Gore Vidal - Salman Rushdie - Richard Dawkins TV - Harper Lee - William Shakespeare - Alexander Pope - Stephen Fry - Christopher Hitchens - John Dryden - Proverbs 18:19 - Hosea 5:7&9&10&14&15 - Matthew 5:29 - Matthew 26:31-33 - Luke 17:1 - Tacitus - Rene Descartes - Marcus Tullius Cicero - Clarence Darrow - Better Call Saul TV - Offended by Irvin Walsh TV - John Lydon - Mencius - Daniel Dennett -
Never offend an enemy in a small way. Gore Vidal, cited Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia, 2013
What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist. Salman Rushdie, Guardian 10th February 1990
If you are offended it is your problem, and frankly lots of things offend lots of people. Salman Rushdie
It’s funny the way one uses words like insult and offence but only for religion ... You don’t have to feel insulted or offended unless of course you haven’t got an argument in reply. Richard Dawkins, interview Newstalk 20th September 2009
A widespread assumption, which nearly everybody in our society accepts – the non-religious included – is that religious faith is especially vulnerable to offence and should be protected by an abnormally thick wall of respect, in a different class from the respect that any human being should pay to any other. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion p20
She has committed no crime, she has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society, a code so severe that whoever breaks it is hounded from our midst as unfit to live with. She is the victim of cruel poverty and ignorance, but I cannot pity her: she is white. She knew full well the enormity of her offense, but because her desires were stronger than the code she was breaking, she persisted in breaking it. She persisted, and her subsequent reaction is something that all of us have known at one time or another. She did something every child has done – she tried to put the evidence of her offense away from her. But in this case she was no child hiding stolen contraband: she struck out at her victim – of necessity she must put him away from her – he must be removed from her presence, from this world. She must destroy the evidence of her offense. Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
I’ll so offend to make offence a skill,
Redeeming time when men think least I will. William Shakespeare, I Henry VI I ii 213-214
Tell me wherein I have offended most? William Shakespeare, The First Part of the Contention II Henry VI IV vii 94, Saye
I am myself indifferent honest. But yet I could accuse me of such things, that it were better my mother had not borne me. I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at by beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. William Shakespeare, Hamlet III i 123-140, Hamlet to Ophelia
O, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven. ibid. III iii 36, King
And where the offence is let the great axe fall. ibid. IV v 218
Alas! ’tis true I have gone here and there,
And made myself a motley to the view,
Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
Made old offences of affections new. William Shakespeare, Sonnet 110
Great wits may sometimes gloriously offend,
And rise to faults true critics dare not mend.
From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part
And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art. Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism, 1711
What dire offence from am’rous causes springs,
What mighty contests rise from trivial things. Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock, 1714
There are two words that have become rather creepy in the last two years, and one is respect ... The other is offence. Stephen Fry, in conversation with Christopher Hitchens
It’s simply a whine. It’s no more than a whine. I find that offensive – it has no meaning, it has no purpose, no reason to be respected as a phrase – I am offended by that – well so fucking what! ibid.
When the Washington Post telephoned me at home on Valentine’s Day 1989 to ask my opinion about the Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwah, I felt at once that here was something that completely committed me. It was, if I can phrase it like this, a matter of everything I hated versus everything I loved. In the hate column: dictatorship, religion, stupidity, demagogy, censorship, bullying, and intimidation. In the love column: literature, irony, humor, the individual, and the defense of free expression. Plus, of course, friendship – though I like to think that my reaction would have been the same if I hadn’t known Salman at all. To re-state the premise of the argument again: the theocratic head of a foreign despotism offers money in his own name in order to suborn the murder of a civilian citizen of another country, for the offense of writing a work of fiction. No more root-and-branch challenge to the values of the Enlightenment (on the bicentennial of the fall of the Bastille) or to the First Amendment to the Constitution, could be imagined. President George H W Bush, when asked to comment, could only say grudgingly that, as far as he could see, no American interests were involved. Christopher Hitchens Hitch-22: A Memoir
She hugged the offender, and forgave the offence. John Dryden, 1631-1700, Cymon and Iphigenia
They have dealt treacherously against the Lord: for they have begotten strange children: now shall a month devour them with their portions.
Ephraim shall be desolate in the day of rebuke: among the tribes of Israel have I made known that which shall surely be.
The princes of Judah were like them that remove the bound: therefore I will pour out my wrath upon them like water.
For I will be unto Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the house of Judah: I, even I, will tear and go away; I will take away, and none shall rescue him.
I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me early. Hosea 5:7&9&10&14&15
A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city: and their contentions are like the bars of a castle. Proverbs 18:19
And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. Matthew 5:29
Then saith Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad.
But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.
Peter answered and said unto him, Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended. Matthew 26:31-33
Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come! Luke 17:1
To show resentment at a reproach is to acknowledge that one may have deserved it. Tacitus
Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it. Rene Descartes
Let the punishment match the offence. Marcus Tullius Cicero
No other offense has ever been visited with such severe penalties as seeking to help the oppressed. Clarence Darrow
All that’s left is your many many misdemeanours which include graffiti, vandalism, littering, public urination … Better Call Saul s5e4: Namaste, Saul to client in clink, AMC 2020