‘Mean People’ Quotes to Help You Stay Away from Them

It can sometimes feel impossible to identify or avoid bullies, as they can be found everywhere, from school to the workplace and even one's family. The following 61 quotes may help you to understand why mean people are the way they are and how to avoid them.

Mean people can and will be found everywhere. This is an inescapable truth and one to which we should always be alert.

If you give a bully the power, they can cause real psychological damage. We must understand why such people treat others so poorly so that we can evade their negative energy.

Here are 61 quotes about mean people to help you steer clear of them.

Alice Hoffman's quote: "Mean people are meaningless." | Image: AmoDays

“Mean People” Quotes in Search of a Definition

"Mean people are really just sad people. They hurt others because they are hurting. Every person is born beautiful, and much of the ugliness in others was put inside of them by other hurting people." — Bryant McGill

"Mean people are meaningless." — Alice Hoffman

"Mean people are no fun." — Thom Filicia

"Mean people are always around to teach us the meaning of life!!" —Bharath Jackson

"It's a lot easier to be mean than to be nice. So mean people, on top of being jerks, are also lazy and uninventive." — Casey Neistat

Jodi Aman's quote: "People are not mean to us because they don’t like us, but because they don’t like themselves." | Image: AmoDays

"People are only mean when they’re threatened, and that’s what our culture does. That’s what our economy does." — Mitch Albom

"Because that's the thing about mean people. They make you think that the world will never work, that there are divides that you will fall into if you approach. It takes a whole lot of good people to fill in the breach created by a single mean one." — David Levithan

"In my experience, meanness has been a symptom, not a state of being. I’ve met very few truly mean people, and those I have met have also been rather miserable people." — Tom Walsh

"Sometimes people are mean because they feel insecure about themselves." — E. Lockhart

"People are not mean to us because they don’t like us, but because they don’t like themselves."― Jodi Aman

Alfred Korzybski's quote: "Words don't mean, people mean." | Image: AmoDays

"The worst people on earth are not only those who commit evil but those who stand by and turn a blind eye" — Emmanuel Jal

"The Bully has a Jekyll and Hyde nature – is vile, vicious, and vindictive in private, but innocent and charming in front of witnesses; no one can (or wants to) believe this individual has a vindictive nature – only the current target of the serial bully’s aggression sees both sides; whilst the Jekyll side is described as “charming” and convincing enough to deceive personnel, management and a tribunal, the Hyde side is frequently described as “evil”; Hyde is the real person, Jekyll is an act." — Tim Field

"Spiteful people suffer from the worse kind of hurt, learning, toxic thinking, behavior, and low self-esteem." — Ty Howard

"Words don't mean, people mean." — Alfred Korzybski

Albert Einstein's quote: "The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything." | Image: AmoDays

"Wretched are those who are vindictive and spiteful." — Pope Francis

‘Mean People’ Quotes That Grant Us with Valuable Lessons

"When we really see other people as they are without taking it personally, we can never be hurt by what they say or do." — Miguel Angel Ruiz

"The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything." — Albert Einstein

"Respect yourself enough to say "I deserve peace," and walk away from people or things that prevent you from attaining it." — Jerico Silvers

"Your success, your life, your happiness. Don't let mean people bring that down." — Taylor Swift

"Don't let negative and toxic people rent space in your head… Raise the rent and kick them out." — Robert Tew

Buddhism's quote: "Be kind to unkind people; they need it the most!" | Image: AmoDays

"Always ignore hateful attitudes and rude behavior of the people. They are powerless without your response." — Bushra Zarrar Rana

"Treat them with the contempt that they deserve. Being confrontational and responding to the abuse is not conducive to a peaceful, stress-free life. Be conveniently deaf, blind, and dumb. It is so much more effective when yours is not the expected reaction." — Margaret Young

"… no matter how nice you are to some people, they’ll turn their back on you the second they get the chance." — Jeff Kinney

"Be kind to unkind people; they need it the most!" — Buddhism

"The less you respond to rude, critical, argumentative people… The more peaceful your life will become." — Mandy Hale

LeCrae's quote: "People will hurt you. But don’t use that as an excuse for your poor choices, use it as motivation to make the right ones." | Image: AmoDays

"There will always be someone willing to hurt you, put you down, gossip about you, belittle your accomplishments and judge your soul. It is a fact that we all must face. However, if you realize that God is a best friend that stands beside you when others cast stones you will never be afraid, never feel worthless, and never feel alone." ― Shannon Alder

"People will hurt you. But don’t use that as an excuse for your poor choices, use it as motivation to make the right ones." — LeCrae

"When we believe or say we have been offended, we usually mean we feel insulted, mistreated, snubbed, or disrespected. And certainly clumsy, embarrassing, unprincipled, and mean-spirited things do occur in our interactions with other people that would allow us to take offense. However, it ultimately is impossible for another person to offend you or to offend me. Indeed, believing that another person offended us is fundamentally false. To be offended is a choice we make; it is not a condition inflicted or imposed upon us by someone or something else." — David A. Bednar

