Ill Tempered Quotes

Lazy people are some of the most exhausted, dissatisfied, and ill-tempered folks around because the joy-backed promises of laziness our lies. ~ Matt Chandler

Do not be awed by giant predecessors. Be ill-tempered with their renown. Point out flaws. Frighten interviewers from Time. Appear in Playboy. Sell to the movies. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

The worst judge of all is the man now most ready with his judgments; the ill-educated Christian turning gradually into the ill-tempered agnostic, entangled in the end of a feud of which he never understood the beginning, blighted ~ G.K. Chesterton

I'm not denying that sometimes all of us may have fed the wrong wolf. I know I certainly have. But we were never mean or ill-tempered or small-minded. We just made a mistake and fed the wrong wolf.

The difference is that whatever mischief we got up to was just that …. mischief. We'd run away crying with laughter instead of swaggering away after feeding our hatred.

And that's the difference. ~ Karl Wiggins

I opine-I think you're a woman of your world,' he said from the far end of the couch. 'I would have a hard time seeing you pressed and powdered, dreading a life of servitude under the name of marriage. You'd die in that mold. I like you as you are, fiery and ill tempered. ~ Kim Harrison

I've grown quite weary of the spunky heroines, brave rape victims, soul-searching fashionistas that stock so many books. I particularly mourn the lack of female villains - good, potent female villains. Not ill-tempered women who scheme about landing good men and better shoes (as if we had nothing more interesting to war over), not chilly WASP mothers (emotionally distant isn't necessarily evil), not soapy vixens (merely bitchy doesn't qualify either). I'm talking violent, wicked women. Scary women. Don't tell me you don't know some. The point is, women have spent so many years girl-powering ourselves - to the point of almost parodic encouragement - we've left no room to acknowledge our dark side. Dark sides are important. They should be nurtured like nasty black orchids. ~ Gillian Flynn

Provocation doesn't make me ill-tempered: it only shows me how ill-tempered I am. ~ C.S. Lewis

Much of the ill-tempered railing against women that has characterized the popular writing of the last two years is a half-heartedattempt to find a way back to a more balanced relationship between our biological selves and the world we have built. So women are scolded both for being mothers and for not being mothers, for wanting to eat their cake and have it too, and for not wanting to eat their cake and have it too. ~ Margaret Mead

I have one more task to carry out before I go, Moria." She turned to Gavril. "You may leave us."
"I may ... but I will not."
"Ignore him," Moria said. "I do. As much as possible."
"I do not blame you. He seems very ill-tempered. Traitors ought to be more charming or they'll never woo anyone to their side." She turned to Gavril. "Is your father more charming? ~ Kelley Armstrong

We startled some strange, long-necked shaggy creatures that had been grazing in the field, and I swear one of them spit at Feniul. Hagen slipped off of Leontes'neck and started to follow the creatures into the little copse of trees they had taken shelter in, fascinated, but I called him back.
"They spit."I said. "They probably bite as well."
"They are ill tempered things,"Amacarin agreed."But I saw someone riding one yesterday. It did not look like a smooth-gaited beast, though."
Now there was even more longing in Hagen's face."
Luka started laughing. "I shall buy you one when you finish your apprenticeship." He told my brother. "It can be your mastery gift. A hairy, spitting cow horse. ~ Jessica Day George

I give nightly praise to my Maker that I never cast a ballot to bring that lazy, disreputable, ill-tempered beast into what was once my home. I'm glad that I had the courage to go on record as opposing that illegitimate, shameless flea-bag that now shares my bed and board. You abstainer, you! ~ Frank B. Gilbreth Jr.

He waked up late next day after a broken sleep. But his sleep had not refreshed him; he waked up bilious, irritable, ill-tempered, and looked with hatred at his room. It was a tiny cupboard of a room about six paces in length. It had a poverty-stricken appearance with its dusty yellow paper peeling off the walls, and it was so low-pitched that a man of more than average height was ill at ease in it and felt every moment that he would knock his head against the ceiling. The furniture was in keeping with the room: there were three old chairs, rather rickety; a painted table in the corner on which lay a few manuscripts and books; the dust that lay thick upon them showed that they had been long untouched. A big clumsy sofa occupied almost the whole of one wall and half the floor space of the room; it was once covered with chintz, but was now in rags and served Raskolnikov as a bed. Often he went to sleep on it, as he was, without undressing, without sheets, wrapped in his old student's overcoat, with his head on one little pillow, under which he heaped up all the linen he had, clean and dirty, by way of a bolster. A little table stood in front of the sofa. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Lively once, expansive and affectionate, in growing older she had become (after the fashion of wine that, exposed to air, turns to vinegar) ill-tempered, grumbling, irritable. She ~ Gustave Flaubert

