Easily Offended People Quotes

There are four kinds of people in this world: cretins, fools, morons, and lunatics…Cretins don’t even talk; they sort of slobber and stumble…Fools are in great demand, especially on social occasions. They embarrass everyone but provide material for conversation…Fools don’t claim that cats bark, but they talk about cats when everyone else is talking about dogs. They offend all the rules of conversation, and when they really offend, they’re magnificent…Morons never do the wrong thing. They get their reasoning wrong. Like the fellow who says that all dogs are pets and all dogs bark, and cats are pets, too, therefore cats bark…Morons will occasionally say something that’s right, but they say it for the wrong reason…A lunatic is easily recognized. He is a moron who doesn’t know the ropes. The moron proves his thesis; he has logic, however twisted it may be. The lunatic on the other hand, doesn’t concern himself at all with logic; he works by short circuits. For him, everything proves everything else. The lunatic is all idée fixe, and whatever he comes across confirms his lunacy. You can tell him by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up the Templars…There are lunatics who don’t bring up the Templars, but those who do are the most insidious. At first they seem normal, then all of a sudden…

His habit of reading isolated him: it became such a need that after being in company for some time he grew tired and restless; he was vain of the wider knowledge he had acquired from the perusal of so many books, his mind was alert, and he had not the skill to hide his contempt for his companions' stupidity. They complained that he was conceited; and, since he excelled only in matters which to them were unimportant, they asked satirically what he had to be conceited about. He was developing a sense of humour, and found that he had a knack of saying bitter things, which caught people on the raw; he said them because they amused him, hardly realising how much they hurt, and was much offended when he found that his victims regarded him with active dislike. The humiliations he suffered when he first went to school had caused in him a shrinking from his fellows which he could never entirely overcome; he remained shy and silent. But though he did everything to alienate the sympathy of other boys he longed with all his heart for the popularity which to some was so easily accorded. These from his distance he admired extravagantly; and though he was inclined to be more sarcastic with them than with others, though he made little jokes at their expense, he would have given anything to change places with them.

God is loving you into better relationships. He is loving you into being a more loving person. The more we grow in love, the less offended we become. The less offended we become, the more easily and quickly we get healed when people do wound us.

In India books are nearly always banned at the request of people who do not read but whose literary sensibilities are easily offended.

People who are easily offended should live on an island to avoid offenses!

over and over victims are blamed for their assaults. and when we imply that victims bring on their own fates - whether to make ourselves feel more efficacious or to make the world seem just - we prevent ourselves from taking the necessary precautions to protect ourselves. Why take precautions? We deny the trauma could easily have happened to us. And we also hurt the people already traumatized. Victims are often already full of self-doubt, and we make recovery harder by laying inspectors blame on them.

Love is hard to offend and quick to forgive. How easily do you get irritated and offended? Some people live by the motto, “Never pass up an opportunity to get upset with your spouse.” When something goes wrong, they quickly take full advantage of it by expressing how hurt or frustrated they are. But this is the opposite reaction of love.

Most violent criminals are impulsive, disorganized, and easily caught. The vast majority of homicides are committed by people known to the victim and, despite game attempts to throw off the police, these offenders are usually identified and arrested. It’s a tiny minority of criminals, maybe 5 percent, who present the biggest challenge—the ones whose crimes reveal preplanning and unremorseful rage.

because you're going to get halfway through this book and giggle at non sequiturs about Hitler and abortions and poverty, and you'll feel superior to all the uptight, easily offended people who need to learn how to take a fucking joke, but then somewhere in here you'll read one random thing you're sensitive about, and everyone else will think it's hysterical, but you think, "Oh, that is way over the line." I apologize for that one thing. Honestly, I don't know what I was thinking.

Don't be brittle as glass in dealing with people. And especially with friends. Some people crack easily, revealing their fragility. They fill up with offence and fill others with annoyance. They reveal a nature so petty and sensitive that it tolerates nothing, in jest or in earnest. The slightest thing offends them, so insults are never necessary. Those who have dealings with them have to tread carefully, always attending to their sensibilities and adjusting to their temperaments, since the slightest snub annoys them. They are completely self-centred...

