Repugnant Quotes

Month by month, year by year, there took shape in Paul's mind a new and lucid image of his world, an image at once terrible and exquisite, tragic and farcical. It is difficult to give an idea of this new vision of Paul's, for its power depended largely on the immense intricacy and diversity of his recent experience; on his sense of the hosts of individuals swarming upon the planet, here sparsely scattered, there congested into great clusters and lumps of humanity. Speaking in ten thousand mutually incomprehensible dialects, living in manners reprehensible or ludicrous to one another, thinking by concepts unintelligible to one another, they worshipped in modes repugnant to one another. This new sense of the mere bulk and variety of men was deepened in Paul's mind by his enhanced apprehension of individuality in himself and others, his awed realization that each single unit in all these earth-devastating locust armies carried about with it a whole cognized universe. On the other hand, since he was never wholly forgetful of the stars, the shock between his sense of human littleness in the cosmos and his new sense of man's physical bulk and spiritual intensity increased his wonder. Thus in spite of his perception of the indefeasible reality of everyday things, he had also an overwhelming conviction that the whole fabric of common experience, nay the whole agreed universe of human and biological and astronomical fact, though real, concealed some vaster reality. ~ Olaf Stapledon

There was one story that anger certainly lit the fuse of. In the 1960's, in my home town of Jackson, the civil rights leader Medgar Evers was murdered on night in darkness and I wrote a story that same night about the murderer (identity unknown) called "Where Is The Voice Coming From?" But all that absorbed me, though it started as outrage, was the necessity I felt for entering into the mind and inside the skin of a character who could hardly have been more alien or repugnant to me. Trying for my utmost, I wrote in the first person. I was wholly vaunting the prerogative of the short-story writer. It is always vaunting, of course, to imagine yourself inside another person, but it is what a story writer does in every piece of work; it is his first step, and his last too, I suppose. I'm not sure this story was brought off; and I don't believe that my anger showed me anything about human character that my sympathy and rapport never had. ~ Eudora Welty

When one speaks of solitaries, one always takes too much for granted. One supposes that people know what one is talking about. No, they do not. They have never seen a solitary, they have simply hated him without knowing him. They have been his neighbors who used him up, and the voices in the next room that tempted him. They have incited things against him, so that they made a great noise and drowned him out. Children were in league against him, when he was tender and a child, and with every growth he grew up against the grown-ups. They tracked him to his hiding place, like a beast to be hunted, and his long youth had no closed season. And when he refused to be worn out and got away, they cried out upon that which emanated from him, and called it ugly and cast suspicion upon it. And when he would not listen, they became more distinct and ate away his food and breathed out his air and spat into his poverty so that it became repugnant to him. They brought down disrepute upon him as upon an infectious person and cast stones at him to make him go away more quickly. And they were right in their ancient instinct: for he was indeed their foe.

But then, when he did not raise his eyes, they began to reflect. They suspected that with all this they had done what he wanted; that they had fortified him in his solitude and helped him to separate himself from them for ever. And now they changed about and, resorting to the final, the extreme, used that other resistance: fame. And a ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

So sensitive was he to odour and sound, that he found human speech quite inadequate to express the richness of these two universes. He once said of a certain odour in the house, 'It's rather like the trail of a hare where a spaniel has followed it, and some time ago a donkey crossed it too.' Both scent and sound had for him rich emotional meaning, innate and acquired. It was obvious that many odours that he encountered for the first time roused a strong impulse of pursuit, while others he sought to avoid. It was obvious, too, that many odours acquired an added emotional meaning through their associations. One day when he was out on the moor by himself one of his paws was badly cut on a broken bottle. It happened that while he limped home there was a terrifying thunderstorm. When at last he staggered in at the front door, Elizabeth mothered him and cleaned up his foot with a certain well-known disinfectant. The smell of it was repugnant to him, but it now acquired a flavour of security and kindliness which was to last him all his life. ~ Olaf Stapledon

Arminian notion of Liberty of the Will, consisting in the will's Self-determination, is repugnant to itself, and shuts itself wholly out of the world. ~ Jonathan Edwards

The theory of the IRS is rather repugnant to me because the assumption is made that I, the government, owns 100% of your income and I permit you to keep 5%, 10% or 20%. You're vulnerable, you've sold out. The government can take 80% if they want, which they did at one time. ~ Ron Paul

