Mean quotes

Mean

28K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

28K quotes

Explore further

Browse quotes that often appear alongside mean — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.

Quote collection

Mean quotes (page 72 of 1399)

Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.

Lara Stone Model
Mean

"I think I do become someone else. In real life, I’m very shy, but people think I’m this angry, sexy kind of... god knows what they think! And there I am in front of them, nervous and blushing and stuttering and whatnot. So I’m definitely not the person you see in pictures. I mean, in pictures, you look like something you’re not."

Read quote 16 likes
Oscar Wilde Writer
Mean

"The Ideal Man should talk to us as if we were goddesses, and treat us as if we were children. He should refuse all our serious requests, and gratify every one of our whims. He should encourage us to have caprices, and forbid us to have missions. He should always say much more than he means, and always mean much more than he says."

Read quote 16 likes
Nelson Mandela Political Leader
Mean

"Our single most important challenge is therefore to help establish a social order in which the freedom of the individual will truly mean the freedom of the individual."

Read quote 16 likes
Niccolo Machiavelli Political Philosopher, Historian
Mean

"For that reason, let a prince have the credit of conquering and holding his state, the means will always be considered honest, and he will be praised by everybody because the vulgar are always taken by what a thing seems to be and by what comes of it; and in the world there are only the vulgar, for the few find a place there only when the many have no ground to rest on."

Read quote 16 likes
Mean

"So I'm not crazy after all! I thought it looked good myself once I cut it all off. Not one guy likes it, though. They all tell me I look like a first grader or a concentration camp survivor. What's this thing that guys have for girls with long hair? Fascists, the whole bunch of them! Why do guys all think girls with long hair are the classiest, the sweetest, the most feminine? I mean, I myself know at least two hundred and fifty unclassy girls with long hair. Really."

Read quote 16 likes
Henri Nouwen Theologian, Author
Mean

"When you're on the bus or subway or in your car, why busy your mind with all the garbage of advertisements? Why fill your mind with television and radio? Somehow you have to decide what your mind will receive. I don't mean you shouldn't ever go to movies or watch television, but control what enters your mind and heart. It's not just a question of pushing bad things out but also a question of holding on to something really good."

Read quote 16 likes
George Washington Carver Agricultural Scientist, Inventor
Mean

"The rapid growth of industry, the ever increasing population and the imperative need for a more varied, wholesome and nourishing foodstuff makes it all the more necessary to exhaust every means at our command to fill the empty dinner pail, enrich our soils, bring greater wealth and influence to our beautiful South land, which is synonymous to a healthy, happy and contented people."

Read quote 16 likes
Gilbert Parker Author, Politician
Mean

"In all secrets there is a kind of guilt, however beautiful or joyful they may be, or for what good end they may be set to serve. Secrecy means evasion, and evasion means a problem to the moral mind."

Read quote 16 likes
Groucho Marx Actor, Comedian, Writer
Mean

"Oh, why can't we break away from all this, just you and I, and lodge with my fleas in the hills? I mean flee to my lodge in the hills."

Read quote 16 likes
Franz Kafka Writer
Mean

"My peers, lately, have found companionship through means of intoxication - it makes them sociable. I, however, cannot force myself to use drugs to cheat on my loneliness - it is all that I have - and when the drugs and alcohol dissipate, will be all that my peers have as well."

Read quote 16 likes
Henry Miller Novelist, Essayist
Mean

"I think someday you're going to be a great writer," he said. "But" he added maliciously, "first you'll have to suffer a bit. I mean really suffer, because you don't know what the word means yet. You only think you've suffered. You've got to fall in love first."

Read quote 16 likes
Freeman Dyson Theoretical Physicist
Mean

"Just because you see pictures of glaciers falling into the ocean doesn't mean anything bad is happening. This is something that happens all the time. It's part of the natural cycle of things. We know from measurements that glaciers have been melting for 200 years at least."

Read quote 16 likes
Friedrich Nietzsche Philosopher, Writer
Mean

"I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, and the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means are venomous enough, or secret, subterranean and small enough - I call it the one immortal blemish on the human race."

Read quote 16 likes
Fyodor Dostoevsky Novelist, Philosopher
Mean

"The enemies of living life; outdated little liberals, afraid of their own independence; lackeys of thought, enemies of the person and freedom, decrepit preachers of carrion and rot! What do they have: gray heads, the golden mean, the most abject and philistine giftlessness, envious equality, equality without personal dignity, equality as understood by a lackey or a Frenchman of the year ninety-three...And scoundrells, above all, scoundrels, scoundrels everywhere!"

Read quote 16 likes