50 Playing the victim quotes

Reclaim your power with our playing-the-victim quotes. 

Have you ever seen someone choose to be a victim so they can exploit someone else?

This scenario happens all the time. 

What does the phrase playing the victim mean?

The phrase playing the victim is an idiom people use to describe someone who refuses to take responsibility for their actions or circumstances. 

Instead of acknowledging their role or impact in a situation, they will point the finger at others to make them feel guilty or ignore their role in a problem. 

Below are some traits of people who play the victim:

• Being passive.
• Feeling out of control.
• Constantly feeling helpless.

What is an example of playing the victim?

Surviving an armed robbery is not the same thing as playing the victim. 

In one scenario, someone else victimizes you; in the other scenario, you aim to be a victim to manipulate someone. 

People choose to play the victim all the time. 

Perhaps you may have even engaged in playing the victim from time to time. 

This is common in children; a child may break a piece of furniture in the house and blame someone else to avoid the consequences.

At work, a colleague may blame others for something not going as planned. 

In a relationship, a partner may blame the other for their actions. 

Someone may say something such as, “Well, you made me yell at you because you annoyed me.” 

Such a response removes all responsibility from one person and places it on the other. 

How do you know if you’re playing the victim?

It is common for people to feel unsatisfied with some parts of their lives. 

However, there is a difference between being a victim and wanting to improve your quality of life. 

If you blame others for your life circumstances, think life is against you, struggle to cope with problems, or feel powerless to create change, you might exhibit some traits of a victim mindset. 

Is playing the victim manipulation?

Playing the victim is a form of manipulation. 

People who manipulate others use many forms of manipulation to get their way when controlling or exploiting others. 

When people play the victim to get their way, they are taking advantage of other people’s kindness or expectations. 

To learn more, check out our playing the victim quotes below. 

Short quotes about playing the victim quotes

1. “I am a victim of introspection.” — Sylvia Plath 

2. “I am not a victim. I am an angry survivor.” — Nina Bawden 

3. “Man is not the enemy here, but the fellow victim.” — Betty Friedan 

4. “History laughs at both the victim and the aggressor.” — Mahmoud Darwish 

5. “I am not a victim of emotional conflicts. I am human.” — Marilyn Monroe 

6. “I was raised to be an independent woman, not the victim of anything.” — Kamala Harris 

7. “The people who abandon Jihad fall a victim to humility and degradation.” — Abu Bakr 

8. “Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.” — Bertrand Russell 

9. “There’s no book to figure out how not to become a victim of police brutality.” — Mike Colter 

10. “People will throw stones and hide their hands and then get back and play victim.” — August Alsina 

The top playing the victim quotes about defining your life

We can learn a lot from witnessing others play the victim. 

11. “Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.” — Nora Ephron 

12. “You can be a victim of cancer or a survivor of cancer. It’s a mindset.” — Dave Pelzer 

13. “A wise woman wishes to be no one’s enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone’s victim.” — Maya Angelou 

14. “Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.” — Harvey Fierstein

15. “We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” — Elie Wiesel 

16. “I was a victim of the American Dream, the bourgeois, middle-class dream. All I wanted was a little piece of life, to be married, to have children.” — Anne Sexton

17. “There are hunters, and there are victims. By your discipline, cunning, obedience, and alertness, you will decide if you are a hunter or a victim.” — Jim Mattis 

18. “My moms always told me, ‘How long you gonna play the victim?’ I can say I’m mad and I hate everything, but nothing really changes until I change myself.” — Kendrick Lamar 

19. “I think the first step is to understand that forgiveness does not exonerate the perpetrator. Forgiveness liberates the victim. It’s a gift you give yourself.” — T. D. Jakes 

20. “How happy had it been for me had I been slain in the battle? It had been far more noble to have died the victim of the enemy than fall a sacrifice to the rage of my friends.” — Alexander the Great 

The best playing the victim quotes about overcoming the victim mindset 

Overcoming the victim mindset is an empowering experience. 

21. “Commas in The New Yorker fall with the precision of knives in a circus act, outlining the victim.” — E. B. White 

22. “Evil requires the sanction of the victim. Ayn Rand Rape is the only crime in which the victim becomes the accused.” — Freda Adler 

23. “The effect of power and publicity on all men is the aggravation of self, a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim’s sympathies.” — Henry Adams 

24. “When you’re the victim of the behavior, it’s black and white; when you’re the perpetrator, there are a million shades of gray.” — Laura Schlessinger 

25. “I am a survivor and not a victim. Life isn’t perfect. When you get a knock, you have to get up, dust yourself down and get on with it.” — Patsy Kensit 

26. “Leadership is a mindset that shifts from being a victim to creating results. Any one of us can demonstrate leadership in our work and within our lives.” — Robin S. Sharma

27. “If you are born black, and you don’t accept your natural status as a victim, then the validity of your blackness is immediately called into question.” — Candace Owens 

28. “I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art – and much more. It cannot be commercialized. Chess is much purer than art in its social position.” — Marcel Duchamp 

29. “Bathtub falls, and police officers kill more Americans than terrorism, yet we’ve been asked to sacrifice our most sacred rights for fear of falling victim to it.” — Edward Snowden 

30. “A strong, successful man is not the victim of his environment. He creates favorable conditions. His own inherent force and energy compel things to turn out as he desires.” — Orison Swett Marden 

Playing the victim quotes about taking responsibility

It is difficult for some people to learn to take responsibility for their actions. 