Cruelty to animals is cruelty and a vile thing; but cruelty to a man is not cruelty, it is treason. Tyranny over a man is not tyranny, it is rebellion, for man is royal. Now, the practical weakness of the vast mass of modern pity for the poor and the oppressed is precisely that it is merely pity; the pity is pitiful, but not respectful. Men feel that the cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is injustice to equals; nay, it is treachery to comrades. This dark scientific pity, this brutal pity, has an elemental sincerity of its own; but it is entirely useless for all ends of social reform. Democracy swept Europe with the sabre when it was founded upon the Rights of Man. It has done literally nothing at all since it has been founded only upon the wrongs of man. Or, more strictly speaking, its recent failure has been due to its not admitting the existence of any rights, or wrongs, or indeed of any humanity. Evolution (the sinister enemy of revolution) does not especially deny the existence of God; what it does deny is the existence of man. And all the despair about the poor, and the cold and repugnant pity for them, has been largely due to the vague sense that they have literally relapsed into the state of the lower animals. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Hitherto acceptable norms of human conduct do not apply. If the United States is to survive, long-standing American concepts of 'fair play' must be reconsidered. We must develop effective espionage and counterespionage services and must learn to subvert, sabotage and destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated, and more effective methods than those used against us. It may become necessary that the American people be made acquainted with, understand and support this fundamentally repugnant philosophy. ~ Jimmy Doolittle

All that has to do with life is repugnant to me; everything that draws me to it horrifies me. I should like never to have been born, or to die. I have within me, deep within me, a distaste which keeps me from enjoying anything and which fills my soul to the point of suffocating it. It reappears in relation to everything, like the bloated bodies of dogs which come back to the surface of the water despite the stones that have been tied to their necks to drown them. ~ Gustave Flaubert

Homosexuality is an ugly sin, repugnant to those who find no temptation in it, as well as to many past offenders who are seeking a way out of its clutches. It is embarrassing and unpleasant as a subject for discussion but because of its prevalence, the need to warn the uninitiated, and the desire to help those who may already be involved in it, it is discussed in this chapter. ~ Spencer W. Kimball

Underwater madness slipping into a haze, drowning and choking in repugnant nostalgic thoughts. ~ Karen Quan

At eight-thirty that night Ian stood on the steps outside Elizabeth's uncle's town house suppressing an almost overwhelming desire to murder Elizabeth's butler, who seemed to be inexplicably fighting down the impulse to do bodily injury to Ian. "I will ask you again, in case you misunderstood me the last time," Ian enunciated in a silky, ominous tone that made ordinary men blanch. "Where is your mistress?"
Bentner didn't change color by so much as a shade. "Out!" he informed the man who'd ruined his young mistress's life and had now appeared on her doorstep, unexpected and uninvited, no doubt to try to ruin it again, when she was at this very moment attending her first ball in years and trying bravely to live down the gossip he had caused.
"She is out, but you do not know where she is?"
"I did not say so, did I?"
"Then where is she?"
"That is for me to know and you to ponder."
In the last several days Ian had been forced to do a great many unpleasant things, including riding across half of England, dealing with Christina's irate father, and finally dealing with Elizabeth's repugnant uncle, who had driven a bargain that still infuriated him. Ian had magnanimously declined her dowry as soon as the discussion began. Her uncle, however, had the finely honed bargaining instincts of a camel trader, and he immediately sensed Ian's determination to do whatever was necessary to get Julius's name on a betrothal contract. As a result, Ian was the first man ~ Judith McNaught

The Universe keeps track of our sins and exacts devious and repugnant punishments, like dates with unknown men. ~ Sue Grafton

The Internet may fairly be regarded as a never-ending worldwide conversation. The government may not, through the , interrupt that conversation ... As the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed, the Internet deserves the highest protection from governmental intrusion ... The government, therefore, implicitly asks this court to limit both the amount of speech on the Internet and the availability of that speech. This argument is profoundly repugnant to First Amendment principles. ~ Stewart Dalzell

The sole ultimate factor in human decisions is physical force. This we must learn, however repugnant the idea may seem, if we are to protect ourselves and our institutions. Reliance on anything else is fallacious and ruinous. ~ H.P. Lovecraft

But since the downfall of the mythological hypothesis an interpretation of the dream has been wanting. The conditions of its origin; its relationship to our psychical life when we are awake; its independence of disturbances which, during the state of sleep, seem to compel notice; its many peculiarities repugnant to our waking thought; the incongruence between its images and the feelings they engender; then the dream's evanescence, the way in which, on awakening, our thoughts thrust it aside as something bizarre, and our reminiscences mutilating or rejecting it - all these and many other problems have for many hundred years demanded answers which up till now could never have been satisfactory. Before all there is the question as to the meaning of the dream, a question which is in itself double-sided. There is, firstly, the psychical significance of the dream, its position with regard to the psychical processes, as to a possible biological function; secondly, has the dream a meaning - can sense be made of each single dream as of other mental syntheses? ~ Sigmund Freud

You should protest about the views of people you disagree with over major moral issues, and argue them down, but you should not try to silence them, however repugnant you find them. That is the bitter pill free speech requires us to swallow. ~ Julian Baggini