There are, Jefferson said, two classes of "disputants" that are especially common. The "first is . . . young students . . . the other consists of the ill-tempered & rude men in society, who have taken up a passion for politics." From both, Jefferson urged, "keep aloof, as you would from the infected subjects of yellow fever or pestilence. Consider yourself, when with them, as among the patients of Bedlam, needing medical more than moral counsel. ~ Davidson Butler

Surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of man he is. ~ C.S. Lewis

In stories, when someone appears in a poof of green clouds and asks a girl to go away on an adventure, it's because she's special, because she's smart and strong and can solve riddles and fight with swords and give really good speeches, and ... I don't know that I'm any of those things. I don't even know that I'm as ill-tempered as all that ... Maybe you meant to go to another girl's house and let her ride on the Leopard. Maybe you didn't mean to choose me at all, because I'm not like storybook girls ... ~ Catherynne M Valente

Now the best relation to our spiritual home is to be near enough to love it. But the next best is to be far enough away not to hate it. It is the contention of these pages that while the best judge of Christianity is a Christian, the next best judge would be something more like a Confucian. The worst judge of all is the man now most ready with his judgements; the ill-educated Christian turning gradually into the ill-tempered agnostic, entangled in the end of a feud of
which he never understood the beginning, blighted with a sort of hereditary boredom with he knows not what, and
already weary of hearing what he has never heard. ~ G.K. Chesterton

One of his palms slipped into the open back of her gown, seeking the skin above the edge of her corset, and a sigh escaped him as he felt her downy softness. "Not yet," he said in a rough whisper, though whether he was talking to himself or to her was unclear. He clasped the vulnerable curve of her neck in one strong hand, and bent to feast on her parted lips, her chin, the front of her throat. "You're so sweet," he said raggedly.
She couldn't help but grin, even in the flush of desire. "Am I?"
Marcus sought her mouth with another hungering kiss. "Very sweet," he confirmed huskily. "Though if I were a lesser man, you'd have torn my head off by now."
The words drew a low laugh from her. "Now I understand the attraction between us. We're a danger to everyone but each other. Like a pair of ill-tempered hedgehogs."
-Marcus & Lillian ~ Lisa Kleypas

Enter Justine Putet, of whom it is now time to speak. Imagine a swarthy-looking, ill-tempered person, dried-up and of viperish disposition, with a bad complexion, an evil expression, a cruel tongue, defective internal economy, and (over all this) a layer of aggressive piety and loathsome suavity of speech. A paragon of virtue of a kind that filled you with dismay, for virtue in such a guise as this is detestable to behold, and in this instance it seemed to be inspired by a spirit of hatred and vengeance rather than by ordinary feelings of kindness. An energetic user of rosaries, a fervent petitioner at her prayers, but also an unbridled sower of calumny and clandestine panic. In a word, she was the scorpion of Clochemerle, but a scorpion disguised as a woman of genuine piety. ~ Gabriel Chevallier

His way was like other people's; he mounted no high horse; he was just
a man and a citizen. He indulged in no Socratic irony. But his
discourse was full of Attic grace; those who heard it went away neither
disgusted by servility, nor repelled by ill-tempered censure, but on
the contrary lifted out of themselves by charity, and encouraged to
more orderly, contented, hopeful lives. ~ Arthur Quiller-Couch

If you would but consider your own unattractive exterior, your unamiable reserve, your foolish diffidence, which must make you appear cold, dull, awkward, and perhaps ill-tempered too; ... if you had but rightly considered these from the beginning, you would never have harboured such presumptuous thoughts; and now that you have been so foolish, pray repent and amend, and let us have no more of it! ~ Anne Bronte

