contempt quotes

  • She was nothing more than a mere good-tempered, civil and obliging young woman; as such we could scarcely dislike hershe was onlyan Object of Contempt.

    -Jane Austen
      Love and Freindship,'Letter the13th'.

  • For it isa true Rulethat Love is ever rewarded, either with the reciproque, or with an inward and secret contempt.

    - Francis,Viscount St Albans Bacon
      Essays, no.10,'Of Love'.

  • No wonder the really powerful men in our society, whether politicians or scientists, hold writers in contempt.Theydoit becausetheyget no evidence from modern literature that anybody is thinking about any significant question.

    - Saul Bellow
      Interview in The Paris Review, no.37, winter issue.

  • This only grant me, that my means may lie Too low for envy, for contempt too high.

    - Abraham Cowley
      Essays, in Verse and Prose,'Of Myself'.

  • Great art is the contempt of a great man for small art.

    - F(rancis) Scott Key Fitzgerald
    Note Books, L, in Edmund Wilson (ed)  The Crack-Up (1945).

  •    I have always had the greatest contempt for novels written with a purpose. Fiction should render, not draw morals. But†I sinned against my gods to the extent of saying that I was goingto the level of the light vouchsafed meto write a work that should have for its purpose the obviating of all future wars.

    - Ford Madox originally Ford Hermann Hueffer Ford
      On Parade's End.

  • Welfare is hated by those who administer it; mistrusted by those who pay for it; and held in contempt by those who receive it.

    - Peter Carl,Jr Goldmark
      In the NewYork Times, 24 May.

  • To these compositions is required neither genius nor knowledge, neither industry nor spriteliness, but contempt of shame, and indifference to truth are absolutely necessary.

    - Samuel known as Dr Johnson Johnson
      Of journalistic reporting. In The Idler, no.31,11 Nov.

  • As Ihavejust come frommaking my Easterconfessionon Good Fridayand have forgiven all those who trespass against me, I cannot harbour any thoughts of revenge, only contempt for an arrant shit who is bursting with pride, although he is simply being taken for a ride by his women.

    -Joseph II
      Of the senior dignitary of the Holy Roman Empire, the Elector- Archbishop of Mainz. Letter to Trauttmansdorff (his representative at Mainz),14  Apr. Quoted in T C  W Blanning Joseph II (1994), p.148.

  • Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail Or knock the breast, no weakness, no contempt, Dispraise, or blame, nothing but well and fair, And what may quiet us in a death so noble.

    -John Milton
    Of Samson's heroic death. Samson  Agonistes, l.1721^4.

  • It is increasingly rare for many of us†to believe that people can be poor, but honest, poor but deserving of respect. Poverty is no longer blamed on anyone but the poor themselves.Contempt for the poor has become a virtue.

    - Cardinal JohnJoseph O'Connor
      In Catholic NewYork, quoted in the NewYork Times, 24 Nov.

  • Boys do now cry 'Kiss my Parliament!' instead of 'Kiss myarse!'so great and general a contempt is the Rump come to among all men, good and bad.

    - Samuel Pepys
      Diary entry,7 Feb.The Rump Parliament was that which persisted after the fall of Richard Cromwell, and before the restoration of Charles II.

  • Pantagrue  lisme†est certaine gaiete   d'esprit confite en me  pris des choses fortuites. Pantagruelism is a certain liveliness of mind made in contempt of chance happenings.

    - Fran c° ois Rabelais
      Quart Livre, Prologue de l'auteur.

  • In the relations of a weak Government and a rebellious people there comes a time when everyact of the authorities exasperates the masses, and every refusal to act excites their contempt.

    -John Reed
      Ten DaysThat Shook theWorld, ch.3.

  • As every teacher, like every drill-sergeant or animal trainer, knows in his practice, teaching and training have virtually not yet begun, so long as the pupil istoo young, too stupid, too scared or too sulky to respondand to respond is not just to yield.Where there is a modicum of alacrity, interest or anyhow docility in the pupil, where he tries, however faintheartedly, to get things right rather than awkward, where, even, he registers even a slight contempt for the poor performances of others, of chagrin at his own, pleasure at his own successes and envy of those of others, then he is, in however slight a degree, co-operating and so self-moving.

    - Gilbert Ryle
    Quoted in R S Peters (ed) The Concept of Education (1966), ch.7.

  • I am proud of your contempt for my character and opinions, sir.

    - George Bernard Shaw
      Roebuck Ramsden toJohnTanner. Man and Superman, act1.

  • Familiarity breeds contemptand children.

    - Mark pseudonym of  Samuel Langhorne Clemens Twain
    c.1894  Quoted in Albert Bigelow Paine (ed) MarkTwain's Notebook (1935).

  •    When I survey the wondrous cross On which the prince of glory died, My richest gain I count but loss, And pour contempt on all my pride.

    - Isaac Watts
      Hymns and Spiritual Songs,'Crucifixion to theWorld, by the Cross of Christ'.

  • Have you not learn'd great lessons fromthose who reject you, and brace themselves against you? or who treat you with contempt, or dispute the passage with you?

    -Walt(er) Whitman
      Leaves of Grass,'Sands at Seventy','Stronger Lessons'.

  • Harold Ross†had a contempt for anything he didn't understand, which was practically everything.

    - Alexander Humphreys Woollcott
    Quoted inJamesThurber TheYearsWith Ross (1959), ch.15.

Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations Copyright © 2010 by Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Wiley, Hoboken, NJ. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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