Dropping cluster bombs from the air is not only less repugnant: it is somehow deemed, by Western people at least, to be morally superior,' says British psychologist Jacqueline Rose. 'Why dying with your victim* should be seen as a greater sin than saving yourself is unclear.'The colonial West had created a two-tier hierarchy that privileged itself at the expense of 'The Rest'. The Enlightenment had preached the equality of all human beings, yet Western policy in the developing world often adopted a double standard so that we failed to treat others as we would wish to be treated. Our focus on the nation seems to have made it hard for us to cultivate the global outlook that we need in our increasingly interrelated world. We must deplore any action that spills innocent blood or sows terror for its own sake. But we must also acknowledge and sincerely mourn the blood that we have shed in pursuit of national interests. Otherwise we can hardly defend ourselves against accusations of maintaining an 'arrogant silence' in the face of others' pain and of creating a world order in which some people's lives are deemed more valuable than others ~ Karen Armstrong

We ought to deal kindly with all, and to manifest those qualities which spring naturally from a heart tender and full of Christian charity; such as affability, love and humility. These virtues serve wonderfully to gain the hearts of men, and to encourage them to embrace things that are more repugnant to nature. ~ St. Vincent

Our goals can only be achieved with a society that respects and equally protects the rights of every human being, old and young, rich and poor, regardless of gender, color, race, or creed. We must reject the initiation of violence by individuals or government as morally repugnant. ~ Ron Paul

Keep on acquiring a taste for what is naturally repugnant; this is an unfailing source of pleasure. ~ Aleister Crowley

Some things are like that - they strike you as repugnant for instinctive reasons, probably having to do with your culture and the way you were raised. The French word "gauche" comes to mind, but I preferred the Hebrew word "treyf." Literally, it means not kosher, but I also use it to describe things like cars, bars, strip clubs, guns, dogs, rock-n-roll, and football games. Things that are treyf, you avoid, not because you hate them per se, but because in avoiding them you keep yourself from becoming like the people you hate. ~ Aaron Cometbus

Despite its pacific demeanor, tolerance is an internally unharmonious term, blending together goodness, capaciousness, and conciliation with discomfort, judgment, and aversion. Like patience, tolerance is necessitated by something one would prefer did not exist. It involves managing the presence of the undesirable, the tasteless, the
faulty - even the revolting, repugnant, or vile. In this activity of management, tolerance does not offer resolution or transcendence, but only a strategy for coping. ~ Wendy Brown

[T]he most repugnant bastard there is: the bastard-octopus. ~ Roland Barthes

With respect also to spiritual sloth, beginners are apt to be irked by the things that are most spiritual, from which they flee because these things are incompatible with sensible pleasure. For, as they are so much accustomed to sweetness in spiritual things, they are wearied by things in which they find no sweetness. If once they failed to find in prayer the satisfaction which their taste required (and after all it is well that God should take it from them to prove them), they would prefer not to return to it: sometimes they leave it; at other times they continue it unwillingly. And thus because of this sloth they abandon the way of perfection (which is the way of the negation of their will and pleasure for God's sake) for the pleasure and sweetness of their own will, which they aim at satisfying in this way rather than the will of God.

And many of these would have God will that which they themselves will, and are fretful at having to will that which He wills, and find it repugnant to accommodate their will to that of God. Hence it happens to them that oftentimes they think that that wherein they find not their own will and pleasure is not the will of God; and that, on the other hand, when they themselves find satisfaction, God is satisfied. Thus they measure God by themselves and not themselves by God, acting quite contrarily to that which He Himself taught in the Gospel, saying: That he who should lose his will for His sake, the same should gain it; and he who s ~ Juan De La Cruz

He could not tell her that he was angry because she did not love him. Even he could not utter such foolishness. Certainly, he did not love her. He did not love anyone except perhaps Isaac and a very few of his other children. Yet he wanted Anyanwu to be like his many other women and treat him like a god in human form, competing for his attention no matter how repugnant his latest body nor even whether he might be looking for a new body. They knew he took women almost as readily as he took men. Especially, he took women who had already given him what he wanted of them
usually several children. They served him and never thought they might be his next victims. Someone else. Not them. ~ Octavia E. Butler

We all desire the future to turn out more happily than I have figured it. In particular we desire our present civilization to advance steadily toward some kind of Utopia. The thought that it may decay and collapse, and that all its spiritual treasure may be lost irrevocably, is repugnant to us. Yet this must be faced as at least a possibility. ~ Olaf Stapledon

Needless to say, I love the interaction between the sexes; it is a natural part of life and I love women. I just think that when sex is used as a form of blackmail or power, it's a repugnant use of one of God's gifts. ~ Michael Jackson

I find capitalism repugnant. It is filthy, it is gross, it is alienating ... because it causes war, hypocrisy and competition. ~ Fidel Castro

O.K., helplessness is repugnant to me, as a father, as a piece of protoplasm. My parents were activists. I don't believe you can't do anything. ~ Marshall Brickman

