Demean Quotes

Love may challenge and love may correct but love will never shame. Love may call us out to uncomfortable places but love will never cast us aside. Love may demand but will never demean. Love will never ask us to dim our light lest we shine too brightly. Love will never ask us to be less than we were created to be.
By this we know God. By this we follow Jesus. By this we serve one another.
Love.
Not fear. ~ Peggy Haymes

Pride is not your friend.
He would have you think he is, that he affords you strength and courage, but in truth he robs you of your health and by slow, diluted degrees steals your might. He is a crafty and cunning liar who would have you think that stubborn, unapologetic, superior, boastful, and popular are admirable traits. Pride would convince you that being right is more crucial than being kind. He would have you sever relationships, even turn your back on family and friends rather than utter a humble apology. To do so is beneath you, pride would say. He would have you fight like a raptor and gnash your teeth while jutting out an inflexible jaw to defend and protect him, regardless of who is hurt in the process. He would use and demean you in order to puff up and fortify himself. He would destroy your life and every meaningful association before casting you aside without a hint of remorse.
Again, Pride is not your friend. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

I'm haunted. We all are, I guess. We're parentless, friendless, unloved, abandoned. The spirits of our deceased emotional anchors and proofs of existence will follow and demean us until we too roam a quiet lifeless world alongside them - unable to speak - our histories written in beach sand. ~ Jason S. Hornsby

When you trash the opposition, you simultaneously demean yourself. ~ Frank Luntz

What does it mean to love someone with all your heart? It means to love with all your emotional feelings and with all your devotion. Surely when you love your wife with all your heart, you cannot demean her, criticize her, find fault with her, or abuse her by words, sullen behavior, or actions. ~ Ezra Taft Benson

Acting requires a creative and compassionate attitude. It must aim to lift life up to a higher level of meaning and not tear it down or demean it. The actor's search is a generous quest for that larger meaning. That's why acting is never to be done passively. ~ Stella Adler

... He was a bad courtier and painted an ambiguous picture entitled La Menzogna or Falsehood, to show what he felt about the need for dissimulation to achieve success; a man holds up a mask to indicate to his companion that he must adopt it if he wants to make progress at court... ... The clear message was that Rosa was not prepared to demean himself in that way. ~ Jonathan Scott

Words ruin one's thoughts, paper makes them ridiculous, and even while one is still glad to get something ruined and something ridiculous down on paper, one's memory manages to lose hold of even this ruined and ridiculous something. Paper can turn an enormity into a triviality, an absurdity. If you look at it this way, then whatever appears in the world, by way of the spiritual world so to speak, is always a ruined thing, a ridiculous thing, which means that everything in this world is ridiculous and ruined. Words were made to demean thought, I would even go so far as to state that words exist in order to abolish thought, and one day they will succeed one hundred percent in so doing. In any case, words (are) bringing everything down. Depression derives from words, nothing else. ~ Thomas Bernhard

A wife who obsesses on "fixing" her husband only succeeds in demeaning him.
pg 48 ~ Michael Ben Zehabe

The Goddess resides as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as she does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower. To think otherwise is to demean the Goddess...which is to demean oneself. ~ Glenn Hefley

For a woman ... to explore and express the fullness of her sexuality, her ambitions, her emotional and intellectual capacities, her social duties, her tender virtues, would entail who knows what risks and who knows what truly revolutionary alteration to the social conditions that demean and constrain her. Or she may go on trying to fit herself into the order of the world and thereby consign herself forever to the bondage of some stereotype of normal femininity - a perversion, if you will. ~ Louise J. Kaplan

Nobody else can demean me. I can only demean myself ~ Susan Elizabeth Phillips

We all have only one life to live on Earth, and through television we have the choice of encouraging others to demean this life or to cherish it in creative, imaginative ways. ~ Fred Rogers

It is the duty of a great person so to demean himself, as that whatever endowments he may have, he may appear to value himself upon no qualities but such as any man may arrive at. ~ Richard Steele

