I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds: I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
There is nothing harder than the softness of indifference.
—Juan Montalvo (1832–89) Ecuadorian Author, Essayist
The worst sin… is… to be indifferent.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
A different world cannot be built by indifferent people.
—Peter Marshall (1902–49) Scottish-American Preacher, 57th US Senate Chaplain
Nothing for preserving the body like having no heart.
—Jean Antoine Petit-Senn (1792–1870) French-Swiss Lyric Poet
Indifference never wrote great works, nor thought out striking inventions, nor reared the solemn architecture that awes the soul, nor breathed sublime music, nor painted glorious pictures, nor undertook heroic philanthropies.—All these grandeurs are born of enthusiasm, and are done heartily.
—Anonymous
Wherever the citizen becomes indifferent to his fellows, so will the husband be to his wife, and the father of a family toward the members of his household.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835) German Philosopher, Linguist, Statesman
Men are accomplices to that which leaves them indifferent.
—George Steiner (1929–2020) American Critic, Scholar
Lukewarmness I account a sin, as great in love as in religion.
—Abraham Cowley (1618–67) English Poet, Essayist
Nothing can contribute more to peace of soul than the lack of any opinion whatever.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) German Philosopher, Physicist
Set honor in one eye, and death in the other, and I will look on both indifferently.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: That’s the essence of inhumanity.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
It means nothing to me. I have no opinion about it, and I don’t care.
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish Painter, Sculptor, Artist
Only one enemy is worse than despair: indifference. In every area of human creativity, indifference is the enemy; indifference of evil is worse than evil, because it is also sterile.
—Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) Romanian-American Writer, Professor, Activist
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