He's been given the boot!' Lofton insisted, directing his anger now at Mister Walton. 'And I think it wise not to interfere!' 'I don't like to benefit from another's misfortune,' said Mister Walton with a straight face, and never losing his peaceful demeanor. ' But the hotel's loss, in this case, is my gain, I fear.' 'Mr. Hubbard will be gravely offended!' said Lofton darkly. 'I can't imagine it,' quipped the bespectacled fellow. 'Only small people are easily offended.' Lofton, who until now had done his best to appear offended, found himself at a loss for a response.

The process of enlightenment and evolution can never happen without the realisation of shortcomings. People, when they think they are the best and can’t get any better, are easily offended when others see room for improvement. But it is when you think you are already the best that you have put a ceiling right on top of your head, a ceiling made of concrete, that stops you from becoming any better! Be happy when you see an area for improvement! Be happy that someone pointed it out to you, be happy that there is still space above you for you to reach towards; and not just an impenetrable ceiling of satisfaction and ideology.

Epic Steam is easily offended. He has high standards of behavior with regard to his own person, and every human he has met so far has offended them. Other horses aren’t so bad—they have been capable of learning, and so they don’t offend him, and he isn’t mean with them, only bossy. It’s the people who are blind and stubborn.

Did you notice how, like, half of this introduction was a rambling parenthetical? That shit is going to happen all the time. I apologize in advance for that, and also for offending you, because you're going to get halfway through this book and giggle at non sequiturs about Hitler and abortions and poverty, and you'll feel superior to all the uptight, easily offended people who need to learn how to take a f*cking joke, but then somewhere in here you'll read one random thing that you're sensitive about, and everyone else will think it's hysterical, but you'll think, "Oh, that is way over the line." I apologize for that one thing. Honestly, I don't know what I was thinking.

I’ve been a total ass to her. Nothing personal—I was just being myself. But I’m not a good guy. Not boyfriend material. I’ve always known that. I’m selfish. Impulsive. Easily offended. Chasing after whatever I want and then hating it as soon as I get it. I don’t think people can change. And I don’t know how to be any other way. And yet . . . For once in my life, I wish I were different.

The third occurrence of the words4 fits our own and the last times, where the lukewarm, the presumptuous, and those easily offended abound, whom of all people it is most difficult to move forward to better things.

People feeling strong at some stage of their life sometimes easily allow themselves to offend the weak, being more than sure they will stay unpunished for their behavior. But in due time, the reckoning comes for everything.

I have noticed that most people don’t use more than a pea size equivalent of their brain. They can’t process more than one idea each time. If I say that my grandparents were from Switzerland and then I was born somewhere else, they will forget the somewhere else and focus on Switzerland; If I say that my name originates in the South of France before saying my nationality, it becomes irrelevant as well. And I’m surprised at how many people get offended when I tell them I can easily brainwash them with new ideas and convince them that I’m right. It’s not my fault but theirs, for not knowing how to think. They shouldn’t blame the overthinker but the underthinker. And yet, I hear so many times this explanation for any kind of life problem: “You think too much”. Everything serves as an excuse to be stupid in this world. And then the majority wonders why getting a job is so difficult for them. It’s not for overthinkers. I used to be called for job interviews because I was a rule breaker; I would hide my age and be called because the interviewer wanted to ask me how old I am; or paint the letters of my CV in green and be called because it was the first to be noticed among thousands in black and white. The only problem about overthinking is that you will eventually overcome the norm. That’s why I don’t need a job anymore; I have outthought the majority.

There’s an interesting story about Abraham Lincoln. During the American Civil War he signed an order transferring certain regiments, but Secretary of War Edwin Stanton refused to execute it, calling the president a fool. When Lincoln heard he replied, ‘If Stanton said I’m a fool then I must be, for he’s nearly always right, and he says what he thinks. I’ll step over and see for myself.’ He did, and when Stanton convinced him the order was in error, Lincoln quietly withdrew it. Part of Lincoln’s greatness lay in his ability to rise above pettiness, ego, and sensitivity to other people’s opinions. He wasn’t easily offended. He welcomed criticism, and in doing so demonstrated one of the strengths of a truly great person: humility. So, have you been criticised? Make it a time to learn, not lose.