An absurd problem came to the surface: 'How COULD God permit that (crucifixion of Jesus Christ)!' ... the deranged reason of the little community found quite a frightfully absurd answer: God gave his Son for forgiveness, as a SACRIFICE ... The SACRIFICE FOR GUILT, and just in its most repugnant and barbarous form - the sacrifice of the innocent for the sins of the guilty! What horrifying heathenism! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Why wouldst thou that God should in power, in act and in effect (which in him are identical) be determined as the limit of the convexity of a sphere, rather than that he should be as we may say the undetermined limit of the boundless? The limit I say, without limit, that I may differentiate the one infinity from the other. For He is the whole, comprehensive [26] and complete totality of the infinite, but the universe is the explicit though not the all-comprehensive totality (if indeed we may in any wise use the term totality where there is neither part nor boundary). Therefore the nature of the one doth comprehend boundaries; that of the other is bounded. And this is not the distinction between infinite and finite. The distinction is rather that the one is infinite, while the other doth limit according to the nature of the totality and of the whole being thereof. So that although it is entirely infinite, the infinity thereof is not completely comprehensive, for this would be repugnant to dimensional infinity. ~ Giordano Bruno

Ian's method of dealing with Sir Francis Belhaven - who, his grandfather had discovered, was boasting that Elizabeth had spent several days with him - was less subtle and even more effective. "Belhaven," Ian said after spending a half hour searching for the repulsive knight.
The stout man had whirled around in surprise, leaving his acquaintances straining to hear Ian's low conversation with him. "I find your presence repugnant," Ian had said in a dangerously quiet voice. "I dislike your coat, I dislike your shirt, and I dislike the knot in your neckcloth. In fact, I dislike you. Have I offended you enough yet, or shall I continue?"
Belhaven's mouth dropped open, his pasty face turning a deathly gray. "Are - are you trying to force a - duel?"
"Normally one doesn't bother shooting a repulsive toad, but in this instance I'm prepared to make an exception, since this toad doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut!"
"A duel, with you?" he gasped. "Why, it would be no contest - none at all. Everyone knows what kind of marksman you are. It would be murder."
Ian leaned close, speaking between his clenched teeth. "It's going to be murder, you miserable little opium-eater, unless you suddenly remember very vocally that you've been joking about Elizabeth Cameron's visit."
At the mention of opium the glass slid from his fingers and crashed to the floor. "I have just realized I was joking."
"Good," Ian said, restraining the urge to strangle him. "Now start ~ Judith McNaught

Rigorously investigated and fearlessly reported, A Crime So Monstrous is a passionate and thorough examination of the appalling reality of human bondage in today's world. In his devastating narrative, Ben Skinner boldly casts light on the unthinkable, yet thriving, modern-day practice of slavery, exposing a global trade in human lives. The abuses detailed in these pages are repugnant, but there is hope to be found: by giving voice to the victims, Skinner helps restore their dignity and makes crucial strides toward closing this shameful chapter in history. ~ William J. Clinton

Is it not amazing that at a time when the rights of humanity are defined and understood with precision, in a country, above all others, fond of liberty-that in such an age and in such a country we find men professing a religion the most humane, mild, gentle and generous, adopting a principle as repugnant to humanity as it is inconsistent with the Bible, and destructive to liberty? ~ Patrick Henry

The habits of liberals, their automatic language, their knee-jerk responses to certain issues, deserved the epithets the right wing stuck them with. I'd see how true they often were. Here they were, banding together in packs, so I could predict what they were going to say about some event or conflict and it wasn't even out of their mouths yet. I was very uncomfortable with that. Liberal orthodoxy was as repugnant to me as conservative orthodoxy. ~ George Carlin

Asylums are nothing more than gardens of human cabbages, of miserable, grotesque, repugnant human beings watered with the fertilizer of injections. ~ Antonio Lobo Antunes

The particular phraseology of the Constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written constitutions, that a law repugnant to the Constitution is void; and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument. ~ John Marshall

The leader of Iran made one of the most repugnant remarks the international community has heard since Adolf Hitler. ~ Tom Lantos

She certainly did not hate him. No; hatred had vanished long ago, and she had almost as long been ashamed of ever feeling a dislike against him, that could be so called. The respect created by the conviction of his valuable qualities, though at first unwillingly admitted, had for some time ceased to be repugnant to her feelings; and it was now heightened into somewhat of a friendlier nature, by the testimony so highly in his favour, and bringing forward his disposition in so amiable a light, which yesterday had produced. But above all, above respect and esteem, there was a motive within her of good will which could not be overlooked. It was gratitude.--Gratitude not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough, to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations accompanying her rejection. He who, she had been persuaded, would avoid her as his greatest enemy, seemed, on this accidental meeting, most eager to preserve the acquaintance, and without any indelicate display of regard, or any peculiarity of manner, where their two selves only were concerned, was soliciting the good opinion of her friends, and bent on making her known to his sister. Such a change in a man of so much pride, excited not only astonishment but gratitude--for to love, ardent love, it must be attributed; and as such its impression on her was of a sort to be encouraged, as by no means unpleasing, though it could not exactly be d ~ Jane Austen

