Quotes about Indignation

There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feelings as “moral indignation,” which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue. The “indignant” person has for once the satisfaction of despising and treating a creature as “inferior,” coupled with the feeling of his own superiority and rightness.

Moral indignation is a technique used to endow the idiot with dignity.

There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as 'moral indignation,' which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue.

Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.

"Righteous anger is usually not about oneself. It is about those whom one sees being harmed and whom one wants to help." In short, righteous anger is a tool of justice, a scythe of compassion, more than a reactive emotion. Although it may have its roots deep in our fight-or-flight desire to protect those in our family or group who are threatened, it is a chosen response and not simply an uncontrollable reaction. And it is not about one's own besieged self-image, or one's feelings of separation, but of one's collective responsibility, and one's feeling of deep, empowering connection.

Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo. It is the peculiar snare of the perplexed orthodox, and soon Mr. Brumley was in a state of nearly unendurable moral indignation with Sir Isaac for a hundred exaggerations of what he was and of what conceivably he might have done to his silent yet manifestly unsuitably married wife.

Indignation is a drug that burns long and hot.

Disgust is expressed by violence, and it is to be noted of our intellectual temper that violence is a quality which is felt to have a peculiarly intellectual sanction. Our preference, even as articulated by those who are most mild in their persons, is increasingly for the absolute and extreme, of which we feel violence to be the true sign. The gentlest of us will know that the tigers of wrath are to be preferred to the horses of instruction and will consider it intellectual cowardice to take into account what happens to those who ride tigers.

What is anger? A lust for revenge. What is hatred? An anger grown old.

Injury was aggravated by insult, and insult was embittered by pleasantry.

What is the meaning of this gross outrage?

There is a certain anger; it reaches such intensity that to express it fully would require homicidal rage — self-destructive, destroy-the-world rage — and its flame burns because the world is so unjust.

To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves.

Zeal and indignation are fervent passions.

It is as great a spite to be praised in the wrong place, and by a wrong person, as can be done to a noble nature.