What did I receive from this lineage? Things I consider to be very valuable: a good raw intellect and a good tough body. A sense of independence and a realization that wherever I am is my home. A sense of humor. A sense of personal honor that results in a touchiness common to our people. We are easily offended and prone to violence when offended. When the only thing you own is your sense of honor, you tend to protect it at all costs.

I had a feeling she probably made friends with people pretty easily, and that could be a good thing for me too, since I'd always been a little on the reserved side. She probably had offended a lot of people too, but maybe they all just overlooked it, as i was finding it surprisingly easy to do. She seemed genuinely oblivious to the fact that anything she said could be potentially insulting, and for some reason that made it kind of forgivable.

Bubble: A safe space where people that don't like to be confronted with the consequences of their actions live. Often known as the perfect environment for those that are too immature to assume responsibility for their lack of realistic perception, and instead focus their energy in maintaining an image of perfection to the outside world, while hiding their real thoughts, quite usually very sadistic and selfish. Bubbles can easily blast when a small portion of truth or justified anger hits one, so people that live inside a bubble are particularly sensitive to those that tell them things they can't comprehend, even, and in particular, when such things are correlated with their immoral social behavior. And as people that live inside a bubble need the bubble as much as they fear the outside world, they often blend unrelated words with their own nonsense to keep the danger of having a bubble exploded far from sight. This includes being an hypocrite when calling one ungrateful, offending someone while calling such individual aggressive, and using negative depreciation with arguments that fit their agenda of keeping themselves within ignorance while bringing others further to that paradox. People that live in the bubble believe anything they hear but always assume that their beliefs are independent, as the bubble stops them from seeing further and admitting something they can't see or accept. Therefore, until the moment in which everyone will be happy to have a microchip attached to their brain and google glasses stopping them from seeing the world as it is, the bubble will be known as a transitory stage, between an unempathetic dumbness and being a brainless humanoid vegetal on two legs.

A while back a young woman from another state came to live with some of her relatives in the Salt Lake City area for a few weeks. On her first Sunday she came to church dressed in a simple, nice blouse and knee-length skirt set off with a light, button-up sweater. She wore hose and dress shoes, and her hair was combed simply but with care. Her overall appearance created an impression of youthful grace. Unfortunately, she immediately felt out of place. It seemed like all the other young women her age or near her age were dressed in casual skirts, some rather distant from the knee; tight T-shirt-like tops that barely met the top of their skirts at the waist (some bare instead of barely); no socks or stockings; and clunky sneakers or flip-flops. One would have hoped that seeing the new girl, the other girls would have realized how inappropriate their manner of dress was for a chapel and for the Sabbath day and immediately changed for the better. Sad to say, however, they did not, and it was the visitor who, in order to fit in, adopted the fashion (if you can call it that) of her host ward. It is troubling to see this growing trend that is not limited to young women but extends to older women, to men, and to young men as well. . . . I was shocked to see what the people of this other congregation wore to church. There was not a suit or tie among the men. They appeared to have come from or to be on their way to the golf course. It was hard to spot a woman wearing a dress or anything other than very casual pants or even shorts. Had I not known that they were coming to the school for church meetings, I would have assumed that there was some kind of sporting event taking place. The dress of our ward members compared very favorably to this bad example, but I am beginning to think that we are no longer quite so different as more and more we seem to slide toward that lower standard. We used to use the phrase “Sunday best.” People understood that to mean the nicest clothes they had. The specific clothing would vary according to different cultures and economic circumstances, but it would be their best. It is an affront to God to come into His house, especially on His holy day, not groomed and dressed in the most careful and modest manner that our circumstances permit. Where a poor member from the hills of Peru must ford a river to get to church, the Lord surely will not be offended by the stain of muddy water on his white shirt. But how can God not be pained at the sight of one who, with all the clothes he needs and more and with easy access to the chapel, nevertheless appears in church in rumpled cargo pants and a T-shirt? Ironically, it has been my experience as I travel around the world that members of the Church with the least means somehow find a way to arrive at Sabbath meetings neatly dressed in clean, nice clothes, the best they have, while those who have more than enough are the ones who may appear in casual, even slovenly clothing. Some say dress and hair don’t matter—it’s what’s inside that counts. I believe that truly it is what’s inside a person that counts, but that’s what worries me. Casual dress at holy places and events is a message about what is inside a person. It may be pride or rebellion or something else, but at a minimum it says, “I don’t get it. I don’t understand the difference between the sacred and the profane.” In that condition they are easily drawn away from the Lord. They do not appreciate the value of what they have. I worry about them. Unless they can gain some understanding and capture some feeling for sacred things, they are at risk of eventually losing all that matters most. You are Saints of the great latter-day dispensation—look the part.