In the entire endless evening his serenity received a jolt only a few times. The first was when someone who didn't know who he was confided that only two months ago Lady Elizabeth's uncle had sent out invitations to all her former suitors offering her hand in marriage.
Suppressing his shock and loathing for her uncle, Ian had pinned an amused smile on his face and confided, "I'm acquainted with the lady's uncle, and I regret to say he's a little mad. As you know, that sort of thing runs," Ian had finished smoothly, "in our finest families." The reference to England's hopeless King George was unmistakable, and the man had laughed uproariously at the joke. "True," he agreed. "Lamentably true." Then he went off to spread the word that Elizabeth's uncle was a confirmed loose screw.
Ian's method of dealing with Sir Francis Belhaven-who, his grandfather had discovered, was boasting that Elizabeth had spent several days with him-was less subtle and even more effective. "Belhaven," Ian said after spending a half hour searching for the repulsive knight.
The stout man had whirled around in surprise, leaving his acquaintances straining to hear Ian's low conversation with him. "I find your presence repugnant," Ian had said in a dangerously quiet voice. "I dislike your coat, I dislike your shirt, and I dislike the knot in your neckcloth. In fact, I dislike you. Have I offended you enough yet, or shall I continue?"
Belhaven's mouth dropped open, his pasty face turning a ~ Judith McNaught

If it be true that every novel contains an element of autobiography - and this can hardly be denied, since the creator can only express himself in his creation - then there are some of us to whom an open display of sentiment is repugnant. ~ Joseph Conrad

We all reek of weariness. A room full of the black-soul phenomenon. All of a sudden I don't feel so alone in the recognition of my own mixed feelings mirrored in those faces. In those faces, I see that the seemingly repugnant behavior wasn't so atrocious after all. Everything is forgiv- able. Everything we said and did and felt was magnified by the pres- ence of something we couldn't control, and that fact definitely brought out the crazy. Each of us will carry a balance of regret and pride for the rest of our lives. ~ Angela Ricketts

There is a question whether faith can or is supposed to be emotionally satisfying. I must say that the thought of everyone lolling about in an emotionally satisfying faith is repugnant to me. I believe that we are ultimately directed Godward but that this journey is often impeded by emotion ~ Flannery O'Connor

I tried to read this book, Huckleberry Finn, to my grandchildren, but I couldn't get past page six because the book is fraught with the 'n-word'. And although they are the deepest-thinking, combat-ready eight- and ten-year-olds I know, I knew my babies weren't ready to comprehent Huckleberry Finn on its own merits. That's why I took the liberty to rewrite Mark Twain's masterpiece. Where re repugnant 'n-word' occurs, I replaced it with 'warrior' and the word 'slave' with 'dark-skinned volunteer'. ~ Paul Beatty

The humanist, who read too much, ate too much. He quoted and burped, and these two complaints were equally repugnant to his neighbor, a self-made aristocrat, Madame Lenoir. ~ Marcel Proust

I don't trust art that promises a 24-hour joyride. In fact, there seems to be a modern sense of entitlement for such constant "ups," which is a repugnant attitude any way one chooses to look at it. I definitely believe in the possibility of happiness, though; it's just something that I think, rightfully, is rare in its genuine form, and that it can't be counterfeited. ~ Chris Ware

Violence is a very ugly thing. Violence is often so casual on film, and made to look so cool and so sexy, but violence is a repulsive, repugnant act that human beings inflict on each other. It shouldn't seem to be cool and sexy, ever really. ~ James Purefoy

Elizabeth snapped awake in a terrified instant as the door to her bed chamber was flung open near dawn, and Ian stalked into the darkened room. "Do you want to go first, or shall I?" he said tightly, coming to stand at the side of her bed.
"What do you mean?" she asked in a trembling voice.
"I mean," he said, "that either you go first and tell me why in hell you suddenly find my company repugnant, or I'll go first and tell you how I feel when I don't know where you are or why you want to be there!"
"I've sent word to you both nights."
"You sent a damned note that arrived long after nightfall both times, informing me that you intended to sleep somewhere else. I want to know why!"
He has men beaten like animals, she reminded herself.
"Stop shouting at me," Elizabeth said shakily, getting out of bed and dragging the covers with her to hide herself from him.
His brows snapped together in an ominous frown. "Elizabeth?" he asked, reaching for her.
"Don't touch me!" she cried.
Bentner's voice came from the doorway. "Is aught amiss, my lady?" he asked, glaring bravely at Ian.
"Get out of here and close that damned door behind you!" Ian snapped furiously.
"Leave it open," Elizabeth said nervously, and the brave butler did exactly as she said.
In six long strides Ian was at the door, shoving it closed with a force that sent it crashing into its frame, and Elizabeth began to vibrate with terror. When he turned around and start ~ Judith McNaught

I'm doing all that I can to prod the industry and get them to pay more attention [ to larger women and petite women]. Because I find it to be reprehensible and repugnant that two populations that are so pervasive in this nation should be so badly neglected. ~ Tim Gunn

