More take offense than give it.
From The Fears That Bind, one of 296 sayings written by John Sarris over thirty years.
From Alfred’s journal
A man on the bench by the library spent twenty minutes explaining to his wife that the woman at the desk had looked at him a certain way. I had watched the woman at the desk. She had looked at a clock. For years I assumed that when somebody felt stung there had been a sting, that the arithmetic came out even; more take offense than give it, and the surplus has to come from somewhere, and I think it comes from us. Switch takes offense at the jay every morning and the jay has never once noticed him. I do not know yet whether the man was wrong to feel what he felt, only that nobody did it to him.
He reads what you tell him and writes a page of his journal back, with a few of these chosen for you. It costs nothing and asks for nothing.
Have it on something
More like it
- Rarely does all good sense dwell on one side of a fence.
- A cornered animal does not heed wise counsel.
- A hungry tiger is patient only when waiting for the best moment to attack.
- People fight hardest to defend their right not to say what they are fighting about.
- Louder isn't righter.
- We will go further shoulder to shoulder than nose to nose.