This ... this ... thing?"
"A parsnip?" Jem suggested
"A parsnip planted in satan's own garden," said Will. He glanced about. "I dont suppose there's a dog I could feed it to?"
"There dont seem to be any pets about," Jem-who loved animals, even the inglorious and ill-tempered Church-observed.
"Probably all poisened by parsnips," said Will. ~ Cassandra Clare

we begin to notice besides our particular sinful act, our sinfulness; begin to be alarmed not only about what we do, but about what we are. This may sound rather difficult, so I will try to make it clear from my own case. When I come to my evening prayers and try to reckon up the sins of the day, nine times out of ten the most obvious one is some sin against charity; I have sulked or snapped or sneered or snubbed or stormed. And the excuse that immediately springs to my mind is that the provocation was so sudden and unexpected; I was caught off my guard, I had not time to collect myself. Now that may be an extenuating circumstance as regards those particular acts: they would obviously be worse if they had been deliberate and premeditated. On the other hand, surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in the cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not creat the rats: it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am. The rats are always there in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily they will have taken cover before you switch on the light. ~ C.S. Lewis

I was bloody ill-tempered when I was young. ~ Ingmar Bergman

They could not every day sit so grim and taciturn; and it was impossible, however ill-tempered they might be, that the universal scowl they wore was their every-day countenance. ~ Emily Bronte

People are so ready to think themselves changed when it is only their mood that is changed. Those who are good-tempered because it is a fine day will be ill-tempered when it rains: their selves are just the same both days; only in one case the fine weather has got into them, in the other the rainy. ~ George MacDonald

She has always seemed to me the epitome of womankind: coldly suspicious, politely ill-tempered, and narrowly selfish. ~ John Edward Williams

There was no one to be seen so she gave in freely to her sobs as she made her way home, pressed her arms against her stomach; the pain lodged in there like an ill-tempered foetus.
Let a person in and he hurts you.
There was a reason why she kept her relationships brief. Don't let them in. Once they're inside they have more potential to hurt you. Comfort yourself. You can live with the anguish as long as it only involves yourself. As long as there is no hope. ~ John Ajvide Lindqvist

If you think I'm one of those people who try to be funny at breakfast you're wrong. I'm invariably ill-tempered in the early morning. ~ Daphne Du Maurier

Yup, we'll start driving these ill-tempered, longhorn cattle through wild and desolate country. There's coyotes and rattle snakes. There's the blistering sun, blinding dust storms, and wild rivers to cross. Then sometimes, just sometimes, there's a double-crossing, thieving cowboy riding right along beside you. And you don't know it until it's too late. ~ Connie Kingrey Anderson

We think we have to be a certain way because we have been taught to be a certain way. Actually the only truth is to keep quiet and see what happens from there. When I feel ill-tempered, when I feel sad, when I feel distant, it's just something that is happening. When I don't compare it to the past and project it into the future, then it's just something that is happening now. It's a way of dying now. ~ H.W.L. Poonja

Power is an ill-tempered and treacherous mistress. She corrupts even the incorruptible. If you value your freedoms you will have to bind her and keep her from your lands and leaders, because she will seize their minds and seduce their consciences until they give in to her insatiable appetite. ~ Volker G. Fremuth

In the arc of an unremarkable life, a life whose triumphs are small and personal, whose trials are ordinary enough, as tempered in their pain as in their resolution of pain, the claim of exclusivity in love requires both a certain kind of courage and a good dose of delusion. Irish Mary, Eva's sister, would have been happy enough to accept my father's ring, I suppose, had Eva not chosen to stay in Ireland and marry Tom. My mother's first fiancé would have married her gladly if he hadn't been kept too long overseas by the Navy, if my father hadn't beaten him home, on points, a full year before. It might have been Cody or John in the car with your father, that day on Long Island. I might have been gone. Those of us who claim exclusivity in love do so with a liar's courage: there are a hundred opportunities, thousands over the years, for a sense of falsehood to seep in, for all that we imagine as inevitable to become arbitrary, for our history together to reveal itself as only a matter of chance and happenstance, nothing irrepeatable, or irreplaceable, the circumstantial mingling of just one of the so many million with just one more. ~ Alice McDermott

Astrid looked at Lana, now leaning against the window, and Diana, lost in thought, and reminded herself that at times she had hated Diana. She had told Sam to kill her if necessary. And she had disliked Lana as a short-tempered bitch who sometimes abused her privileges.
She let her mind move beyond these two. Orc, who had been the first to kill in the FAYZ, the first murderer. A vicious drunk. But someone who had died a hero.
Mary. Mother Mary. A saint who had died trying to murder the children she cared for.
Quinn, who had been a faithless worm at the start and had been a pillar at the end.
Albert. She still didn't know quite what to think of Albert, but it was undeniable that far fewer would have walked out of the FAYZ without Albert.
If her own feelings were this conflicted, was it any wonder the rest of the world didn't know what to do with the Perdido survivors? ~ Michael Grant