As if reading his mind, she smiled happily up at him. “Gary really came through for us, didn’t he?” “Absolutely, ma petite. And Beau LaRue was not so bad either. Come, we cannot leave the poor man pacing the swamp. He will think we are engaging in something other than conversation.” Wickedly Savannah moved her body against his, her hands sliding provocatively, enticingly, over the rigid thickness straining his trousers. “Aren’t we?” she asked with that infuriating sexy smile he could never resist. “We have a lot of clean-up to do here, Savannah,” he said severely. “And we need to get word to our people, spread the society’s list through our ranks, warn those in danger.” Her fingers were working at the buttons of his shirt so that she could push the material aside to examine his chest and shoulder, where two of the worst wounds had been. She had to see his body for herself, touch him to assure herself he was completely healed. “I suggest, for now, that your biggest job is to create something for Gary to do so we can have a little privacy.” With a smooth movement, she pulled the shirt from over her head so that her full breasts gleamed temptingly at him. Gregori made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a moan. His hands came up to cup the weight of her in his palms, the feel of her soft, satin skin soothing after the burning torture of the tainted blood. His thumbs caressed the rosy tips into hard peaks. He bent his head slowly to the erotic temptation because he was helpless to do anything else. He needed the merging of their bodies after such a close call as much as she did. He could feel the surge of excitement, the rush of liquid heat through her body at the feel of his mouth pulling strongly at her breast. Gregori dragged her even closer, his hands wandering over her with a sense of urgency. Her need was feeding his. “Gary,” she whispered. “Don’t forget about Gary.” Gregori cursed softly, his hand pinning her hips so that he could strip away the offending clothes on her body. He spared the human a few seconds of his attention, directing him away from the cave. Savannah’s soft laughter was taunting, teasing. “I told you, lifemate, you’re always taking off my clothes.” “Then stop wearing the damn things,” he responded gruffly, his hands at her tiny waist, his mouth finding her flat stomach. “Someday my child will be growing right here,” he said softly, kissing her belly. His hands pinned her thighs so that he could explore easily without interruption. “A beautiful little girl with your looks and my disposition.” Savannah laughed softly, her arms cradling his head lovingly. “That should be quite a combination. What’s wrong with my disposition?” She was writhing under the onslaught of his hands and mouth, arcing her body more fully into his ministrations. “You are a wicked woman,” he whispered. “I would have to kill any man who treated my daughter the way I am treating you.” She cried out, her body rippling with pleasure. “I happen to love the way you treat me, lifemate,” she answered softly and cried out again when he merged their bodies, their minds, their hearts and souls.