"In life’s journey, you will meet all sorts of characters. Always remember, never shed a tear for the heartless, corrupt, or insensitive." — Krystal

Krystal's quote: "In life’s journey, you will meet all sorts of characters. Always remember, never shed a tear for the heartless, corrupt, or insensitive." | Image: AmoDays

"It is inbred in us that we have to do exceptional things for God: but we have not. We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things, to be holy in mean streets, among mean people, and this is not learned in five minutes" — Oswald Chambers

"In life, you’ll meet a lot of *****. If they hurt you, tell yourself that it’s because they’re stupid. That will help keep you from reacting to their cruelty. Because there is nothing worse than bitterness and vengeance. Always keep your dignity and be true to yourself." — Marjane Satrapi

"Don’t believe the noise. Those mean, petty, hateful voices will never be the majority. They only seem loud and pervasive, because they have the idle time to broadcast their negativity. The rest of us are too busy with real efforts to make the world a better place." ― Anthon St. Maarten

"Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by ********." — William Gibson

Phil Lester's quote: "If you're insulting people on the internet, you must be ugly on the inside." | Image: AmoDays

'Mean People' Quotes Filled With Deep Thoughts

"It’s very strange that the people you love are often the people you’re most cruel to." — Kenneth Branagh

"If you're insulting people on the internet, you must be ugly on the inside." ― Phil Lester

"Every social injustice is not only cruel, but it is economic waste." — William Feather

"If you’re really a mean person you’re going to come back as a fly and eat poop." — Kurt Cobain

Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Marina's quote: "Man's meanness is a fuse in search of a flame." | Image: AmoDays

"That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?" — Joseph Addison

"Kindness in ourselves is the honey that blunts the sting of unkindness in another." — Grantland Rice

"Man's meanness is a fuse in search of a flame." — Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Marina

"Sometimes the people with the worst past, create the best future" — Umar

Shannon L. Alder's quote: "You can be bit in the leg by a rattlesnake and seek help to heal your wound, or you can run after it and let the poison take your leg. The same is true with love." | Image: AmoDays

"If you’re naturally kind, you attract a lot of people you don’t like." — William Feather

"People who are mean or unkind or rigid – think about it – cannot laugh at themselves." — Eileen Brennan

"I love to have battles of the wits with people that can dish fast and dirty – and it leads to problems occasionally, ’cause I can sound mean without attempting to be mean." — Alton Brown

"Being mean about other people isn’t on my radar." — Geri Halliwell

"And I could weep at how mean people are and how they betray their fellow creatures, perhaps for the sake of personal advantage. It is enough to make a person lose heart sometimes. I often wish I lived on a Robinson Crusoe island." — Sophie Scholl

Walter Bagehot's quote: "Nothing is more unpleasant than a virtuous person with a mean mind." | Image: AmoDays

"The attempt to remove evil from the world by killing a thousand evil – doers, only adds to the evil in the world." — Swami Vivekananda

"I wish all the mean people, if you want to be mean to each other, just buy a country together and blow each other up. Then we’d have no terrorists left. Like, don’t kill innocent people for no reason. It’s not fair. We love everybody. We’d even like them if they said they’re sorry. It’s not fair that innocent people are getting hurt. It makes me sad." — Tara Reid

"You can be bit in the leg by a rattlesnake and seek help to heal your wound, or you can run after it and let the poison take your leg. The same is true with love." ― Shannon L. Alder

"Born in the same land, we ought to live as brothers, doing to each other all the good we can, and not listening to wicked men, who may endeavor to make us enemies. By living in peace, we can help and prosper one another; by waging war, we can kill and destroy many on both sides; but those who survive will not be the happier for that." — Thomas Jefferson

"People will always tell you what you do wrong, but they are hesitant to compliment you for the many things you do." — Lara A.R.

Art Jonak's quote: "Those who spend their time looking for the faults in others usually make no time to correct their own." | Image: AmoDays

"I feel pity on these pity people’s on how they pity this pity things! Fake world; cruel people." — Chandana Sahukar

"Nothing is more unpleasant than a virtuous person with a mean mind." — Walter Bagehot

"We must never remain silent in the face of bigotry. We must condemn those who seek to divide us. In all quarters and at all times, we must teach tolerance and denounce racism, anti-Semitism, and all ethnic or religious bigotry wherever they exist as unacceptable evils. We have no place for haters in America — none, whatsoever." — Ronald Reagan

"Those who spend their time looking for the faults in others usually make no time to correct their own." — Art Jonak

"It is only the great hearted who can be true friends. The mean and cowardly, can never know what true friendship means." — Charles Kingsley

Everybody will need to deal with mean people in their lifetime, and many people will have to unlearn mean behaviors within themselves.

The goal should be to approach people with kindness, which is a two-way street. We must avoid negativity while avoiding being negative ourselves.

If you are interested in further self-improvement, try these 75 'Doing Me' quotes to master the art of putting yourself first.