Brutally Clever Quotes About People That Are Scary Accurate
Let’s be honest: human nature is a fascinating, complicated,
and often contradictory mess.
We’re predictable yet unpredictable, kind yet selfish, profound yet painfully simple.
Sometimes, it takes a brutally honest observation to cut through the noise
and reveal the unvarnished truth about why we do what we do.
These quotes don’t sugarcoat.
They aren’t meant to make you feel good;
they’re meant to make you think.
You might squirm, you might nod in recognition,
or you might see someone you know a little too clearly.
Read on if you dare to have a mirror held up to humanity.
Quotes
“The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.” — Ayn Rand
“Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.” — Albert Camus
“Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.” — George Carlin
“It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.” — Niccolò Machiavelli
“Human beings are born with different capacities. If they are free, they are not equal. And if they are equal, they are not free.” — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
“Every man is a hero of his own story.” — John Barth
“The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.” — Steven Furtick
“The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.” — René Descartes
“People don’t have ideas. Ideas have people.” — Carl Jung
“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” — Napoleon Bonaparte
“The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.” — Samuel Johnson
“Beware of those who are quick to censor; they are afraid of what they might learn.” — Unknown
“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” — Oscar Wilde
“The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun.” — P.G. Wodehouse
“Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about other people.” — Henry H. Buckley
“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls.” — Carl Jung
“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.” — Charles Bukowski
“An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex.” — Aldous Huxley
“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” — Oscar Wilde
“Power doesn’t corrupt people; people corrupt power.” — William Gaddis
“People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov
“All great ideas are controversial, or have been at one time.” — George Seldes
“People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them.” — Epictetus
“Human history is the sad result of each one of us looking out for number one.” — Gabriel García Márquez
“People are not against you; they are for themselves.” — Unknown
“Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable.” — Cicero
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” — Maya Angelou
“Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.” — Mark Twain
“The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.” — Oscar Wilde
“People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges.” — Joseph F. Newton
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” — Often attributed to Edmund Burke
“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.” — Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
“People are not lazy. They simply have impotent goals—that is, goals that do not inspire them.” — Tony Robbins
“The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent.” — Stanley Kubrick
“People are not your stepping stones; nor are they your obstacles. They are simply your fellow travelers.” — Unknown
“The easiest person to deceive is one’s own self.” — Edward Bulwer-Lytton
“People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise.” — W. Somerset Maugham
“Most people are on the world, not in it—having no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them.” — John Muir
“The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