Niobe earned the ire of the gods by bragging about her seven lovely daughters and seven “handsome sons—whom the easily offended Olympians soon slaughtered for her impertinence. Tantalus, Niobe’s father, killed his own son and served him at a royal banquet. As punishment, Tantalus had to stand for all eternity up to his neck in a river, with a branch loaded with apples dangling above his nose. Whenever he tried to eat or drink, however, the fruit would be blown away beyond his grasp or the water would recede. Still, while elusiveness and loss tortured Tantalus and Niobe, it is actually a surfeit of their namesake elements that has decimated central Africa. There’s a good chance you have tantalum or niobium in your pocket right now. Like their periodic table neighbors, both are dense, heat-resistant, noncorrosive metals that hold a charge well—qualities that make them vital for compact cell phones. In the mid-1990s cell phone designers started demanding both metals, especially tantalum, from the world’s largest supplier, the Democratic Republic of Congo, then called Zaire. Congo sits next to Rwanda in central Africa, and most of us probably remember the Rwandan butchery of the 1990s. But none of us likely remembers the day in 1996 when the ousted Rwandan government of ethnic Hutus spilled into Congo seeking “refuge. At the time it seemed just to extend the Rwandan conflict a few miles west, but in retrospect it was a brush fire blown right into a decade of accumulated racial kindling. Eventually, nine countries and two hundred ethnic tribes, each with its own ancient alliances and unsettled grudges, were warring in the dense jungles. Nonetheless, if only major armies had been involved, the Congo conflict likely would have petered out. Larger than Alaska and dense as Brazil, Congo is even less accessible than either by roads, meaning it’s not ideal for waging a protracted war. Plus, poor villagers can’t afford to go off and fight unless there’s money at stake. Enter tantalum, niobium, and cellular technology. Now, I don’t mean to impute direct blame. Clearly, cell phones didn’t cause the war—hatred and grudges did. But just as clearly, the infusion of cash perpetuated the brawl. Congo has 60 percent of the world’s supply of the two metals, which blend together in the ground in a mineral called coltan. Once cell phones caught on—sales rose from virtually zero in 1991 to more than a billion by 2001—the West’s hunger proved as strong as Tantalus’s, and coltan’s price grew tenfold. People purchasing ore for cell phone makers didn’t ask and didn’t care where the coltan came from, and Congolese miners had no idea what the mineral was used for, knowing only that white people paid for it and that they could use the profits to support their favorite militias. Oddly, tantalum and niobium proved so noxious because coltan was so democratic. Unlike the days when crooked Belgians ran Congo’s diamond and gold mines, no conglomerates controlled coltan, and no backhoes and dump trucks were necessary to mine it. Any commoner with a shovel and a good back could dig up whole pounds of the stuff in creek beds (it looks like thick mud). In just hours, a farmer could earn twenty times what his neighbor did all year, and as profits swelled, men abandoned their farms for prospecting. This upset Congo’s already shaky food supply, and people began hunting gorillas for meat, virtually wiping them out, as if they were so many buffalo. But gorilla deaths were nothing compared to the human atrocities. It’s not a good thing when money pours into a country with no government.

Keynes was a voracious reader. He had what he called ‘one of the best of all gifts – the eye which can pick up the print effortlessly’. If one was to be a good reader, that is to read as easily as one breathed, practice was needed. ‘I read the newspapers because they’re mostly trash,’ he said in 1936. ‘Newspapers are good practice in learning how to skip; and, if he is not to lose his time, every serious reader must have this art.’ Travelling by train from New York to Washington in 1943, Keynes awed his fellow passengers by the speed with which he devoured newspapers and periodicals as well as discussing modern art, the desolate American landscape and the absence of birds compared with English countryside.54 ‘As a general rule,’ Keynes propounded as an undergraduate, ‘I hate books that end badly; I always want the characters to be happy.’ Thirty years later he deplored contemporary novels as ‘heavy-going’, with ‘such misunderstood, mishandled, misshapen, such muddled handling of human hopes’. Self-indulgent regrets, defeatism, railing against fate, gloom about future prospects: all these were anathema to Keynes in literature as in life. The modern classic he recommended in 1936 was Forster’s A Room with a View, which had been published nearly thirty years earlier. He was, however, grateful for the ‘perfect relaxation’ provided by those ‘unpretending, workmanlike, ingenious, abundant, delightful heaven-sent entertainers’, Agatha Christie, Edgar Wallace and P. G. Wodehouse. ‘There is a great purity in these writers, a remarkable absence of falsity and fudge, so that they live and move, serene, Olympian and aloof, free from any pretended contact with the realities of life.’ Keynes preferred memoirs as ‘more agreeable and amusing, so much more touching, bringing so much more of the pattern of life, than … the daydreams of a nervous wreck, which is the average modern novel’. He loved good theatre, settling into his seat at the first night of a production of Turgenev’s A Month in the Country with a blissful sigh and the words, ‘Ah! this is the loveliest play in all the world.’55 Rather as Keynes was a grabby eater, with table-manners that offended Norton and other Bloomsbury groupers, so he could be impatient to reach the end of books. In the inter-war period publishers used to have a ‘gathering’ of eight or sixteen pages at the back of their volumes to publicize their other books-in-print. He excised these advertisements while reading a book, so that as he turned a page he could always see how far he must go before finishing. A reader, said Keynes, should approach books ‘with all his senses; he should know their touch and their smell. He should learn how to take them in his hands, rustle their pages and reach in a few seconds a first intuitive impression of what they contain. He should … have touched many thousands, at least ten times as many as he reads. He should cast an eye over books as a shepherd over sheep, and judge them with the rapid, searching glance with which a cattle-dealer eyes cattle.’ Keynes in 1927 reproached his fellow countrymen for their low expenditure in bookshops. ‘How many people spend even £10 a year on books? How many spend 1 per cent of their incomes? To buy a book ought to be felt not as an extravagance, but as a good deed, a social duty which blesses him who does it.’ He wished to muster ‘a mighty army … of Bookworms, pledged to spend £10 a year on books, and, in the higher ranks of the Brotherhood, to buy a book a week’. Keynes was a votary of good bookshops, whether their stock was new or second-hand. ‘A bookshop is not like a railway booking-office which one approaches knowing what one wants. One should enter it vaguely, almost in a dream, and allow what is there freely to attract and influence the eye. To walk the rounds of the bookshops, dipping in as curiosity dictates, should be an afternoon’s entertainment.