Any imposition from without means compulsion. Such compulsion is repugnant to religion. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

I was simultaneously elated and depressed, a common enough state of mind these days when people are offered a great deal of money to do something repugnant. ~ James Hamilton-Paterson

Psychological despotism, whether enlightened or not, is gross misuse of psychology. The main purpose of psychology is to acquire insight into, and mastery of, oneself. Not for nothing were what we now call the behavioral sciences originally called the moral sciences and "Know thyself" their main precept. To use psychology to control, dominate, and manipulate others is self-destructive abuse of knowledge. It is also a particularly repugnant form of tyranny. ~ Peter F. Drucker

Those who have a true understanding of America know that we have no desire for territorial expansion, for economic or other domination of other peoples. Such purposes are repugnant to our ideals of human freedom. ~ Herbert Hoover

Our touchstones of slavery are 'Song of the South,' 'Gone With the Wind' and 'The Birth of a Nation.' It's hard to separate the cinematic quality from the underlying themes. I appreciate the films, but the message was repugnant. ~ John Ridley

My creative powers have been reduced to a restless indolence. I cannot be idle, yet I cannot seem to do anything either. I have no imagination, no more feeling for nature, and reading has become repugnant to me. When we are robbed of ourselves, we are robbed of everything. ~ Sally Brampton

I found the speech, after listening to it in context, vile in manner, repugnant, malicious, mean-spirited and spoken in mockery of individuals and people, which is against the spirit of Islam. While I stand by the truths that he spoke, I must condemn in the strongest terms the manner in which those truths were represented. ~ Khalid Abdul Muhammad

Why is it that a large majority of Hindus do not inter-dine and do not inter-marry? Why is it that your cause is not popular? There can be only one answer to this question, and it is that inter-dining and inter-marriage are repugnant to the beliefs and dogmas which the Hindus regard as sacred. ~ B.R. Ambedkar

Phaethon asked: "Do you think there is something wrong with the Sophotechs? We are Manorials, father! We let Rhadamanthus control our finances and property, umpire our disputes, teach our children, design our thoughtscapes, and even play matchmaker to find us wives and husbands!"

"Son, the Sophotechs may be sufficient to advise the Parliament on laws and rules. Laws are a matter of logic and common sense. Specially designed human-thinking versions, like Rhadamanthus, can tell us how to fulfill our desires and balance our account books. Those are questions of strategy, of efficient allocation of resources and time. But the Sophotechs, they cannot choose our desires for us. They cannot guide our culture, our values, our tastes. That is a question of the spirit."

"Then what would you have us do? Would you change our laws?"

"Our mores, not our laws. There are many things which are repugnant, deadly to the spirit, and self-destructive, but which law should not forbid. Addiction, self-delusion, self-destruction, slander, perversion, love of ugliness. How can we discourage such things without the use of force? It was in response to this need that the College of Hortators evolved. Peacefully, by means of boycotts, public protests, denouncements, and shunnings, our society can maintain her sanity against the dangers to our spirit, to our humanity, to which such unboundried liberty, and such potent technology, exposes us."

(...) But Phaethon ~ John C. Wright

The obscene and vulgar stories in the Bible are as repugnant to our ideas of the purity of a Divine Being, as the horrid cruelties and murders it ascribes to Him are repugnant to our ideas of His justice. ~ Thomas Paine

Misty dreamers had not a chance with her; since, though she did not talk - talking would have been altogether repugnant to her silent nature. ~ E.T.A. Hoffmann

I had always believed that the very best food contains something elementally repugnant. That its innate grotesquerie is what makes it so perversely alluring. My own favorite foods tended toward a certain sludgy, muddy texture. And from the most expensive and genteel through to the indulgently crass, the appeal of slop abides: caviar, escargots, foie gras or hamburgers, kebabs, macaroni and cheese. Even vegetable soup forms a membrane. Apples begin rotting from the very first bite. No matter which end of the spectrum, there lies fundamentally and yet delectably disgusting, some squirmy, sinewy, oozing, greasy, sticky, glutinous, mushy, fatty, chewy, viscous thing that compels. The line between pleasure and revulsion can seem so very thin, if it even exists at all. ~ Lara Williams

When the great theologian and philosopher Rabbi Hillel was challenged to explain the Torah in the time he could stand on one foot, he replied, Do not do unto others that which is repugnant to you. All else is commentary. ~ Edward O. Wilson

Usually, if we hate, it is the shadow of the person that we hate, rather than the substance. We may hate a person because he reminds us of someone we feared and disliked when younger; or because we see in him some gross caricature of what we find repugnant in ourself; or because he symbolizes an attitude that seems to threaten us. ~ Sydney J. Harris

There is some level on which this life must occasionally become repugnant and unappetizing to you and you must step back from it. And then you have a new relationship with it, and then you step back into it from a different angle - with a new appetite - and then you find the next leg of your journey. ~ John Patrick Shanley

