39 Quotes About Getting Along With Difficult People

Regular encounters with people can sometimes lead to disagreements and conflict. These quotes about getting along with difficult people capture some of the challenges we can find ourselves faced with.

“Always remember that you can explain things for people, but you can’t comphrend for them.”

“Dealing with backstabbers, there was one thing I learned. They’re only powerful when you got your back turned.”

“Don’t push my buttons without reading the manual.”

“Everybody has a hot button. Who is pushing yours? While you probably cannot control that person, you CAN control the way you react to them.”

“Feeling compassion toward a dangerous person will not lead you to submit to them or put yourself at risk or condone their actions.”

“I am trying to push people’s buttons and see how they respond to things. We are trying to create tension situations like in a game and trying to get guys to fight through some of that stuff.”

“I cannot make the universe obey me. I cannot make other people conform to my own whims and fancies. I cannot make even my own body obey me.”

“I don’t have to attend every argument I’m invited to.”

“I like difficult people because that means they’re perfectionists and they’re passionate.”

“I want to try to make difficult people somehow relatable.”

“If it was necessary to tolerate in other people everything that one permits oneself, life would be unbearable.”

“If we are ever in doubt about what to do, it is a good rule to ask ourselves what we shall wish on the morrow that we had done.”

“If you have some respect for people as they are, you can be more effective in helping them to become better than they are.”

“If you want plenty of experience in dealing with difficult people, then have kids.”

“I’m fascinated by the idea of disparate, difficult people learning to trust each other when they’re thrust into hellish circumstances.”

“In all men is evil sleeping; the good man is he who will not awaken it, in himself or in other men.”

“In order to master compassion, you have to spend time getting to know monsters. When you can do that you will see that there are no monsters, only people that acted like monsters because no one gave them the time or compassion to hear their story.”

“It usually takes two people a little while to learn where the funny buttons are and testy buttons are.”

“I’ve had this terrible stomach problem for years, and that has made touring difficult. People would see me sitting in the corner by myself looking sick and gloomy. The reason is that I was trying to fight against the stomach pain, trying to hold my food down. People looked me and assumed I was some kind of addict.”

“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.”

“Manage your relationships. Great relationships may not be profitable, but bad ones always result in losses.”

“Most of the time, we make discoveries about how difficult people are at the moment when the difficulties have actually hurt us; therefore, we are not likely to be forgiving or sympathetic.”

“Never allow carping critics to deter you from success. Instead, silence them with it.”

“Nothing is ever lost by courtesy. It is the cheapest of pleasures, costs nothing, and conveys much.”

“People who have strong likes and dislikes find life very difficult; they are as rigid as if they had only one bone.”

“Relationships with negative people are simply tedious encounters with porcupines. You don’t have the remote knowledge how to be close to them without quills being shot in your direction.”

“Seek the best in everyone that you meet. Seek the worst when dealing with yourself.”

“The difficult people who we encounter can be our greatest teachers.”

“The difficulties in life are vital for our personal growth and well-being.”

“The toxic behaviors were there before you decided to enter into relationships with them. The signs were there. You may have chosen to look the other way, but the signs were there.”

“There are only two kinds of people who can drain your energy: those you love, and those you fear. In both instances it is you who let them in.”

“There is a grace of kind listening, as well as a grace of kind speaking.”

“To bring a large audience to a piece of serious music and make it accessible does not mean reducing it in any way. And I’ve learned that if something is good, even if it is a little difficult, people will get that it is good.”

“We are constantly being put to the test by trying circumstances and difficult people and problems not necessarily of our own making.”

“We do not have to be mental health professionals to identify the traits of the possible sociopaths among us.”

“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudice, and motivated by pride and vanity.”

“When the economy is difficult, people care a great deal about the things they spend their money on. Customers have come to understand that Apple’s products aren’t priced high – they’re priced on the value of what we build into them.”

“You must look into other people as well as at them.”

“You’ve always got to work with the best if you can, and of course, the best are the best because they’re different. They expect certain standards, and they’re usually very difficult people to work with.”

Getting comfortable with the uncomfortable in life will teach us to rise up to the challenges we face.