If so, sorry if that sounded a bit mean. But we’re better off without whoever just stomped off. Those people offend easily and are always whining about how they feel “unsafe,” or undercherished if their every clumsy kick, catch, and volley isn’t commemorated with trophies.

Inside the church community, I find inconsistency between the profession that humanity is fallen and the cautionary practices that should result from such a belief. For example, we don’t pay enough attention to the problem of a fallen mind—the idea that what I believe is probably wrong much of the time. I do find, rather, many people who are easily offended if anything is stated contrary to their way of thinking.

Emotionally mature people are realistic enough to not be offended easily and can laugh at themselves and their foibles. They aren’t perfectionistic and see themselves and others as fallible human beings, doing the best they can. Taking things too personally can be a sign of either narcissism or low self-esteem.

Oh, one last thing, if you were hoping or expecting a stale, boring, politically correct clinical treatise on EMS law, this ain’t it. If you are easily offended, this may not be the book for you. I write like I talk – one EMS provider to another, like normal fucking people. Enjoy.

They Don’t Take Everything Personally Emotionally mature people are realistic enough to not be offended easily and can laugh at themselves and their foibles. They aren’t perfectionistic and see themselves and others as fallible human beings, doing the best they can. Taking things too personally can be a sign of either narcissism or low self-esteem. Both traits cause problems in relationships because they lead people to constantly seek reassurance from others. In addition, people who take things personally often feel that they’re being evaluated, seeing slights and criticisms where they don’t exist. This kind of defensiveness consumes relationship energy like a black hole. In contrast, emotionally mature people understand that most of us can put our foot in our mouth at times. If you say you misspoke, they won’t insist on a postmortem to uncover potential unconscious negativity toward them. They can see a social gaffe as a mistake, not a rejection. They’re realistic enough to not feel unloved just because you made a mistake.

People who are faking who they are or who are faking everything in their life. Get easily offended by everything.

Sometimes I suspect we are all horrible people. Or at least, we are human people. Same thing. We are impatient, judgmental, irritating and irritated, grumpy, easily offended and the rest of it. So how to be kinder if it doesn’t come naturally? Fake it. Fake it a little bit at a time. Because there isn’t actually any difference between doing something nice for someone because you are naturally saintly and perfect, and doing something nice for someone because you are secretly demonic and trying to cover it up. It’s still an act of kindness either way, and you still made their lives better. Smile at people. Say hullo. Ask about their lives. Remember what they’ve told you about their lives. Do small things to try and help them. (They will not know you are horrible, do not worry. They will just perceive that you are helping.) Give people the benefit of the doubt. Remember that it’s more often stupidity to blame than evil, that everyone can screw up (including you) and what’s important is learning from that. Think “What would an actually kind person do now?” – and do that. Don’t beat yourself up when you fail. Just be as kind to yourself as you will be to others – even if you have to fake that. And good luck.

