88 ‘Indifference’ Quotes to Help You Define Your Own Attitude

People that exhibit indifference may come off as distant, uninterested, unmotivated, or lacking enthusiasm. It is important to note that they could become that way for several reasons. Read the 88 quotes below to keep learning about indifference.

Indifference is also known as apathy. It is a state in which we don't care and won't participate in something happening around us. Trauma, intense stress, certain psychological disorders, or neurological or brain damage could cause it.

This neutral affective state could last long, but it differs from depression. For some people, indifference is not always harmful. It is a defense mechanism that they employ to avoid constant disappointment.

Whatever the case, being in such a state for too long can have adverse side effects. Read these 88 indifference quotes below to understand more about indifference and how some great people have viewed it.

Cesare Pavese's quote: "Perfect behavior is born of complete indifference. Perhaps this is why we always love madly someone who treats us with indifference." | Image: AmoDays

'Indifference' Quotes in an Effort to Find the Perfect Definition of This Term

"Politeness is organized indifference." ― Paul Valéry

"Tolerance is another word for indifference." — Somerset Maugham

"The opposite of love is not hate. It is indifference." ― Wilhelm Stekel, "The Beloved Ego: Foundations of the New Study of the Psyche"

"Forgiveness, do you know what it is? It is indifference to what does not touch us." — Alexandre Dumas

Paul Valéry's quote: "Politeness is organized indifference." | Image: AmoDays

"But certainly, for us who understand life, figures are a matter of indifference." ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, "The Little Prince"

"Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference which is an elegant name for ignorance." — G. K. Chesterton

"They say philosophers and wise men are indifferent. Wrong. Indifference is a paralysis of the soul, a premature death." ― Anton Chekhov, "Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov"

"Nature, in her indifference, makes no distinction between good and evil." — Anatole France

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's "The Little Prince" quote: "But certainly, for us who understand life, figures are a matter of indifference." | Image: AmoDays

"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

"Indifference gives a false air of superiority." — Joseph Joubert

"An inconstant woman is one who is no longer in love; a false woman is one who is already in love with another person; a fickle woman is she who neither knows whom she loves nor whether she loves or not; and the indifferent woman, one who does not love at all." — Jean de La Bruyère

"What lasts is indifference. Nothing lasts on a tree more than a dead branch." — Henry de Montherlant

Elie Wiesel's quote: "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." | Image: AmoDays

"This is the stuff we're made of, half indifference and half malice." — José Saramago

"The greatest tragedy is indifference." — Motto of the Red Cross

"Wit is, in fact, the eloquence of indifference." — William Hazlitt

"The absolute yearning of one human body for another particular body and its indifference to substitutes is one of life's major mysteries." — Iris Murdoch

José Saramago's quote: "This is the stuff we're made of, half indifference and half malice." | Image: AmoDays

'Indifference' Quotes on Where It Comes From

"Perfect behavior is born of complete indifference. Perhaps this is why we always love madly someone who treats us with indifference." ― Cesare Pavese

"People who say they don't care what people think are usually desperate to have people think they don't care what people think." — George Carlin

"I'm not anti-social. I'm just not social." ― Woody Allen

"Once conform, once do what other people do because they do it, and a lethargy steals over all the finer nerves and faculties of the soul. She becomes all outer show and inward emptiness; dull, callous, and indifferent." ― Virginia Woolf

George Carlin's quote: "People who say they don't care what people think are usually desperate to have people think they don't care what people think." | Image: AmoDays

"Violence is not necessary to destroy a civilization. Each civilization dies from indifference toward the unique values which created it." — Nicolas Gomez Davila

"I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me." — Charles Dickens

"A good listener is usually thinking of something else." — Kin Hubbard

"To remain indifferent to the challenges we face is indefensible. If the goal is noble, whether or not it is realized within our lifetime is largely irrelevant. What we must do therefore is to strive and persevere and never give up." — Dalai Lama

Nicolas Gomez Davila's quote: "Violence is not necessary to destroy a civilization. Each civilization dies from indifference toward the unique values which created it." | Image: AmoDays

"There are no uninteresting things, only uninterested people." — G. K. Chesterton

"Never tell your problems to anyone...20% don't care and the other 80% are glad you have them." — Lou Holtz

"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 on his painting titled "Morning after"

"No person is important enough to make me angry." — Thomas Carlyle

Dalai Lama's quote: "To remain indifferent to the challenges we face is indefensible. If the goal is noble, whether or not it is realized within our lifetime is largely irrelevant. What we must do therefore is to strive and persevere and never give up." | Image: AmoDays

"I've found the secret of happiness, total disregard of everybody." — Ashleigh Brilliant

"Don't pay any attention to the critics - don't even ignore them." — Sam Goldwyn

"Some people like what you do, some people hate what you do, but most people simply don't give a damn." — Charles Bukowski

"The world is very lovely, and it's very horrible–and it doesn't care about your life or mine or anything else." — Rudyard Kipling

Ashleigh Brilliant's quote: "I've found the secret of happiness, total disregard of everybody." | Image: AmoDays

"She knew with painful certainty that the opposite of love was not hate, but indifference." ― Susan Wiggs, "Summer by the Sea"

"All you'll get from strangers is surface pleasantry or indifference. Only someone who loves you will criticize you." — Judith Crist

