Offence quotes:

Send

Almost every desire a poor man has is a punishable offence. -- Louis-Ferdinand Celine
I have the conviction that excessive literary production is a social offence. -- George Eliot
The theologian considers sin mainly as an offence against God; the moral philosopher as contrary to reasonableness. -- Thomas Aquinas
How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense, and love the offender, yet detest the offence? -- Alexander Pope
An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may. -- William Hazlitt
Offence is important; that's how you know you care about things. Imagine a life where you're not offended. So dull. -- Marcus Brigstocke
No man lives without jostling and being jostled; in all ways he has to elbow himself through the world, giving and receiving offence. -- Thomas Carlyle
I fear a permanent Confederation will never be settled; tho the most material articles are I think got thro', so as to give great offence to some, but to my Satisfaction. -- William Whipple
When I was in my 20s it did occur to me that there was something perverted about an attitude that thought that killing somebody was a minor offence compared to kissing somebody. -- John McGahern
Offence is like muddy soil; when trapped underfoot, it resists rapid progress. Don't trap offences under your mind, else you resist change! Jesus said "Shake the soil off your sandals"! What are you waiting for? Shake it off! -- Israelmore Ayivor
I find that to be a fool as to worldly wisdom, and to commit my cause to God, not fearing to offend men, who take offence at the simplicity of truth, is the only way to remain unmoved at the sentiments of others. -- John Woolman
A small unkindness is a great offence. -- Hannah More
O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven -- William Shakespeare
Pardon one offence, and you encourage the commission of many. -- Publilius Syrus
Perfect soldier, perfect gentleman never gave offence to anyone not even the enemy. -- A. J. P. Taylor
What dire offence from am'rous causes springs, What mighty contests rise from trivial things,... -- Alexander Pope
Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange power, After offence returning, to regain Love once possess'd. -- John Milton
Your accumulated offences do not surpass the multitude of God's mercies: your wounds do not surpass the great Physician's skill. -- Cyril of Jerusalem
I'm a great dog fanatic. My own dog died a little while ago and I take it very personally when things die-it's a major offence. -- Clive Barker
If I take offence easily; if I am content to continue in cold unfriendliness, though friendship be possible, then I know nothing of Calvary love. -- Amy Carmichael
Those who offend us are generally punished for the offence they give; but we so frequently miss the satisfaction of knowing that we are avenged !. -- Anthony Trollope
In the bonds of Death He lay Who for our offence was slain; But the Lord is risen to-day, Christ hath brought us life again, Wherefore let us all rejoice, Singing loud, with cheerful voice, Hallelujah! -- Martin Luther
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down. -- Robert Frost
When I am at Rome I fast as the Romans do; when I am at Milan I do not fast. So likewise you, whatever church you come to, observe the custom of the place, if you would neither give offence to others, nor take offence from them. -- Ambrose
We forgive, we mortify our resentment; a week later some chain of thought carries us back to the original offence and we discover the old resentment blazing away as if nothing had been done about it at all. We need to forgive our brother seventy times seven not only for 490 offences but for one offence. -- C. S. Lewis
The offence is what is improperly called the death of an infant, who has ceased to be, before knowing what existence is, a result of a nature not to give the slightest inquietude to the most timid imagination; and which can cause no regrets but to the very person who, through a sentiment of shame and pity, has refused to prolong a life begun under the auspices of misery. -- Jeremy Bentham
Long hair is an unpardonable offence which should be punishable by death. -- Steven Patrick Morrissey
Tis easier for the generous to forgive, than for offence to ask it. -- James Thomson
Vatican City is a bit overrated in my opinion - no offence to the Vatican. -- Ed Stoppard
I think a bishop who doesn't give offence to anyone is probably not a good bishop. -- James Thomson
Let go of offence. Let go of fear. Let go of revenge. Don't live angry, let go now! -- Joel Osteen
People seem to take as much offence as they possibly can these days - it's almost a new type of greed, a new kind of road rage. -- Michael Leunig
Humans are nervous, touchy creatures and can be easily offended. Many are deeply insecure. They become focused and energized by taking offence; it makes them feel meaningful and alive. -- Michael Leunig