But when the class that monopolizes wealth and arms embodies its power in a centralized bureaucracy and an irresistible standing army, we get a despotism in its worst form - namely, a barbarous and primitive system of government that has the instruments of an advanced civilization at its disposal, a yoke of iron which is applied by rough and reckless hands and which is very hard to break, since it has been steeled and tempered by practical artisans. ~ Gaetano Mosca

Socially, in most groups I tempered my conversations on my approach to health because those who entrusted their lives to allopathic, 'standard of care' Western doctors might not want to entertain the idea that they might have made the wrong choice or that their way wasn't the best way. ~ Suzanne Somers

Behind her warm facade radiating empathy and understanding, there was an aggressive, bad- tempered bitch, putting up endless walls of goodness to conceal her rage and resentment toward the entire world. She was like an alligator in a velvet jumpsuit. ~ Zygmunt Miloszewski

It was not that she was a better-tempered person, she decided detachedly. It was that her anger had learned a terrible patience. What good was wasting words on a petty and tyrannical second mate? He was a little yapping dog. She was a tigress. One did not waste snarls on such a creature. One waited until one could snap his spine with a single blow. ~ Robin Hobb

But I've learned that intelligence alone doesn't mean a damned thing. Here in your university, intelligence, education, knowledge, have all become great idols. But I know now there's one thing you've all overlooked: intelligent and education that hasn't been tempered by human affection isn't worth a damn ... Intelligence is one of the greatest human gifts. But all too often a search for knowledge drives out the search for love ... Intelligence without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and moral breakdown, to neurosis, and possibly even psychosis. ~ Daniel Keyes

My love for these books, at its purest, is not really about Peeta or anything silly and girly. I love that a young woman character is fierce and strong but hum in ways I find believable, relatable. Katniss is clearly a heroine, but a heroine with issues. She intrigues me because she never seems to know her own strength. She isn't blandly insecure the way girls are often forced to be in fiction. She is brave but flawed. She is a heroine, but she is also a girl who loves two boys and can't choose which boy she loves more. She is not sure she is up to the task of leading a revolution, but she does her best, even as she doubts herself.

Katniss endures the unendurable. She is damaged and it shows. At times, it might seem like her suffering is gratuitous, but life often presents unendurable circumstances people manage to survive. Only the details differ. The Hunger Games trilogy is dark and brutal, but in the end, the books also offer hope - for a better world and a better people and, for one woman, a better life, a life she can share with a man who understands her strength and doesn't expect her to compromise that strength, a man who can hold her weak places and love her through the darkest of her memories, the worst of her damage. Of course I love the Hunger Games. The trilogy offers the tempered hope that everyone who survives something unendurable hungers for. ~ Roxane Gay

Be generous, and pleasant-tempered, and forgiving; even as God scatter favors over thee, do thou scatter over the people. ~ Saadi

Her soft soul had crystallized. (Just as well, she thought.) She was a sword tempered in the fire. ~ Kate Atkinson

You come to us well tempered, my child, and it is not in my nature to be sorry for it. It is a well tempered blade that is the strongest. ~ R.L. LaFevers

Meghann knew however strong the evil inside Simon Baldevar was, it was tempered by the love he had for her and their children. ~ Trisha Baker

Somehow, she trusted. With all that was going wrong, she still had the faith to stay strong. She caught Levi's eye, and the pain in her gaze was tempered with a hope so bright it filled his heart with its light. ~ Victoria Lynn

Distant singing is heard. Ghostly voices become audible: fragments of lectures remembered, the finely distilled wisdom and passion of seers and poets with which the modern young mind is tempered for the world that blows it to pieces. ~ Tennessee Williams

You wish, or rather, have decided, to remove a splinter from someone? Very well, but do not go after it with a stick instead of a lancet for you will only drive it deeper. Rough speech and harsh gestures are the stick, while even-tempered instruction and patient reprimand are the lancet. 'Reprove, rebuke, exhort,' says the Apostle (II Tim. 4:2), not 'batter'. ~ John Climacus