Words outlive people, institutions, civilizations. Words spur images, associations, memories, inspirations and synapse pulsations. Words send off physical resonations of thought into the nethersphere. Words hurt, soothe, inspire, demean, demand, incite, pacify, teach, romance, pervert, unite, divide. Words be powerful. ~ Inga Muscio

The job of elected officials is to answer to the people who sent them to Washington - not to scorn them, not to demean them, not to mock them, and not to sell their jobs and dreams to the highest bidder. ~ Jeff Sessions

The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of the mountain, or in the petals of a flower. To think otherwise is to demean the Buddha - which is to demean oneself. ~ Robert M. Pirsig

Rude wasn't so much a heel who happened to be attractive as he was a 100 percent pure concentrate of machismo and self-absorption, a Lothario for his own sake. He could have any woman he wanted, but his objective was never love or even lust; it was heterosexual avidity purely for show. And he seemed not so much to objectify women as to coolly demean them. The object of his affection was solely himself. It was hardcore pornography minus the sex.* ~ Anonymous

Don't demean what I know is one of your favorite body parts. ~ Gil A. Waters

I am not a conservative but I have spoken out for years against the staggering amount of blind hatred directed at black conservatives by liberals. Liberals are shockingly quick to demean and dismiss brilliant black people like Rice, Carson, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), Professor Walter E. Williams and economist Thomas Sowell because they don't fit into the role they have carved out for a black person in America. Black Americans must be obedient liberals on all things or risk being called a race traitor or an Uncle Tom. ~ Juan Williams

One should not be assigned one's identity in society by the job slot one happens to fill. If we truly believe in the dignity of labor, any task can be performed with equal pride because none can demean the basic dignity of a human being. ~ Judith Martin

Never demean yourself by talking back to a critic, never. Write those letters to the editor in your head, but don't put them on paper. ~ Truman Capote

I had no choice but to understand that people can demean and hit you and in their better moments love you, at once be a mess themselves and carry a deep pride in your strange togetherness. They suffered from weakness of character, yes-just like every other person, in every other income bracket. What really put shame on us wasn't our moral deficit. It was our money deficit. ~ Sarah Smarsh

I have no right, by anything I do or say, to demean a human being in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him; it is what he thinks of himself. To undermine a man's self-respect is a sin. ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

But he knew how to treat a woman with respect, to never demean or condescend or embarrass her in front of others. ~ Miranda Liasson

A man who is raised by a misogynistic father can absorb his father's contempt for women very early in life. The boy learns that a man must always be in control of women and that the way to get that control is to scare them, hurt them, and demean them. At the same time, he learns that the one sure way to get his father's approval is to behave as his father does. ~ Susan Forward

The seminaries have generally been so covetous of academic recognition, and so anxious for locus within the ethos and hierarchy of the university, that they have not noticed how alien and hostile those premises are to the peculiar vocation of the seminary. Thus the seminaries succumb to disseminating ideological renditions of the faith which demean the vitality of the biblical witness by engaging in endless classifications and comparisons of ideas. All this eschews commitment and precludes a confessional study of theology. ~ William Stringfellow

We cannot banish dangers, but we can banish fears. We must not demean life by standing in awe of death. ~ David Sarnoff

WE MUST HONOR our dragons, encourage them to be worthy destroyers, expect they'll strive to cut us down. It's their duty to ridicule us, it's their job to demean us, to force us if they can to stop being different! And when we walk our way no matter their fire and their fury, our dragons shrug when we're out of sight, return to their card games philosophical: Ah, well, we can't toast 'em all ... ~ Richard Bach

God forbid that I should ever suffer the shame of publishing a book for money, or of having one of my family so demean themselves. How can one tell who might read it? No worthy book has ever been written for gain, I think; ~ Iain Pears

I became Iggy because I had a sadistic boss at a record store. I'd been in a band called the Iguanas. And when this boss wanted to embarrass and demean me, he'd say, 'Iggy, get me a coffee, light.' ~ Iggy Pop