31. “Jealousy is, I think, the worst of all faults because it makes a victim of both parties.” — Gene Tierney 

32. “That’s not a villain; that’s a man whose a victim of being in love with the wrong one.” — Rod Steiger 

33. “The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop of a falcon which enables it to strike and destroy its victim.” — Sun Tzu 

34. “If it’s never our fault, we can’t take responsibility for it. If we can’t take responsibility for it, we’ll always be its victim.” — Richard Bach 

35. “John F. Kennedy was the victim of the hate that was a part of our country. It is a disease that occupies the minds of the few but brings danger to the many.” — Lyndon B. Johnson

You do not have to have a victim mentality

36. “You’re made to feel ugly, and I made ugly beautiful just by sheer persistence. Nobody has the right to say that I am ugly, and I will not be a professional victim, you know. Sorry!” — John Lydon 

37. “The highest hallmark of a civilized society is not the rapidity by which it exacts vengeance, but its ability to hold victim and victimizer in its compassionate heart.” — Greg Boyle 

38. “Every third person in the world is a drama queen. And crying ‘victim,’ especially when you’re not really a victim in any real way, feels good. It feels good to cry victim if you’re not one.” — John McWhorter 

39. “Not everyone has been a bully or the victim of bullies, but everyone has seen bullying, and seeing it, has responded to it by joining in or objecting, by laughing or keeping silent, by feeling disgusted or feeling interested.” — Octavia E. Butler 

40. “Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures so that society has to take the place of the victim and on his behalf demand atonement or grant forgiveness; it is the one crime in which society has a direct interest.” — W. H. Auden 

Playing the victim quotes about not taking anything personal

When we learn to not take things personally, we allow ourselves room to grow and evolve. 

41. “Brutality to an animal is cruelty to mankind – it is only the difference in the victim.” — Alphonse de Lamartine 

42. “Revenge is not always sweet; once it is consummated, we feel inferior to our victim.” — Emil Cioran 

43. “Hackers are becoming more sophisticated in conjuring up new ways to hijack your system by exploiting technical vulnerabilities or human nature. Don’t become the next victim of unscrupulous cyberspace intruders.” — Kevin Mitnick 

44. “What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.” — Don Miguel Ruiz 

45. “I was a victim of a stereotype. There were only two of us Negro kids in the whole class, and our English teacher was always stressing the importance of rhythm in poetry. Well, everybody knows – except us – that all Negroes have rhythms, so they elected me class poet.” — Langston Hughes 

Long quotes about being a victim to consider

46. “When so-called child’s play turns hostile, and a child becomes a victim, it is time to act. Victims of cyberbullying do not choose to participate. Rather than build character, bullying can cause children to become anxious, fearful, unhappy, and even cause them to be physically sick.” — Linda Sanchez 

47. “When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.” — Eckhart Tolle 

48. “You have children, and you see how fragile and innocent and helpless they are when they first start out. If they are going to be a victim of whatever they are surrounded by, I just do everything I can to try to make whatever change I can.” — Lisa Marie Presley 

49. “The Father willed that his blessed and glorious Son, whom he gave to us and who was born for us, should through his own blood offer himself as a sacrificial victim on the altar of the cross. This was to be done not for himself through whom all things were made, but for our sins.” — Francis of Assisi

50. “In Cameroon, kids have many problems. They think everything is lost before they are born. It seems like they are not allowed to dream. They are not allowed to be ambitious. They just accept being the victim of their life.” — Francis Ngannou 

How can people learn not to play the victim?

Playing the victim is a mindset that there is a remedy for. 

If we can remember that every circumstance we experience is an opportunity for us to grow we can shed the need to play the role of the victim. 

It can change our perspective if we ask ourselves what benefit we get from playing the victim. 

Asking ourselves how we are involved or contributed to an experience or condition empowers us because it allows us to realize our potential. 

If we always assume the world is against us, then we will experience the world being against us. 

However, if we remember that blaming others will only get us so far, we can neutralize some of the negative feelings that come with being angry. 

Unhappiness or lack of fulfillment are feelings we must be accountable for. 

It is nobody else’s fault if we choose not to be fulfilled. 

Only we can change our conditions. 

Do you have a favorite playing the victim quote?

If so, please be sure to tell us in the comment section below.