His was the strong soul, gentle, but tempered with fire, fervent, heroic and good, the helper and friend of mankind. It is such as he who make progress possible. ~ Thomas W. Martin

Only when hearts are tempered, minds are opened and wills are softened can man discern the will of God for his life." ~ Adam Craig Harris Sr. "Gramps ~ Pamela S. Thibodeaux

I discovered that men were just like everyone else, really. They liked you if you were good-tempered and easy to talk to. And being a big girl meant other females trusted you more and confided in you. ~ Maeve Binchy

You did the right thing." "Yes, I did." He stroked her cheek with his thumb. "But with you, Arabella Anne Westfall, I have done everything wrong, from the moment we met, at nearly every turn. I have been arrogant and overly confident and short-tempered and deeply, insatiably lustful"-a bystander gasped-"and afraid of this between us. I was everything that must have been abhorrent to you when all you wished was to find your prince charming. Instead you ended up with a blind, surly, autocratic fool. If I could turn back time, if I could so what I should have done-" "Before I fell in love with you?" "-b-before I stole your virtue." His brow cut down. "By God, woman, you will always say what I least expect, won't you?"

-Arabella & Luc ~ Katharine Ashe

Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception. ~ George Orwell

Jean Kurek looked a bit like a field mouse herself, with her close-cut gray hair, in her shapeless gray dress - no zippers, no buttons. Stroke clothes. Her appearance was no more or less distinguished than it had been all her sixty-eight years, the most likely description of her a string of negatives. Not really tall or short, you wouldn't say she's heavy but she isn't particularly thin, not ugly, not at all, but not pretty either, her hair is that color that isn't blond or brown. Arguably, her most striking feature was the absence of any striking feature - though her hair had finally claimed a color, gray. She'd certainly never been considered beautiful, not by anyone other than Cliff, who had been adamant on the point for over forty years; but if she'd ever yearned for greater consensus, that yearning had been tempered by her knowledge of how she would loathe the attention it would bring. Jean had spent a lifetime trying to be inconspicuous, appreciating that nature had given her a head start. ~ Robin Black

The worst-tempered people I've ever met were the people who knew they were wrong. ~ Addison Mizner

If it is not tempered by compassion, and empathy, reason can lead men and women into a moral void. (95) ~ Karen Armstrong

After nearly three years of dealing with Winder, throughout all of their delicate negotiations and volatile truces, she finally understood: he recognized her as a true patriot, someone who didn't want to denigrate the South so much as nudge it back to where it belonged, a citizen stuck in a prodigal country. Because she was a woman - a wealthy, socially prominent woman at that - he tempered his suspicions with decency and Southern manners. He respected her dedication to her cause even as it diverged from his own, and the constant monitoring and attempts at entrapment were merely requirements of his job. ~ Karen Abbott

It seldom happens that any felicity comes so pure as not to be tempered and allayed by some mixture of sorrow. ~ Miguel De Cervantes

I could not fall back in love with Chase Jennings. Doing so was like falling in love with a thunderstorm. Exciting and powerful, yes. Even beautiful. But violently tempered, unpredictable, and ultimately short-lived. ~ Kristen Simmons

Is Tsering's familiar as bad-tempered as Ragtooth?" I said.
"No," Mara said. "Tsering is a steady sort of man. A familiar's temperament seems to reflect that of its master."
Tem seemed to smother a snort. I glared at Mara, replying in a dignified voice, "I haven't heard that to be the case. ~ Heather Fawcett

When faced with complexity, it is reassuring to tell ourselves that we can uncover and understand every facet of every problem if we just try hard enough. But that's a fallacy. The better approach, I believe, is to accept that we can't understand every facet of a complex environment and to focus, instead, on techniques to deal with combining different viewpoints. If we start with the attitude that different viewpoints are additive rather than competitive, we become more effective because our ideas or decisions are honed and tempered by that discourse. In a healthy, creative culture, the people in the trenches feel free to speak up and bring to light differing views that can help give us clarity. ~ Ed Catmull

Just remember you have to bear my choice with the same grace and even tempered temerity I've shown with yours. (Shahara)
Good. I get to whine and bitch. Can't wait. (Syn) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

It would be the height of absurdity to label ignorance tempered by humility "faith"!
(Institutio III.2.3) ~ John Calvin