But, but, but here lies the difficulty. Precisely what the New Testament understands by Christianity and by being a Christian is-and this the New Testament makes no effort to conceal but emphasizes decisively-what most of all is repugnant to the natural man, is an offense to him, against which with wild passion and defiance he must revolt, or else cunningly try at any price to be rid of it, as for example by the help of a knavish trick, calling Christianity what is the exact opposite of Christianity, and then thanking God for Christianity and for the great and inestimable privilege of being a Christian. Attack On Christendom pp 150-3 ~ Soren Kierkegaard

I have always found it peculiar, to say the least, when conservatives, especially conservative men, make these particular issues their ideological focus; there is something suspect to me about individuals who devote enormous amounts of time and attention dos objects they profess to find repugnant ~ Curtis Sittenfeld

And it is evident that it is not less repugnant that falsity or imperfection, in so far as it is imperfection, should proceed from God, than that truth or perfection should proceed from nothing. ~ Rene Descartes

Morally repugnant and tactically stupid are a lousy combination. ~ Richard North Patterson

I find it truly appalling that there are people in the world like you. You are a disgusting, vile, repulsive, repugnant, foul creature. Because of you, I don't believe in God anymore. No just God would allow someone like you to exist. (Quoting feedback from a reader) ~ Tucker Max

Things are not more or less perfect, according as they delight or offend human senses, or according as they are serviceable or repugnant to mankind. ~ Baruch Spinoza

I wish I could make love to you."
He sucked his breath in sharply. "You talk like that, you're going to kill me." He moved to stand just before her. "I wish I could smell you."
She pulled back sharply. "Smell me?" What a repugnant thought.
He nodded. "Your scent makes me drunk. I love having it on my sheets and on my body. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Yet, even before he left the room, - and certainly, not five minutes after, the clear conviction dawned upon her, shined bright upon her, that he did love her; that he had loved her; that he would love her. And she shrank and shuddered as under the fascination of some great power, repugnant to her whole previous life.She crept away, and hid from his idea. But it was of no use ~ Elizabeth Gaskell

Judging from the ugly and repugnant things that are sometimes in vogue, it would seem as though fashion were desirous of exhibiting its power by getting us to adopt the most atrocious things for its sake alone. ~ Georg Simmel

The question that arises is this: had father hated the people on the ship, just as she now hates the motorcyclist and the man who mocked her because she covered her ears? No, Agnes cannot imagine that Father was capable of hatred. Hate traps us by binding us too tightly to our adversary. This is the obscenity of war: the intimacy of mutually shed blood, the lascivious proximity of two soldiers who, eye to eye, bayonet each other. Agnes was sure: it was precisely this kind of intimacy that her father found repugnant. The melee on the ship filled him with such disgust that he preferred to drown. ~ Milan Kundera

Isana stared at Gaius for a moment. Then she said, "How can you live with yourself?"

The First Lord stared at her for a moment, his eyes cold. Then he spoke in a very quiet, precise, measured voice. "I look out my window each day. I look out my window at people who live and breathe. At people who have not been devoured by civil war. At people who have not been ravaged by disease. At people who have not starved to death, who have not been hacked apart by enemies of humanity, at people who are free to lie and steal and plot and complain and accuse and behave in all manner of repugnant ways because the Realm stands. Because law and order stands. Because something other than simple violence shapes the course of their lives. And I look, wife of my son, mother of my heir, at a very few decent people who have had the luxury of living their lives without being called upon to make hideous decisions I would not wish upon my worst enemies, and who consequently find such matters morally appalling when they consider them--because they have not had to be the ones who dealt with them." He took a short, hard swallow of wine. "Feh. Aquitaine thinks me his enemy. The fool. If I truly hated him, I'd give him the Crown. ~ Jim Butcher

How dominating is appetite, how enveloping immediate experience! Even the philosophically minded among us capitulate, ultimately, to the narrowest sense of personal need. Political time moves at a snail's pace because it is only with nearly insurmountable difficulty that moral discomfort takes root in the best of people, forcing an imperative out of a complaint; so viscerally repugnant is it for a critical mass to find the prevailing system unbearable, much less prepare to take up arms against it. ~ Vivian Gornick

RADIO IS DEAD. The once-bright star that was public broadcasting has been destroyed by greed and corproate muscle to the point that even the music that is completely repugnant is positioned to be popular. ~ Corey Taylor

A new society cannot be created by reproducing the repugnant past, however refined or enticingly repackaged. ~ Nelson Mandela

Eragon! I never want to hear you use that excuse again, that because someone else has done
or would do
something means that you should too. It's lazy, repugnant, and indicative of an inferior mind. Am I clear? ~ Christopher Paolini

The Zionists indeed learnt well from the Nazis. So well that it seems that their morally repugnant treatment of the Palestinians, and their attempts to destroy Palestinian society within Israel and the occupied territories, reveals them as basically Nazis with beards and black hats. ~ Norman Finkelstein