In Australia, we point out a person's weaknesses as a way of saying 'I see you and I accept you'. If you do that with Americans, they instantly take offence. -- Andrew Dominik
Imams must ridicule Caliphate fantasies. Exchange programmes between Muslim-only schools and non-Muslim-majority schools should be initiated. Community-based debates around these themes must no longer be shut down from fear of offence. -- Maajid Nawaz
The merit of 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold,' then - or its offence, depending where you stood - was not that it was authentic, but that it was credible. -- John le Carre
I was in Estonia when a professor asked me if I was aware that making any criticism of the Red Army during the war was now an imprisonable offence. I was quite shaken. -- Antony Beevor
A government that can at pleasure accuse, shoot, and hang men, as traitors, for the one general offence of refusing to surrender themselves and their property unreservedly to its arbitrary will, can practice any and all special and particular oppressions it pleases. -- Lysander Spooner
When a Cabinet Minister who is sacked for telling lies is re-appointed, in the face of every constitutional convention, only for the same man to be sacked again from the same Cabinet for the same offence by the same Prime Minister no wonder the public are cynical about politics. -- William Hague
The best defense is a good offence -- Proverb
It is gracious to overlook and offence. -- Lailah Gifty Akita
The greatest offence against virtue is to speak ill of it. -- William Hazlitt
Excusing bad programming is a shooting offence, no matter what the circumstances. -- Linus Torvalds
Care must be taken that the punishment does not exceed the offence. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero
The abuse of children is the worst offence that anybody can commit. -- Ann Widdecombe
No offence Mitch, but you look like s*****." "I feel like s**** -- Vince Flynn
Tis easier for the generous to forgive, than for offence to ask it -- James Thomson
Satire, being levelled at all, is never resented for an offence by any. -- Jonathan Swift
Let the punishment be equal with the offence. [Lat., Noxiae poena par esto.] -- Marcus Tullius Cicero
Sometimes, I, anyway, get tired of playing defence, and like to play offence. -- Bill McKibben
Mill was very clear on this point: offence should not be confused with harm. -- Nigel Warburton
The only 'natural enemies' are those who take one's very nature as an offence. -- Simon May
When you commit a serious doping offence you are not eligible for lottery funding. -- John Scott
The crime of bribery of foreign officials is an offence under the Commonwealth Criminal Code. -- George Brandis
All zeal for a reform, that gives offence To peace and charity, is mere pretence. -- William Cowper
--
Even bear-baiting was esteemed heathenish and unchristian: the sport of it, not the inhumanity, gave offence. -- Alexander Hume
All taboos serve different human interests by avoiding those things which threaten to cause offence or distress -- Kate Burridge
The public scandal is what constitutes the offence: sins sinned in secret are no sins at all. -- Moliere
I am very sorry if I have caused any offence. It was a poor choice of costume. -- Prince Harry
We do not tell old friends beneath our roof-tree that they are an offence to the eyesight. -- P. G. Wodehouse
Sir, with no intention to take offence, I deny your right to put words into my mouth. -- Robert Louis Stevenson
Underhand euphemism are used, not so much to conceal offence and to deliberately disguise a topic and deceive -- Kate Burridge
Truly upon mortals cometh swift of foot their evil and his offence upon him that trespasseth against Right. -- Aeschylus
The scandal of the world is what makes the offence; it is not sinful to sin in silence. -- Moliere
Leaders create influence with the clays of criticism others throw at them. They don't take offence; they take corrections. -- Israelmore Ayivor
Indulgent gods, grant me to sin once with impunity. That is sufficient. Let a second offence bear its punishment. -- Ovid
In the 1950s, buggery was a criminal offence. Now it's a requirement to receive benefits from the federal government. -- Garry Breitkreuz
Cleanliness is not next to godliness nowadays, for cleanliness is made an essential and godliness is regarded as an offence. -- Gilbert K. Chesterton
To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain. -- William Gilmore Simms
True delicacy, as true generosity, is more wounded by an offence from itself--if I may be allowed the expression--than to itself. -- Sir Fulke Greville
What do you care? You always liked loneliness better than you liked people. No offence liking yourself's the beginning of all love. -- Fritz Leiber
There is no greater offence than harbouring desires. There is no greater disaster than discontent. There is no greater misfortune than wanting more. -- Laozi