I have noticed that a lot of literary critics are bothered by the mixing of genres; indeed, some of them are so easily offended in this regard that they experience distress when faced with trifles like the use in a passage of fiction of concepts of theory (as if there were some fundamental difference between stories of people, animals, plants and objects on the one hand and stories of concepts on the other). What a torture it would be for them to read the island’s Book, in which it is common for a lyrical passage to give way to several pages of description related in chemical formulae!

No more was said. Mrs. Dunne had dropped her poison and was quite content. Mrs. Johnstone might pretend to be dense, but she was not as dense as all that, and even if the poison did not work very quickly its effect would not be entirely lost. Someday something might happen and Mrs. Johnstone would remember what she had said. Mrs. Dunne hated the Bells. Nothing would please her better than to see the Bells discredited, to watch them packing up and leaving Mureth. If she could accomplish that she would be happy, or so she thought. She hated all the Bell family, but Daisy was the worst, for Daisy was not only young and pretty, she was clever too. Daisy had discovered Mrs. Dunne’s vulnerable points and enjoyed pricking her where the pricks would hurt… and Mrs. Dunne, who liked hurting other people and making them squirm, disliked being hurt herself. It is curious but true that those who make a habit of saying unkind things are often the most easily hurt and offended when their victims retaliate.

If we expect perfection from man instead of God, we are indeed in trouble, and our personal problems, with others and with ourselves, are many. Our lives will then be easily soured. Take, for example, a common situation: wedding invitations. More than a few people are annoyed when they get one, because it means a gift, and they "feel cheap" sending just a card, even though only casual friends. However, if they do not get an invitation, they are then hurt or offended. In brief, sinful man will always milk trouble out of any situation. What then do you do? "It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes," that is, men at their highest and best are still not to be trusted, for they are sinners. Our trust or dependence must be in the Lord. Thus remember, people are sinners. If they hurt and disappoint you, it is because there is first of all something with you: you have put your trust in the creature rather than the Creator. We can enjoy people, be good friends and neighbors, and live best with them if we know ourselves and them as alike sinners, either saved or lost, but even as saved, still very capable of thoughtlessness and sin. Our trust must be in the Lord.

If you are easily upset, don’t continue year after year that way. If you allow little things like long lines, the weather, a grumpy salesman, or an inconsiderate receptionist to steal your joy, draw a line in the sand. Say, “You know what? That’s it. I’m not giving away my power anymore. I’m staying calm, cool, and collected. David J. Pollay, author of The Law of the Garbage Truck, was in a New York City taxicab when a car jumped out from a parking place right in front of it. His cabbie had to slam on the brakes, the car skidded, and the tires squealed, but the taxi stopped an inch from the other car. The driver of the other car whipped his head around, and honked and screamed in anger. But David was surprised when his cabbie just smiled real big, and waved at him. David said, “That man almost totaled your cab and sent us to the hospital. I can’t believe you didn’t yell back at him. How were you able to keep your cool?” The cab driver’s response, which David calls, “The Law of the Garbage Truck,” was this: “Many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they look for a place to dump it. And if you let them, they’ll dump it on you. So when someone wants to dump on you, don’t take it personally. It doesn’t have anything to do with you. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Believe me, you’ll be happier.” Successful people don’t allow garbage trucks to unload on them. If somebody dumps a load on you, don’t be upset. Don’t be angry. Don’t be offended. If you make that mistake, you’ll end up carrying their loads around and eventually you’ll dump them on somebody else. Keep your lid on. Sometimes you may need to have a steel lid. These days, though, so many people are dumping out poison through criticism, bad news, and anger, you’ll need to keep that lid on tight. We can’t stop people from dumping their garbage, but by keeping our lids on, we can tell them to recycle instead!

Some might be offended by being called crazy, but I love it. Thrive and bask in it. It means I’m unpredictable, and people fall into place easily around unpredictability.

When people are easily offended, it’s because they are not self-assured; they don’t know who they are or what they stand for, and so they view criticism (even when it is constructive) as an attack on their character and become deeply offended. Self-disciplined people don’t have this problem. They are confident, calm, and self-assured, and so it’s easy for them to take insults and criticisms on the chin.