I got through college realizing business was repugnant. ~ Bruce McCulloch

In the '90s, there was a big bell-bottom craze. Everyone was wearing grungy bell-bottoms. It was so repugnant to me. ~ Justin Theroux

Never let money control you. I'd rather see someone spend every red cent and relish his/her life than scrimp, obsess, and pinch the pennies. There's something repugnant about a person who centers his life around money. ~ Rita Mae Brown

We're in a horrible, repugnant place now where kids are told it's their right and due to be hugely famous. Not good at their job, not good at anything, just hugely famous. This is not sane. Little girls think they'll be famous if they have vast breast implants and might as well die if they don't. ~ James McAvoy

And all these existents which bustled about this tree came from nowhere and were going nowhere. Suddenly they existed, then suddenly they existed no longer: existence is without memory; of the vanished it retains nothing - not even a memory. Existence everywhere, infinitely, in excess, for ever and everywhere; existence - which is limited only by existence. I sank down on the bench, stupefied, stunned by this profusion of beings without origin: everywhere blossomings, hatchings out, my ears buzzed with existence, my very flesh throbbed and opened, abandoned itself to the universal burgeoning. It was repugnant. But why, I thought, why so many existences, since they all look alike? What good are so many duplicates of trees? So many existences missed, obstinately begun again and again missed - like the awkward efforts of an insect fallen on its back? (I was one of those efforts.) ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

Whether religious or racial, anti-Semitism is always repugnant, one of the most destructive manifestations of human stupidity and evil. What is profoundly expressed in it is man's traditional mistrust of the man who is not part of his tribe, that 'other' who speaks a different language, whose skin is a different color, and who participates in mysterious rites and rituals. ~ Mario Vargas-Llosa

Plunder, ravage and kill; the secret works of the repugnant. Since the fall of man and brother killing brother, evil has owned the night. ~ Dennis F. Larsen

Even suicide has become less repugnant to many people than any number of other sins. Religion is totally to blame for this. ~ Anton Szandor LaVey

Being inclusive sometimes means being kind toward people whose views are repugnant. But you should only do so if it is physically and emotionally safe for you. ~ Amy Dickinson

The consciousness of my own baseness has done nothing to reconcile me to the baseness of others. Nothing is more repugnant to me than brotherly feelings grounded in the common baseness people see in one another. I have no desire for that slimy brotherhood. ~ Milan Kundera

The right of free speech cannot be parceled out based on whether we want to hear what the speaker has to say or whether we agree with those views. It means, quite often, tolerating the expression of views that we find distasteful, perhaps even repugnant. ~ Andrew Rosenthal

The laws should be rigidly enforced which prohibit the immigration of a servile class to compete with American labor, with no intention of acquiring citizenship, and bringing with them and retaining habits and customs repugnant to our civilization. ~ Grover Cleveland

But however imperfect, even repugnant, were particular policies, particular actions, there remained the purity of the ideal, represented in the theories of Karl Marx and the noble visions of many lesser thinkers and writers. ~ Howard Zinn

There's probably no concept in theology more repugnant to modern America than the idea of divine wrath. ~ R.C. Sproul

They need only to give up the idea of forcing us to acquiesce to their groups and series, their socialized projects, their free- credit banks, their Graeco-Roman concept of morality, and their commercial regulations. I ask only that we be permitted to decide upon these plans for ourselves; that we not be forced to accept them, directly or indirectly, if we find them to be contrary to our best interests or repugnant to our consciences. ~ Frederic Bastiat

[Dr. Constain James] refuted so well the aberrations of Darwinism ... [A system] which is repugnant at once to history, to the tradition of all people, to exact science, to observed facts, and even to reason itself, would seem to need no refutation. But the corruption of this age, the machinations of the perverse, the danger of the simple, demand that such fancies, altogether absurd though they are, should - since they borrow the mask of science - be refuted by true science. ~ Pope Pius IX

Aspects that we consider normal today could very well be repugnant in the future - eating animals, for one thing, or abundant choice, or invasive surgery. I was simply trying to demonstrate that what is acceptable today may not be acceptable forever, and vice-versa. ~ Jasper Fforde

The events we have passed through form a coherent pattern and the political actors who have shaped the world are rational
if not necessarily moral or decent
actors. Americans tend to think of its leaders as fools and knaves and of its enemies as psychotic. This seems to comfort us. While America's leaders might be knaves, they are not fools, and while our enemies might have utterly different moral values that are repugnant to us, they are far from insane. ~ George Friedman

Most reject the more repugnant or indefensible dogmas while still holding onto some core belief. Many believers will proudly describe themselves as "reasonable" or "rational" based on how little of their religion they still embrace versus how much they now reject. I think it's funny when people realize that the less you believe the more reasonable you are, but they stop before they reach the logical conclusion. ~ Aron Ra