The Rock feels like this: As long as all the interns in the White House, beneath The Rock, knew their damn role, and they didn't get out of hand, step out of line, and they didn't do anything orally wrong--excuse me, Genny--morally wrong, then The Rock wouldn't have to do what he does best, and that's lay the smackdown in a major way. Thank you very much, Genny.

43. Gennifer Flowers: I'm here with the Intercontinental Champion-- The Rock: Whoa, actually, Genny, it's The People's Intercontinental Champion. GF: Excuse me... The People's Intercontinental Champion, The Rock. Now, Rock, the people want to know--if you were the leader of this country, how would you run things? TR: Well, actually, Genny, The Rock feels like this. First and foremost, the term 'leader' is really beneath The Rock. The Rock feels like a more appropriate term would... 'ruler.' GF: OK, if you were the ruler, how would you handle the homeless situation? TR: I'll tell you what, Genny, that's a touchy subject for The Rock, the homeless situation in America. The Rock feels like this: as long as The Rock still has his palatial palace down on South Beach in Miami, FL, he really couldn't give a damn whether they live in a Frigidaire box or a Kenmore box. As long as those homeless pieces of trash keep their cardboard boxess off The Rock's freshly mowed grass, everything will be copasetic. GF: Well, how about the judicial system? TR: Well, first and foremost, as long as The Rock's fans across the country realize that The Rock is the judge and the jury, everything should be fine. Actually, after The Rock has contemplated that for a second, if The Rock were the jury, nine times out of ten he'd be a hung jury... if ya smell what The Rock is cooking. GF: How would you run the White House? TR: Tough job, tough question. But The Rock of course is up to answering it. The Rock feels like this: As long as all the interns in the White House, beneath The Rock, knew their damn role, and they didn't get out of hand, step out of line, and they didn't do anything orally wrong--excuse me, Genny--morally wrong, then The Rock wouldn't have to do what he does best, and that's lay the smackdown in a major way. Thank you very much, Genny.

44. Whether they were bank directors or mental cases, the people who were loaded on those trains meant nothing to me. It was really none of my business.

45. No person is important enough to make me angry.

46. You mean nothing to no one but that's nobody's fault.

47. Look round this universe. What an immense profusion of beings, animated and organised, sensible and active! You admire this prodigious variety and fecundity. But inspect a little more narrowly these living existences, the only beings worth regarding. How hostile and destructive to each other! How insufficient all of them for their own happiness! How contemptible or odious to the spectator! The whole presents nothing but the idea of a blind Nature, impregnated by a great vivifying principle, and pouring forth from her lap, without discernment or parental care, her maimed and abortive children!

48. I never cared about whatever tragic event happened in China. It's faraway decoration, even if in blood and plague.

49. How happy could I be with either, Were t'other dear charmer away!

50. Discussing coronation ceremonies with Vidal, 'I quickly moved on to...the moment when two masons appear and ask the newly crowned king for instructions as to his tomb. 'Masons? Masons! Yes. You one? I'm one. But I've forgotten all the odds and ends. Dull, really.' (Vidal, Palimpsest, 206)

51. It is better to be looked over than being overlooked.

52. Stiffy was one of those girls who enjoy in equal quantities the gall of an army mule and the calm insouciance of a fish on a slab of ice.

53. It means nothing to me. I have no opinion about it, and I don't care.

54. Politeness is organized indifference.

55. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous - indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.

56. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.

57. When I am dead and over me bright April Shakes out her rain-drenched hair, Tho' you should lean above me broken-hearted, I shall not care. I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful When rain bends down the bough, And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted Than you are now.

58. Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree If mankind perished utterly; And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn, Would scarcely know that we were gone.

59. Wherever the citizen becomes indifferent to his fellows, so will the husband be to his wife, and the father of a family toward the members of his household.

60. Communism, my friend, is more than Marxism, just as Catholicism ... is more than the Roman Curia. There is a mystique as well as a politique....Catholics and communists have commited great crimes, but at least they have not stood aside, like an established society, and been indifferent. I would rather have blood on my hands than water like Pilate...if you have abandoned one faith, do not abandon all faith. There is always an alternative to the faith we lose. Or is it the same faith under another mask?