In the end, those who demean others only disrespect themselves. ~ D.B. Harrop

A destructive or creative state of psychological madness must trace itself to a source. By finding the source of their misery, a person might be able to corral the crazy desire prematurely to terminate their existence. An old saying suggests that self-hatred is the central cause of all self-destructive actions. Self-hate might consist of anger that we harbor towards other people who maltreated us. Repressed anger and pent-up hostility that we retain against other people that has no viable direct escape hatch can reflect and turn inward against ourselves. Perhaps we regret that we allowed other people to demean us, or rue that we lacked a protective level of self-esteem to begin with. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

The buddah can reside in the gears of a motorcycle as easily as in a flower on a mountaintop. To believe otherwise is to demean the buddah; which is to demean one's self. ~ Robert M. Pirsig

I keep trying to write a bad boy and they always come out nice. I don't see the appeal of someone who is going to demean me in some way. ~ Julia Quinn

That force - which the system tried to laugh at - when it finally broke through and the movement was recognized, the media said they were "just a bunch of spoiled kids, dope smokers [who] don't know what the hell they want." To demean it as something laughable - but that didn't work for very long. It's still an ongoing struggle; they're trying to find out how to fight. It's very exciting times. ~ Haskell Wexler

There is absolutely nothing surprising about a severely stigmatized group embracing their stigma. Psychologists have long observed that when people feel hopelessly stigmatized, a powerful coping strategy–often the only apparent route to self-esteem–is embracing one's stigmatized identity. Hence, 'black is beautiful' and 'gay pride'–slogans and anthems of the political movements aimed at ending not only legal discrimination, but the stigma that justified it. Indeed, the act of embracing one's stigma is never merely a psychological maneuver; it is a political act–an act of resistance and deviance in a society that seeks to demean a group based on an inalterable trait. As a gay activist once put it, 'Only by fully embracing the stigma itself can one neutralize the sting and make it laughable. ~ Michelle Alexander

Do not demean yourself by stating the ridiculous," Grimalkin replied smoothly. Just because my species is vastly superior does not mean you should flaunt your idiocy freely. I know why you are here, dog."
"Really", Puck called, craning his head to look up at the cat. "Well then, would you like to share your theory, furball? ~ Julie Kagawa

Gay people exist. There's nothing we can do in public policy that makes more of us exist, or less of us exist. And you guys have been arguing for a generation that public policy ought to essentially demean gay people as a way of expressing disapproval of the fact that we exist, but you don't make any less of us exist. You just are arguing in favor of more discrimination, and more discrimination doesn't make straight people's lives any better. ~ Rachel Maddow

Through nature, through the evolutionary continuum, and ecological relatedness and interdependence of all things, we are as much a part of the wolf as the wolf is a part of us. And as we destroy or demean nature, wolves, or any creature, great or small, we do no less to ourselves. ~ Michael W. Fox

When i first saw him i thought he was as beautiful as a knight from the romances, like a troubadour, like a poet. I thought i could be like a lady in a tower and he could sing beneath my window and
persuade me to love him. But although he has the looks of a
poet he doesn't have the wit. I can never get more than two
words out of him, and i begin to feel that i demean myself in trying to please him. ~ Philippa Gregory

if he wants to be a whore then let him. if he chooses to degrade and demean himself, just walk away. you can't make a man respect you, the relationship or himself. ~ R H Sin

Black culture has contributed hugely to American society: The civil rights movement brought meaning to American notions of equality and freedom; black contributions to politics, science, music, and art have helped enrich all of us. To demean these accomplishments and contributions by listing rap among them is to demean black culture as a whole. ~ Ben Shapiro

I mean, if you degrade someone, you isolate them, you control them, you call them names, you demean them. That's a horrible existence for people. ~ Phil McGraw

Words Are The Ones Used To Degrade And Demean Another Human Being ~ Karlyle Tomms

