It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in,--glittering like the morning star full of life and splendour and joy.... Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men,--in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded.
Then rushed to meet the insulting foe;
They took the spear, but left the shield.
Wrongs unredressed, or insults unavenged.
A fly bit the bare pate of a bald man, who in endeavouring to crush it gave himself a hard slap. Then said the fly jeeringly, "You wanted to revenge the sting of a tiny insect with death; what will you do to yourself, who have added insult to injury?"
It is often better not to see an insult than to avenge it.
You will find that silence or very gentle words are the most exquisite revenge for insult.
The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.
An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.
It is often better not to see an insult than to avenge it.
Re-examine all you have been told . . . Dismiss what insults your Soul. -Walt Whitman.
The Wolf and the Lamb WOLF, meeting with a Lamb astray from the fold, resolved not to lay violent hands on him, but to find some plea to justify to the Lamb the Wolf's right to eat him. He thus addressed him: "Sirrah, last year you grossly insulted me." "Indeed," bleated the Lamb in a mournful tone of voice, "I was not then born." Then said the Wolf, "You feed in my pasture." "No, good sir," replied the Lamb, "I have not yet tasted grass." Again said the Wolf, "You drink of my well." "No," exclaimed the Lamb, "I never yet drank water, for as yet my mother's milk is both food and drink to me." Upon which the Wolf seized him and ate him up, saying, "Well! I won't remain supperless, even though you refute every one of my imputations." The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny.
Old age is an insult. It's like being smacked.
That is the point of quotations. One can use another's words to be insulting.
Then rush'd to meet the insulting foe; They took the spear, but left the shield.
Inner liberty can be judged by how often a person feels offended, for you can no more insult a mature man that you can paint the air.
Commemoration of Scholastica, Abbess of Plombariola, c.543 But in rejecting the [Bible's illustrations of eternal punishment] as grotesque and even immoral, many people make the mistake of rejecting the truth it illustrated (which is rather like rejecting a book as untrue because the pictures in it are bad). It is illogical to tell men that they must do the will of God and accept his gospel of grace, if you also tell them that the obligation has no eternal significance, and that nothing ultimately depends on it. The curious modern heresy that everything is bound to come right in the end is so frivolous that I will not insult you by refuting it. "I remember," said Dr. [Samuel] Johnson on one occasion, "that my Maker has said that he will place the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left." That is a solemn truth which only the empty-headed and empty-hearted will neglect. It strikes at the very roots of life and destiny.
Only cowards insult dying majesty.
If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for War.
Let honesty and industry be thy constant companions, and spend one penny less than thy clear gains; then shall thy pocket begin to thrive; creditors will not insult, nor want oppress, nor hungerness bite, nor nakedness freeze thee.
An eye can threaten like a loaded and levelled gun, or it can insult like hissing or kicking; or, in its altered mood, by beams of kindness, it can make the heart dance for joy.
A bad forgery's the ultimate insult.
A bad forgery's the ultimate insult.
If there is a God, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion.
The declaration that our People are hostile to a government made by themselves, for themselves, and conducted by themselves, is an insult.
The solitary, silent, solemn scene, Where Caesars, heroes, peasants, hermits lie, Blended in dust together; where the slave Rests from his labors; where th' insulting proud Resigns his powers; the miser drops his hoard: Where human folly sleeps.