'Indifference' Quotes Filled with Wisdom

"A man's vanity is more fragile that you might think. It's easy for us to mistake shyness for coldness, and silence for indifference." ― Lisa Kleypas, "Devil in Winter"

"Vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return." — George Eliot

Lisa Kleypas's "Devil in Winter" quote: "A man's vanity is more fragile that you might think. It's easy for us to mistake shyness for coldness, and silence for indifference." | Image: AmoDays

"Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all—the apathy of human beings." ― Helen Keller

"I prefer the errors of enthusiasm to the wisdom of indifference." — Anatole France

"If you keep groaning, please do it to a rhythm I can dance to." — Ashleigh Brilliant

"At twenty, the things for which one does not care a damn should, properly, be many." — Rudyard Kipling

Anatole France's quote: "I prefer the errors of enthusiasm to the wisdom of indifference." | Image: AmoDays

"By squirming out of our dungeon of indifference and wriggling from our self-centered vault of unawareness, love can conjure up an aura of mental opulence and an inkling of infinity.( "Love as dizzy as a cathedral")" ― Erik Pevernagie

"Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies." — Elie Wiesel

"The thing is, I mean, there's times when you look at the universe, and you think, "What about me?" and you can just hear the universe replying, "Well, what about you?"" — Terry Pratchett

"The troubles of a stranger aren't worth an onion." — Yiddish proverb

Elie Wiesel's quote: "Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies." | Image: AmoDays

"There is something beautiful, touching and poetic when one person loves more than the other, and the other is indifferent." — Anton Chekhov

"We care so little of other people than even Christianity urges us to do good for the love of God." — Cesare Pavese

"The dogs bark, but the caravan passes on." — Arabian proverb

"To be silent the whole day long, see no newspaper, hear no radio, listen to no gossip, be thoroughly and completely lazy, thoroughly and completely indifferent to the fate of the world is the finest medicine a man can give himself." — Henry Miller

Anton Chekhov's quote: "There is something beautiful, touching and poetic when one person loves more than the other, and the other is indifferent." | Image: AmoDays

"Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference." — Edmund Burke

"Show me someone who never gossips, and I'll show you someone who isn't interested in people." — Barbara Walters

"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

"A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted, that riches, positions, fortune, and favor cannot satisfy him." — Jean de La Bruyère

Edmund Burke's quote: "Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference." | Image: AmoDays

"Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike." — J. K. Rowling

"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

"Love cannot endure indifference. It needs to be wanted. Like a lamp, it needs to be fed out of the oil of another's heart, or its flame burns low." — Henry Ward Beecher

"Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn." — Gore Vidal

J.K. Rowling's quote: "Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike." | Image: AmoDays

"When attention turns into indifference or love fades away into a grey zone of discomfort, only imagination can bring us back to the limelight of life." ― Erik Pevernagie on his painting titled "Is that all there is?"

"Only God sees the sparrow fall, but even God doesn't do anything about it." — John Steinbeck

"There is nothing harder than the softness of indifference." — Juan Montalvo

"I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen." — John Steinbeck

Erik Pevernagie's quote: "When attention turns into indifference or love fades away into a grey zone of discomfort, only imagination can bring us back to the limelight of life. ("Is that all there is?")" | Image: AmoDays

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"It is strange with how little notice, good, bad, or indifferent, a man may live and die in London." — Charles Dickens

"A different world cannot be built by indifferent people." — Peter Marshall

"If we feel uncomfortable with the harrowing ugliness in the world and the infuriating violence in our environs, we must not wait to speak out loud, louder, and louder until the hot-air balloon of indifference and intolerance finally blasts into pieces." ― Erik Pevernagie on his painting titled "Not without the past"

"You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks." — Winston Churchill

Peter Marshall's quote: "A different world cannot be built by indifferent people." | Image: AmoDays

"What is said behind my back is said to my ***." — Georges Clemenceau

"There is nothing in the world so monstrously vast as our indifference." — Machado de Assis

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." — Bernard Baruch

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." — Desmond Tutu

"A person is wise if he listens to millions of advice and doesn't implement any of it." ― Michael Bassey Johnson

Machado de Assis's quote: "There is nothing in the world so monstrously vast as our indifference." | Image: AmoDays

"Jekyll had more than a father's interest; Hyde had more than a son's indifference." — Robert Louis Stevenson

"You despise me, don't you? / If I gave you any thought I probably would." — from the film "Casablanca"

"You're beginning to dislike me, aren't you? Well, dislike me. It doesn't make any difference to me now." ― W. Somerset Maugham, "The Razor's Edge"

"I am not angry or sad or happy to see you. I could not give a ****. You don't even ripple." ― Gillian Flynn, "Dark Places"

Robert Louis Stevenson's quote: "Jekyll had more than a father's interest; Hyde had more than a son's indifference." | Image: AmoDays

It is challenging to diagnose apathy, but if you doubt what you are going through, it is advisable to approach a health professional. Once they can place what is wrong, they may prescribe medication to help deal with the symptoms.

It is also advisable to make an effort to participate in group activities, do what you love, get some exercise, listen to uplifting music, and more. These activities will help lift your spirit.

In addition, you should stay away from people who constantly bring drama around you. Read these no-drama quotes to motivate yourself to leave toxicity behind.