Philip Roth Quotes

Self pity is the worst possible emotion anyone can have. And the most destructive. It is, to slightly paraphrase what Wilde said about hatred, and I think actually hatred's a subset of self pity and not the other way around - 'It destroys everything around it, except itself.'

Negative emotions like hatred destroy our peace of mind.

Hate gets going, it goes round, it gets older and tighter and older and tighter, until it holds a person inside it like a fist holds a stick.

Hatred is like a long, dark shadow. Not even the person it falls upon knows where it comes from, in most cases. It is like a two-edged sword. When you cut the other person, you cut yourself. The more violently you hack at the other person, the more violently you hack at yourself. It can often be fatal. But it is not easy to dispose of. Please be careful, Mr.Okada. It is very dangerous. Once it has taken root in your heart, hatred is the most difficult think in the world to shake off.

Often does hatred hurt itself.

Words. Borne on the ever swelling current of hatred, like flowers opening in the current, petals peeling back, then falling apart.

That is what hatred is. It will feed you and at the same time turn you to rot. It is hard and deep and angular, a system of blockades. It is everything and total. Hatred is a high tower. In the Wilds, I start to build, and to climb.

Hatred can eat at you until there's nothing left, until you become the thing you hate.

Hatred is the most destructive force on earth. It does the most damage to those who harbor it.

Hatred is the spiritual malignancy of our species, and like any other form of cancer, does its most terrible work not outwardly, but from within us.

Anger, jealousy, impatience, and hatred are the real troublemakers, with them problems cannot be solved.

Hatred is one of the poisons; like jaundice, it alters the true colors of things.

A foolishness is inflicted with a hatred of itself.

The fiend in his own shape is less hideous than when he rages in the breast of men.

If you have rage and righteously act it out and blame it all on others, it's really you who suffers. The other people and the environment suffer also, but you suffer more because you're being eaten up inside with rage, causing you to hate yourself more and more

The hatred we bear our enemies injures their happiness less than our own.

He who harbors hatred and bitterness injures himself far more than the one towards whom he manifests these evil propensities.

To one's enemies: "I hate myself more than you ever could.

Greatness inspires envy, envy engenders spite, spite spawns lies.

The neurotic lies awake at night, composing letters to those he hates. He seldom thinks of dropping a line to those he loves.

There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed.

For in the voyage of the heart, there is a freight of hatred, and the wind of wrath blows shrill.

Hatred is love frustrated.

Jealousy endlessly eats through my mind, and jealously endlessly makes me be unkind.