There are some men who, in a spirit of arrogance, think they are superior to women. They do not seem to realize that they would not exist but for the mother who gave them birth. When they assert their superiority they demean her. ~ Gordon B. Hinckley

Demean thyself more warily in thy study than in the street. If thy public actions have a hundred witnesses, thy private have a thousand. The multitude looks but upon thy actions; thy conscience looks into them: the multitude may chance to excuse thee, if not acquit thee; thy conscience will accuse thee, if not condemn thee. ~ Francis Quarles

Beauty in its simplest form doesn't need appraisal or constant change; it is viewed and valued with grace and honesty for what it is and criticizing it will only demean its value. ~ Christine Hallfeldt

Now, I know myself, I am annoyed, I shall loose my temper and begin to quarrel, and demean myself and my ideas. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I see no particular merit in the fact that I was an artist at the age of eleven. I was born with an ability, with music in me, that is all. No special credit was due me. The only credit we can claim is for the use we make of the talent we are given. That is why I urge young musicians: "Don't be vain because you happen to have talent. You are not responsible for that; it was not of your doing. What you do with your talent is what matters. You must cherish this gift. Do not demean or waste what you have been given. Work - work constantly and nourish it."
Of course the gift to be cherished most of all is that of life itself. One's work should be a salute to life. ~ Pablo Casals

Perhaps the only people who need go thirsty through the street where there is a drinking fountain, are the fine ladies and gentlemen who are in their carriages. They are very thirsty - but cannot think of being so vulgar as to get out to drink. It would demean them, they think, to drink at a common drinking fountain - so they ride by with parched lips. Oh, how many there are who are rich in their own good works and cannot therefore come to Christ! ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

There is no end to the creativity, ingenuity, and tenacity of those who look for reasons to criticize. They cannot seem to release their grip on grudges. They gossip and find fault with others. They nurse wounds for decades, taking every opportunity to tear down and demean others. This is not pleasing to the Lord, 'for where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work' (James 3:16). ~ Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Our goal, then, is not to eliminate the feelings of anger from our parental repertoire. We couldn't, even if we wanted to. Rather, it is to find ways to express ourselves when we are angry that do not hurt, insult, demean, or inspire revenge and rage in our children. ~ Nancy Samalin

This is the way a civilized society begins to devour itself. By allowing our political leaders and law enforcement officials to scapegoat one segment of our population - to turn innocent people into targets of suspicion, into the enemy - we demean all that is good and decent about our nation. ~ Arsalan Iftikhar

Do you realize how important it is to be independent? To be able to take care of yourself? To not rely on someone else for your most basic needs? And to not get so damn attached to stuff that you'd rather demean yourself than live without it? ~ Alyson Noel

A pure heart does not demean the spirit of an individual, it, instead, compels the individual to examine his spirit. ~ Criss Jami

Humility is the armour that you clothe yourself with throughout your life. We demean each other rather than lift up ourselves. ~ Anthony Carmona

It will seem to many persons very inconsistent with their ideas of the dignity of a spirit that they should appear and act in the manner I have described, and shall describe further; and I have heard it objected that we cannot suppose God would permit the dead to return merely to frighten the living, and that it is showing Him little reverence to imagine He would suffer them to come on such trifling errands, or demean themselves in so undignified a fashion. But God permits men of all degrees of wickedness, and of every kind of absurdity, to exist, and to harass and disturb the earth, whilst they expose themselves to its obloquy or its ridicule. ~ Catherine Crowe

The moment anyone tries to demean or degrade you in any way, you have to know how great you are. Nobody would bother to beat you down if you were not a threat. ~ Cicely Tyson

Heroes are those who can somehow resist the power of the situation and act out of noble motives, or behave in ways that do not demean others when they easily can. ~ Philip G. Zimbardo

I never defended myself. Not once. I never said, "Excuse me? What gives you the right to insult and demean me?" I let them steal my dignity. ~ Julie Anne Peters