If you want to know whether someone will change, just look at how often they get offended. People who are easily offended never change. On the other hand, those who swallow criticism well and reflect on it afterward are the meek who are determined to grow and become better people.

Wherever there is a Bible-taught Christian, one who has his Bible well marked and who daily feeds upon the Word with prayerful meditation, he will not be easily offended. Those are the people who are growing in Christ and working for Him all the time.

Anger and lust both cause us to see other people in a very flat, one-demensional way. When someone offends us, we easily define that person by that action and reduce the complexity of their being down to an entity that we wish was not there. ... As with adultery, murder starts with a thought that another person is really subhuman and should not be shown the respect of a being that reflects divinity in their humanity.

There are people who find satisfaction in their own touchy feelings, especially when they have just taken the deepest offence; at such moments they feel that they would rather be offended than not. These easily-ignited natures, if they are wise, are always full of remorse afterwards, when they reflect that they have been ten times as angry as they need have been.

Be careful when speaking to tiny minds, they are easily offended and and enraged!

13. The actions of Obstinate and Pliable confirm the simple lesson that the world does not easily or readily give up its citizens. Obstinate represents the intolerant class of people who think it foolish and senseless to give up all the comforts of this world for what they are convinced is nothing more than a fanciful delusion and a waste of time. According to Obstinate, our loyalties should be only to this world-its friendships, opportunities, riches, security, and approval. Obstinate believes the Word of God is unreliable and misleading and pleads for Christian to put his trust in the wisdom that comes from this world rather than in the wisdom that comes from Heaven. Pliable represents a different class of people. He is a rudderless ship, a man with mush for a backbone and a faltering will. He has no sense of his own moral failings and lacks anything that would act as a compass for his soul. He is windswept and wave-tossed. He is moved by the moment like butter on a hot plate-easily persuaded and just as easily offended. 14.

What if forgiveness . . . is actually a way of wielding bolt cutters and snapping the chain that links us? Like, it is saying, what you did was so not OK that I refuse to be connected to it anymore . . . Free people aren’t controlled by the past. Free people laugh more than others. Free people see beauty where others do not. Free people are not easily offended. Free people are unafraid to speak truth to stupid. Free people are not chained to resentment. That’s worth fighting for.18

We don’t like to risk offending men. We find it hard to think of straight, white men as a homogeneous group, though it comes so easily when we think of other types of people, because we are used to affording such men the privilege of discrete identities.

WARNING: This book contains scenes and subject matter that are disgusting and disturbing; easily offended people are not the intended audience.

As I reflect on the scientific careers of the people I have known these last thirty years, it seems to me more and more that these career decisions hinge on character. Some people will happily jump on the next big thing, give it all they’ve got, and in this way make important contributions to fast-moving fields. Others just don’t have the temperament to do this. Some people need to think through everything very carefully, and this takes time, as they get easily confused. It’s not hard to feel superior to such people, until you remember that Einstein was one of them. In my experience, the truly shocking new ideas and innovations tend to come from such people. Still others—and I belong to this third group—just have to go their own way, and will flee fields for no better reason than that it offends them that some people are joining in because it feels good to be on the winning side. So I no longer get bothered when I disagree with what other people are doing, because I see that temperament pretty much determines what kind of science they will do. Luckily for science, the contributions of the whole range of types are needed. Those who do good science, I’ve come to think, do so because they choose problems that are suited to them.

I’ve also never flourished in the spotlight. The attention makes me snappy and sarcastic, and what I’ve been told is rude or out of touch with social cues. Though I’m not sure I’d take it that far. I’d call it direct and say other people get offended too easily.

The biggest appeasers are often the most foreign to those they appease because there is a sort of fear and reverence for the unknown. A brother doesn't hesitate to roast a brother when he needs to be roasted; a friend isn't afraid to criticize a friend when to them it could be beneficial. On the contrary, a society full of people so easily offended by one another is a society intimidated, fearful and divided, and the end result is the masses trampling on truth. It is at the heart of it all, at the root, where many are called 'victims' not so much because of emotional or moral convictions, but because of a lack of connection; not so much that they can bear only the good, but that they lack brotherhood. For perfect love casts out fear.