Watch the too indignantly righteous. Before long you will find them committing or condoning the very offence which they have so fiercely censured. -- Sri Aurobindo
To take offence is a great folly, and to give offence is a great folly -- I know not which is the greater ... -- Amelia Barr
Reproof, especially as it relates to children, administered in all gentleness, will render the culprit not afraid, but ashamed to repeat the offence. -- Hosea Ballou
Anytime you run a gimmick offence, you're a little bit afraid - you're not sound in what you're doing in your base stuff. -- Richard Sherman
If one sets a car on fire, that is a criminal offence. If one sets hundreds of cars on fire, that is political action. -- Ulrike Meinhof
When an oath is taken ... the mind is more attentive; for it guards against two things, the reproach of friends and offence against the gods. -- Sophocles
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind. -- Edward Gibbon
The moderate are not usually the most sincere, for the same circumspection which makes them moderate makes them likewise retentive of what could give offence. -- Walter Savage Landor
It ought to be a criminal offence for women to dye their hair. Especially red. What the devil do women do that sort of thing for? -- P. G. Wodehouse
Take advantage of the gracious condescension of the elegant calf's kidney, multiply its metamorphoses: you can without giving it any offence, call it the chameleon of cuisine. -- Emmanuel des Essarts
Man and wife are equally concerned, to avoid all offence of each other, in the beginning of their conversation. Every little thing can blast an infant blossom. -- Jeremy Taylor
The fastidious taste will find offence in the occasional vulgarisms, or what we now call slang, which not a few of our writers seem to have affected. -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The two exist because of the One, But hold not even to this One; When the one Consciousness -is not disturbed, The ten thousand things offer no offence. -- Sengcan
Love is patient and kind.It's never jealous.Love is never boastful or conceited.It is never rude or selfish.It does not take offence and is not resentful -- Nicholas Sparks
For granting we have sinned, and that the offence Of man is made against Omnipotence, Some price that bears proportion must be paid, And infinite with infinite be weighed. -- John Dryden
Honestly some folk will take offence at anything, I met a bloke with no legs this morning while at the bus stop, all I asked was "How are you getting on?" -- Billy Connolly
Bassanio: Do all men kill all the things they do not love? Shylock: Hates any man the thing he would not kill? Bassanio: Every offence is not a hate at first. -- William Shakespeare
David Irving is under arrest in Austria for Holocaust denial. Perhaps there is a case for making climate change denial an offence - it is a crime against humanity after all. -- Margo Kingston
As in smooth oil the razor best is whet, So wit is by politeness sharpest set; Their want of edge from their offence is seen, Both pain us least when exquisitely keen. -- Edward Young
He pivoted on one buttock and broke wind. Dukhi leaned back to allow it free passage, wondering what penalty might adhere to the offence of interfering with the waft of brahminical flatus. -- Rohinton Mistry
This is the slowest, yet the daintiest sense; For ev'n the ears of such as have no skill, Perceive a discord, and conceive offence; And knowing not what's good, yet find the ill. -- Sir John Davies
My belief is, from all that I have seen of the French people and their Government, that they are much more likely to presume upon our weakness than to take offence at our strength. -- Robert Peel
Now, if anything at all can be known to be wrong, it seems to me to be unshakably certain that it would be wrong to make any sentient being suffer eternally for any offence whatever. -- Antony Flew
Wrap thyself in the decent veil that the arts or the graces weave for thee, O human nature! It is only the statue of marble whose nakedness the eye can behold without shame and offence! -- Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Being covered in white paint ,you demonstrate behaviour intended to create a public nuisance,which did in fact cause offence to members of the public ,and created a breach of the peace and public order. -- Gunter Brus
The national laws of the five regions of India prescribe no cangue, beatings or prison. Those who are guilty are fined in accordance with the degree of the offence committed. There is no capital punishment. -- Hyecho
I believe that without strict enforcement of penalties for any offence violating the principles of truth and honesty, Nigeria and Africa will not be able to move from our present state of underdevelopment into civilization. -- Sunday Adelaja

Send