Condescending Quotes

• If you have any trouble sounding condescending, find a Unix user to show you how it's done.

  Scott Adams

  Technology, Done, Condescension And

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• I'm not being condescending, I'm too busy thinking about far more important things you wouldn't understand.

  Jimmy Carr

  Funny, Humor, Thinking

  "Jimmy Carr's 40 most memorable jokes: One-liners and videos galore to mark comic's 40th birthday" by Rob Leigh, www.mirror.co.uk. September 14, 2012.

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• Everybody that loves Nancy loves it in a slightly condescending way. Nancy is comics reduced to their most elemental level.

  Bill Griffith

  Levels, Way, Comic

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• I'm a terrible patient, and I find that doctors can be very condescending.

  Sherry Stringfield

  Doctors, Patient, Terrible

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• Don't be condescending to unskilled labor. Try it for a half a day first.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Work, Trying, Half

  Brooks Atkinson (1951). “Once around the sun”

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• Watteau is no less an artist for having painted a fascia board while Sainsbury's is no less effective a business for producing advertisements which entertain and educate instead of condescending and exploiting.

  Stephen Bayley

  Artist, Boards, Educate

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• For success in training children the first condition is to become as a child oneself, but this means no assumed childishness, no condescending baby-talk that the child immediately sees through and deeply abhors. What it does mean is to be as entirely and simply taken up with the child as the child himself is absorbed by his life.

  Ellen Key

  Baby, Children, Taken

  Ellen Key (2016). “The century of the child”, p.54, Ellen Key

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• Tragedy is the greatest art form of all. It gives us the courage to continue with our life by exposing us to the pain of life. It is unsentimental, it takes us seriously as human beings, it is not condescending. Paradoxically, by seeing pain we are made greater, it becomes a need.

  Howard Barker

  Art, Pain, Giving

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• It's very hard not to be condescending when you're explaining something to an idiot.

  Bill Maher

  Idiot, Explaining, Hard

  "Maher's 'Real Time' Panelists Spar Over Brewer-Obama Altercation, Immigration". www.realclearpolitics.com. January 28, 2012.

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• Those in the west who dismiss the repressiveness of laws against women in countries like Iran, no matter how benign their intentions, present a condescending view not just of the religion but also of women living in Muslim majority countries, as if the desire for choice and happiness is the monopoly of women in the west.

  Azar Nafisi

  Country, Views, Iran

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• Better to be despised, then, than to be ignored; or damned with condescending praise.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Ignored, Praise, Despised

  Joyce Carol Oates (1989). “(Woman) writer: occasions and opportunities”, Plume

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• When people are hurting, what they really need is someone who is fully there for them - not someone who is condescending or officious. The only way for you to be there for them is by facing your fear or anger, whatever feelings cause you to shut down.

  Pema Chodron

  Hurt, People, Feelings

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• You ever talk about a movie with someone that read the book? They're always so condescending. 'Ah, the book was much better than the movie.' Oh really? What I enjoyed about the movie: no reading.

  Jim Gaffigan

  Funny, Book, Reading

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• Rain is grace; rain is the sky descending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life.

  John Updike

  Life, Rain, Sky

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• Pity can be nearsighted and condescending; shared suffering can be dignifying and life-changing.

  Eugene H. Peterson

  Life Changing, Suffering, Pity

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• The whole world is a theatre for the display of the divine goodness, wisdom, justice, and power, but the Church is the orchestra, as it were—the most conspicuous part of it; and the nearer the approaches are that God makes to us, the more intimate and condescending the communication of his benefits, the more attentively are we called to consider them.

  John Calvin

  Communication, Justice, Church

  John Calvin (2012). “John Calvin's Commentaries On The Psalms 119 - 150 (Annotated Edition)”, p.166, Jazzybee Verlag

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• I first became interested in style when I was 16 and I had my first couple of gigs. I realised I couldn't look like the people I was performing to. Not in a condescending way, but just that it would be weird if I was wearing exactly what someone in the crowd was wearing.

  Tinie Tempah

  Couple, People, Style

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• I hear Raleigh's new accounting business isn't doing well. Maybe up in New York or somewhere it's a good thing, but in Jackson, Mississippi, people just don't care to do business with a rude, condescending asshole.

  Kathryn Stockett

  New York, People, Rude

  Kathryn Stockett (2009). “The Help”, p.87, Penguin

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• We are expected to put the utmost energy, of every power that we have, into the service of our fellow men, never sparing ourselves, not condescending to think of what is going to happen to ourselves, but ready, if need be, to go to the utter length of self-sacrifice.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Sacrifice, Men, Thinking

  Woodrow Wilson (2012). “President Wilson's Addresses”, p.95, tredition

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• I hate a movie that will end by telling you that the first thing you should do is learn to love yourself. That is so insulting and condescending, and so meaningless. My characters don't learn to love each other or themselves.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Hate, Love Yourself, Character

  "Being Charlie Kaufman" by Michael Sragow, www.salon.com. November 11, 1999.

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• So how do we solve this ancient problem? How can we not just tolerate someone who believes differently than we do, but actually respect them for those beliefs? Because nothing less than that will do. It can’t. Simply tolerating someone who believes differently than we do isn’t enough. “Accepting” them isn’t enough. Having true and abiding peace with them means loving them. And that means respecting them. Because love without respect isn’t real love at all. It’s at best condescending patronization.

  John Shore, 1st Baron Teignmouth

  Real, Believe, Mean

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• But really it’s condescending and patronizing not to make fun of someone because they’re old or stupid or crippled or morbidly obese. Banged up people don’t want your pity. They just want to be treated like everyone else. Mockery, when done without prejudice or discretion, can be a form of respect. It’s the closest we’ll ever come to true equality.

  Paul Neilan

  Fun, Stupid, People

  Paul Neilan (2007). “Apathy and Other Small Victories: A Novel”, p.53, Macmillan

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• I think clearly Europe has a lot to worry about. When I was working at the CIA - and I always worked with a lot of European services - they always were very condescending toward the United States, saying that we are so racist vis-à-vis blacks and other people.

  Michael Scheuer

  Thinking, Europe, People

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Go force your condescending man-logic on the next house. You can go now.

  Lisa McMann

  Men, House, Next

  Lisa McMann (2011). “Cryer's Cross”, p.42, Simon and Schuster

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• Delia was an overbearing cake with condescending frosting, and frankly, I was on a diet.

  Maggie Stiefvater

  Cake, Overbearing, Diets

  Maggie Stiefvater (2010). “Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception”, p.38, North Star Editions, Inc.

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