Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

You hate evil, but you don't hate the people that do evil. So, hate has to go out the window.

I don’t understand hate. I’ve seen its power. I’ve known its wrath. I’ve even felt it coursing through my veins, pushing me on. But I don’t know where it comes from or why it lasts, how it can take hold in some people and grow.

I've become more empathetic, and my capacity to understand and be patient - to give people a break - has enlarged over the years.

What the world most needs today are negative virtues - not minding people, not being huffy, touchy, irritable or revengeful.

Do not be the judge of people; do not make assumptions about others. A person is destroyed by holding judgments about others.

I fear that we are living in a society, living in a world where forgiving people is becoming more and more difficult to do.

Gay people don't have a personality problem. They have a problem with small-minded motherfuckers who can't conquer a 1-inch high curb.

Man and his deed are two distinct things. Whereas a good deed should call forth approbation and a wicked deed dis-approbation, the doer of the deed, whether good or wicked always deserves respect or pity as the case may be. Hate the sin and not the sinner is a precept which though easy enough to understand is rarely practised, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world.

People who carry a musical soul about them are, I think, more receptive than others. They smile more readily. One feels in them a pleasant propensity toward the lesser sins, a pleasing readiness also to admit the possibility that on occasion they may be in the wrong--they may be mistaken.

Don't punish yourselves for people's ignorant reactions to what we all are. Don't let ignorance win. Let love.

We need to be open minded to understand that there are lots of different levels of things going on and we shouldn't be so quick to judge - and certainly not to judge a whole race, a whole religion or a whole people - and a lot of that is going on.

Hate the sin and not the sinner' is a precept which, though easy enough to understand, is rarely practiced, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world.

I'd always thought of myself as an open-minded person. I had no patience with anyone who put down other kids because of their race, religion, or sexuality. But that's just one kind of open-mindedness. There's another kind, too, the kind that's willing to see people for who they really are and admit when you were wrong about them. That's the part I still need to work on.

Once you have accepted yourself, it's so much easier to accept other people and their points of view.

Believe the best about people. Pray for their short comings. You are not the standard. We all need grace.

If I could have one wish, it would be for people to look at one another with open hearts and minds. Most of all, to look at each other with compassion. No matter who they are.

People who hate in concrete terms are dangerous. People who manage to hate only in abstracts are the ones worth having for your friends.

I've had that experience of not liking people very much, but having tremendous respect for them.

People are really trying their best. Just like being happy and sad, you will find yourself on both sides of the equation many times over your lifetime, either saying or hearing the wrong thing. Let's all give each other a pass, shall we?

Grant people a lifetime of forgiveness before you even meet them.

In our relations with the people around us, we forgive them more readily for what they do, which they can help, than for what they are, which they cannot help.

Even when people act nastily to you, don't condemn them or retaliate.

Hating people isn’t a productive way of living. So what’s the point in hating anyone? There’s enough hate in the world as it is, without me adding to it.

We can never truly understand the people we hate; we can never truly hate the people we understand.

If you can't have a good time and smile and relate to people across race and class, then the success that you have ultimately is just sounding brass and tinkling symbol.