Apathy is a state of indifference, or the suppression of emotions such as concern, excitement, motivation, or passion. Profound apathy quotes will make you think hard about life while helping you keep your emotions in check.
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Most Famous Apathy Quotes
The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy. Montesquieu
The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference. Elie Wiesel
Willpower is the key to success. Successful people strive no matter what they feel by applying their will to overcome apathy, doubt or fear. Dan Millman
A lot of you cared, just not enough. Jay Asher
As far as I’m concerned, it’s a damned shame that a field as potentially dynamic and vital as journalism should be overrun with dullards, bums, and hacks, hag ridden with myopia, apathy, and complacence, and generally stuck in a bog of stagnant mediocrity. Hunter S. Thompson
Hating requires caring. In which case, I couldn’t possibly hate you. Alyson Noel
In communications, familiarity breeds apathy. William Bernbach
If I didn’t care for fun and such, I’d probably amount to much. But I shall stay the way I am, Because I do not give a damn. Dorothy Parker
The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead. William Lloyd Garrison
I will admit there’s a certain degree of giving a fuck that goes into not giving a fuck. by saying you don’t care if the world falls apart, in some small way you’re saying you want it to stay together, on your terms. David Levithan
Ignorance is a matter of laziness, indifference, and apathy. Tom Tancredo
All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume. Noam Chomsky
Apathy is a sort of living oblivion. Horace Greeley
How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property either as a child, a wife, or a concubine must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the faith all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome. Winston Churchill
All hippies around now just represent complete apathy. Joe Strummer
It’s a disease. Nobody thinks or feels or cares any more; nobody gets excited or believes in anything except their own comfortable little God damn mediocrity. Richard Yates
Fear is better than apathy because fear makes us do something. Emiliano Salinas
Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters. Abraham Lincoln
I’ve never been able to relate to apathy. I’ve always been doing stuff, been in action, making music or working just to get by. Beck
Even when I try to stir myself up, I just get irritated because I can’t make anything come out. And in the middle of the night I lie here thinking about all this. If I don’t get back on track somehow, I’m dead, that’s the sense I get. There isn’t a single strong emotion inside me. Banana Yoshimoto
As a society, we somehow encourage the culture of silence. We are scared to rub powerful people the wrong way for fear of repercussions it might have on our career or social standing. Apathy of authorities does not help matters. Pulkit Samrat
I would rather a romantic relationship turn into contempt than turn into apathy. The passion in the extremities make it appear as though it once meant something. We grow from hot or cold, but lukewarm is the biggest insult. Criss Jami
When trying to start a company, your enemy isn’t criticism, anger or insults. Your enemy is apathy. Gil Penchina
Scientists talk about dark matter, the invisible, mysterious substance that occupies the space between stars. Dark matter makes up 99.99 percent of the universe, and they don’t know what it is. Well I do. It’s apathy. That’s the truth of it; pile together everything we know and care about in the universe and it will still be nothing more than a tiny speck in the middle of a vast black ocean of Who Gives a Fuck. David Wong
In North America, the greatest threat to the Jewish people is not the external force of antisemitism, but the internal forces of apathy, inertia and ignorance of our own heritage. Michael Steinhardt
Whereas it appeareth that however certain forms of government are better calculated than others to protect individuals in the free exercise of their natural rights, and are at the same time themselves better guarded against degeneracy, yet experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this would be, to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, whence it becomes expedient for promoting the publick happiness that those persons, whom nature hath endowed with genius and virtue, should be rendered by liberal education worthy to receive, and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens, and that they should be called to that charge without regard to wealth, birth or accidental condition of circumstance. Thomas Jefferson
Experience is knowledge; but knowledge, when it is sought only as a material resource, is not always a blessing. Experience is wisdom; but wisdom, with those who lack vision, is not always power. Experience is tolerance; but tolerance, when it is induced by apathy, is not in the least a virtue. Ameen Rihani
After all, if you do not resist the apparently inevitable, you will never know how inevitable the inevitable was. Terry Eagleton
I think worrying things are going on in England a real apathy. Alan Rickman
I am not angry or sad or happy to see you. I could not give a shit. You don’t even ripple. Gillian Flynn
I was faced more with apathy than opposition. Adrian Cronauer
Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers. The question of what to do with the feelings that have been aroused, the knowledge that has been communicated. If one feels that there is nothing we can do but who is that we? and nothing they can do either and who are they then one starts to get bored, cynical, apathetic. Susan Sontag
Supermarket tabloids and celebrity gossip shows are not just innocently shallow entertainment, but a fundamental part of a much larger movement that involves apathy, greed and hierarchy. Joseph Gordon Levitt
The subtle and deadly change of heart that might occur in you would be involved with the realization that a civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless. James Baldwin
Britain is rich in radicalism, and anyone who says that our society has drifted into fatalism and apathy should get out more. Geoff Mulgan
