Contemptuous Quotes

• I'm not at all contemptuous of comforts, but they have their place and it is not first.

  E. F. Schumacher

  Comfort, Firsts

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• Many men are contemptuous of riches; few can give them away.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Men, Giving, Riches

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• People are what you make them. A scornful look turns into a complete fool a man of average intelligence. A contemptuous indifference turns into an enemy a woman who, well treated, might have been an angel.

  Andre Maurois

  Teaching, Angel, Men

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• The whole tone of Church teaching in regard to women is, to the last degree, contemptuous and degrading.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Teaching, Aggravation, Church

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• I consider it a mark of great prudence in a man to abstain from threats or any contemptuous expressions, for neither of these weaken the enemy, but threats make him more cautious, and the other excites his hatred, and a desire to revenge himself.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Revenge, Men, Expression

  18 Copy quote

• I'm crass, contemptuous and crude, obstreperous, obnoxious, rambunctiously raw and rude.

  Mario Cantone

  Rude, Crass, Obnoxious

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• In place of a world, there is a city, a point, in which the whole life of broad regions is collecting while the rest dries up. In place of a type-true people, born of and grown on the soil, there is a new sort of nomad, cohering unstably in fluid masses, the parasitical city dweller, traditionless, utterly matter-of-fact, religionless, clever, unfruitful, deeply contemptuous of the countryman and especially that highest form of countryman, the country gentleman.

  Oswald Spengler

  Country, Clever, Cities

  Oswald Spengler (1991). “The Decline of the West”, p.25, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Quotation... A writer expresses himself in words that have been used before because they give his meaning better than he can give it himself, or because they are beautiful or witty, or because he expects them to touch a cord of association in his reader, or because he wishes to show that he is learned and well read. Quotations due to the last motive are invariably ill-advised; the discerning reader detects it and is contemptuous; the undiscerning is perhaps impressed, but even then is at the same time repelled, pretentious quotations being the surest road to tedium.

  Henry Watson Fowler

  Beautiful, Witty, Giving

  A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926)

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• Children are contemptuous, haughty, irritable, envious, sneaky, selfish, lazy, flighty, timid, liars and hypocrites, quick to laugh and cry, extreme in expressing joy and sorrow, especially about trifles, they'll do anything to avoid pain but they enjoy inflicting it: little men already.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Pain, Children, Liars

  53 Copy quote

• It wants to be, and proclaims itself to be, 'the greatest', but greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Country, Greatness, Patriotism

  Sydney J. Harris (1985). “Pieces of Eight Pa”, Mariner Books

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• Instead of fulfilling the promise of infinite orgasmic bliss, sex in the America of the feminine mystique is becoming a strangely joyless national compulsion, if not a contemptuous mockery.

  Betty Friedan

  Sex, America, Promise

  "Feminist icon Betty Friedan dies aged 85" by Jamie Doward, www.theguardian.com. February 4, 2006.

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• Until we have a better relationship between private performance and the public truth, as was demonstrated with Watergate, we as the public are absolutely right to remain suspicious, contemptuous even, of the secrecy and the misinformation which is the digest of our news.

  John le Carre

  News, Literature, Secrecy

  32 Copy quote

• Patriotism is proud of a country's virtues and eager to correct its deficiencies; it also acknowledges the legitimate patriotism of other countries, with their own specific virtues. The pride of nationalism, however, trumpets its country's virtues and denies its deficiencies, while it is contemptuous toward the virtues of other countries. It wants to be, and proclaims itself to be, "the greatest," but greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Country, Humility, Pride

  "Pieces of Eight". Book by Sydney J. Harris, 1982.

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• Violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children: organized religion ought to have a great deal on its conscience.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Children, Ignorance, Racism

  Christopher Hitchens (2011). “God is Not Great”, p.44, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• The leader is best, When people are hardly aware of his existence, Not so good when people praise his government, Less good when people stand in fear, Worst, when people are contemptuous. Fail to honor people, and they will fail to honor you. But of a good leader, who speaks little, When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, The people say, 'We did it ourselves.'

  Laozi

  Inspirational, Government, People

  4 Copy quote

• When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark, And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark: But, when the tide rises and sharks are around, His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.

  Lewis Carroll

  Gay, Sharks, Voice

  Lewis Carroll (1913). “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland”, p.62, PDFreeBooks.org

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• She [Sadie Thompson] gathered herself together. No one could describe the scorn of her expression or the contemptuous hatred she put into her answer. "You men! You filthy dirty pigs! You're all the same, all of you. Pigs! Pigs!"

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Dirty, Men, Pigs

  "Altogether: Being the collected stories of W. Somerset Maugham (Rain)". Book by W. Somerset Maugham, 1934.

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• In general, the men of lower intelligence won out. Afraid of their own shortcomings and of the intelligence of their opponents, so that they would not lose out in reasoned argument or be taken by surprise by their quick-witted opponents, they boldly moved into action. Their enemies,on the contrary, contemptuous and confident in their ability to anticipate, thought there was no need to take by action what they could win by their brains.

  Thucydides

  Taken, Winning, Men

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• You achieve stature only by being good enough to deserve it, by forcing even the contemptuous and indifferent to pay attention, and to acknowledge that human relations and human emotions are of inexhaustible interest wherever they occur.

  Wallace Stegner

  Attention, Pay, Emotion

  Wallace Earle Stegner (1995). “Where the bluebird sings to the lemonade springs: living and writing in the West”, Random House Value Pub

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• She'd always been a little contemptuous of beauty, as though it was something you had to trade away some other vital thing for.

  Holly Black

  Littles, Trade, Contempt

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• The Kantian imperative to have the courage to think for oneself has involved a contemptuous disregard for the resources of tradition and an infantile view of authority as inherently oppressive.

  Terry Eagleton

  Thinking, Views, Tradition

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• The result is ... that there's no room left in the world for the weird – though plenty for crude, contemptuous, wisecracking, fun-poking imitations of it.

  Fritz Leiber

  Fun, World, Rooms

  Fritz Leiber, H. P. Lovecraft (2004). “Fritz Leiber and H.P. Lovecraft: Writers of the Dark”, p.202, Wildside Press LLC

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• Satire's nature is to be one-sided, contemptuous of ambiguity, and so unfairly selective as to find in the purity of ridicule an inarguable moral truth.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Moral, Purity, Satire

  E.L. Doctorow (2008). “Creationists: Selected Essays, 1993-2006”, p.70, Random House

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• Half a dozen brats turned with expressions of derision, and Lyra threw her cigarette down, recognizing the cue for a fight. Everyone's daemon instantly became warlike: each child was accompanied by fangs, or claws, or bristling fur, and Pantalaimon, contemptuous of the limited imaginations of these gyptian daemons, became a dragon the size of a deer hound.

  Philip Pullman

  Children, Fighting, Dragons

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• You really don’t want to take that tone with me. (Varyk) Well, I do have several others we can choose from. Contemptuous. Angry. Snide. Aggravated. How about I just settle on extreme sarcasm and we call it even? (Dev)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Sarcasm, Want, Tone

  Sherrilyn Kenyon (2009). “Bad Moon Rising: A Dark-Hunter Novel”, p.68, Macmillan

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