I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works. Samuel Johnson
The good inside of all of us is wrapped in a layer of apathy, and we forget how much potential we have within us, in each and every one of us, to change the world for the better for ourselves and our children, and thus to bring about oneness. Shari Arison
If I look at the mass I will never act. Mother Teresa
Harold Wilson is going around the country stirring up apathy. William Whitelaw
Sometimes we have to behave indifferent towards people who proclaim their love to us, just to see if they are really different. Michael Bassey Johnson
Is it ignorance or apathy? Hey, I don’t know and I don’t care. Jimmy Buffett
The refusal to take sides on great moral issues is itself a decision. It is a silent acquiescence to evil. The Tragedy of our time is that those who still believe in honesty lack fire and conviction, while those who believe in dishonesty are full of passionate conviction. Fulton J. Sheen
Hate is not the opposite of love; apathy is. Rollo May
You just sit there and tolerate it, the same way everything in this country is tolerated. Every deception, every lie, every bullet in the brains. Just as you are already tolerating bullets in the brains that will be implemented only after the bullet is put in your brains. Imre Kertész
Tolerance it a tremendous virtue, but the immediate neighbors of tolerance are apathy and weakness. James Goldsmith
If we only see things through the cold eyed lens of factuality and don’t listen to the yearning and screaming of unexpressed feelings, life may remain bleak in a mire of clinical hollowness, sodden in apathy and indifference. Erik Pevernagie
Slums may well be breeding grounds of crime, but middle class suburbs are incubators of apathy and delirium. Cyril Connolly
Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society. Aristotle
People have moved beyond apathy, beyond skepticism into deep cynicism. Elliot Richardson
Nor did he give a damn for the world either, or the universe, or heaven or hell. But he liked women. John Fante
Government is at its worst when you have apathy from its citizens. Jesse Ventura
You can present the material, but you can’t make me care. Bill Watterson
Acceptance is different than apathy. It is important to strive to be your best self, your healthiest, most productive, joyful self. But that is going to be a different answer to everyone. Teri Hatcher
American youth attributes much more importance to arriving at driver’s license age than at voting age. Marshall McLuhan
For all the evils in the world, I think apathy is one of the most dangerous. Chris Long
People, walking on the catwalk of indifference and evaporating in a bubble of apathy, may be unconscious of the decay of their emotions and the scattering of their attention that are crucial obstacles to refreshing their mental framework and to topping up the content of their life story. Erik Pevernagie
I’m in no way suggesting that my opinion matters more than anyone else’s, of course, but the only thing that bothers me is apathy. People that sit out of the process and complain about it, or pretend that politics isn’t a part of their everyday lives. Olivia Wilde
It was nice of her to want to believe the best about me. People tend to do that with the strangers they’re fucking. If she wanted to think that apathy and independence were the same thing, good for her. Maybe she was right. Paul Neilan
Without the confidence to know our democracy is functioning properly, we risk more disillusionment, more cynicism, and even more public apathy toward the entire system. Alan K. Simpson
Just because you have stolen someone’s heart, luckily owned and occupied as a home, doesn’t give you the audacity to enforce hurtful policies. Michael Bassey Johnson
Apathy in general; people who are not standing up for what they believe in because somebody’s got a louder mouth than them; it doesn’t make any sense. Avan Jogia
Hate isn’t the opposite of love, apathy is. Hating doesn’t free you from feeling anything. You have to carry it around, using every scar, every little memory like a building block. Like a stone in a wall, until you’ve created a new person, a new life that you can live with. Rasmenia Massoud,
There’s nothing wrong with making the best of one’s declining years, but what does annoy me is the fatalism. Now that we’re seriously in range of finding therapies that actually work against ageing, this apathy, of course, becomes an enormous part of the problem. Aubrey de Grey
Mother says there are locked rooms inside all women, kitchen of love, bedroom of grief, bathroom of apathy. Sometimes, the men, they come with keys, and sometimes the men, they come with hammers. Warsan Shire
Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don’t know and I don’t care. William Safire
What I used to say to people, when I was much more engagé myself, is that you can’t be apolitical. It will come and get you. It’s not that you shouldn’t be neutral. It’s that you won’t be able to stay neutral. Christopher Hitchens
Man watches his history on the screen with apathy and an occasional passing flicker of horror or indignation. Conor Cruise O’Brien
It is the apathetic person that sees the cause while the charitable person sees the need. Shannon L. Alder
Here’s what the right wing has in, there’s no shortage of the natural resources of ignorance, apathy, hate, fear. As long as those things are in the collective conscious and unconscious, the Republicans will have some votes. Janeane Garofalo
Historical determinism is a recipe for political quietism. Terry Eagleton
There’s an axiom I live by There is no art without politics. You either choose to engage it, or you choose political apathy. This ties in with ideas around real time performance and feedback. Chris Jordan
Conformity begins the moment you ignore how you feel for acceptance. Shannon L. Alder
Voting is completely important. People in America think democracy is a given. I think of it as an ecosystem, and what gets in the way of it is politicians and apathy. Henry Rollins
Peel off these dusty wool blankets of apathy and antipathy and cynical desiccation. I want life in all its stupid sticky rawness. Isaac Marionaa
