Contemptuous Quotes - Page 2

• There are two visions of America. One precedes our founding fathers and finds its roots in the harshness of our Puritan past. It is very suspicious of freedom, uncomfortable with diversity hostile to science, unfriendly to reason, contemptuous of personal autonomy. It sees America as a religious nation. It views patriotism as allegiance to God. It secretly adores coercion and conformity. Despite our constitution, despite the legacy of the Enlightenment, it appeals to millions of Americans and threatens our freedom.

  Sherwin Wine

  Religious, Father, Past

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• Scarcely anything that I observed in the United States caused me so much sorrow as the contemptuous estimate of the people entertained by those who were bowing the knee to be permitted to serve them.

  Harriet Martineau

  People, Sorrow, Knees

  Harriet Martineau (1837). “Society in America”, p.60

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• An uprising would punish only the country, and that is out of the question. But there is yet another approach, the most effectiveform of resistance: contemptuous compliance.

  Franz Grillparzer

  Country, Uprising, Resistance

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• A horse, if he happens to have a contemptuous disposition, can sneer very effectively.

  Esther Meynell

  Horse, Disposition, Happens

  Esther Meynell (1940). “A Woman Talking”, London, Chapman & Hall [1940.]

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• I darted a contemptuous look at the stately models of superstition.

  Edward Gibbon

  Superstitions, Looks, Belief

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• There's an idea of the Plains as the middle of nowhere, something to be contemptuous of. But it's really a heroic place.

  Ian Frazier

  Ideas, Middle Of Nowhere, Heroic

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• They are the kind of people who are embarrassed by money, a dead middle-class giveaway. Poor people are not embarrassed by money and are contemptuous of those who are.

  Rosellen Brown

  Money, Class, People

  Rosellen Brown (1998). “Civil Wars”, Delta

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• Rejoice in the prosperity of others. When you feel contemptuous, or even a twinge of jealousy, toward the accomplishments or life-styles of others, you are harboring negativity where love must reside.

  Wayne Dyer

  Accomplishment, Negativity, Style

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• Valentine had long ago observed that in a society that expected chastity and fidelity, like Lusitania, the adolescents who controlled and channeled their youthful passions were the ones who grew up to be both strong and civilized. Adolescents in such a community who were either too weak to control themselves or too contemptuous of society's norms to try usually ended up being either sheep or wolves- either mindless members of the herd or predators who took what they could and gave nothing.

  Orson Scott Card

  Strong, Valentine, Passion

  Orson Scott Card (2009). “Xenocide: Volume Three of the Ender Quintet”, p.235, Tor Books

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• Judicial activists are nothing short of radicals in robes--contemptuous of the rule of law, subverting the Constitution at will, and using their public trust to impose their policy preferences on society. In fact, no radical political movement has been more effective in undermining our system of government than the judiciary. And with each Supreme Court term, we hold our collective breath hoping the justices will do no further damage, knowing full well they will disappoint. Such is the nature of judicial tyranny.

  Mark Levin

  Law, Knowing, Government

  Mark R. Levin (2006). “Men in Black: How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America”, p.22, Regnery Publishing

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• I sound contemptuous, but I am not. I am interested--intrigued even--by the way time erases real lives, leaving only vague imprints. Blood and spirit fade away so that only names and dates remain.

  Kate Morton

  Real, Blood, Names

  Kate Morton (2009). “The House at Riverton: A Novel”, p.25, Simon and Schuster

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• 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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• Passion is not friendly. It is arrogant, superbly contemptuous of all that is not itself, and, as they very definition of passion implies the impulse to freedom, it has a might intimidiating power. It contains a challenge. It contains an unspeakable hope.

  James A. Baldwin

  Passion, Challenges, Friendly

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• There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain.

  James A. Baldwin

  Pain, People, Way

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• Why are those who are notoriously undisciplined and unmoral also most contemptuous of religion and morality? They are trying to solace their own unhappy lives by pulling the happy down to their own abysmal depths.

  Fulton J. Sheen

  Unhappy, Trying, Depth

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• I wasn't sure if I admired him for feeling everything so hard and fiercely, or if I was contemptuous of him for having so much emotion that he had to spill it out every window of the house.

  Maggie Stiefvater

  House, Feelings, Emotion

  Maggie Stiefvater (2011). “Shiver Trilogy (Shiver, Linger, Forever)”, p.385, Scholastic Inc.

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• But knowledge does not protect one. Life is contemptuous of knowledge; it forces it to sit in the anterooms, to wait outside. Passion, energy, lies: these are what life admires. Still, anything can be endured if all humanity is watching. The martyrs prove it. We live in the attention of others. We turn to it as flowers to the sun.

  James Salter

  Lying, Flower, Passion

  James Salter (2011). “Light Years”, p.35, Vintage

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• I came in at half past eleven. Since then I have been sitting in an easy chair like a fool. I could do nothing. I hear nothing but your voice. I am like a fool hearing you call me 'Dear.' I offended two men today by leaving them coolly. I wanted to hear your voice, not theirs. When I am with you I leave aside my contemptuous, suspicious nature. I wish I felt your head on my shoulder.

  James Joyce

  Past, Men, Two

  James Joyce (1976). “Selected letters of James Joyce”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

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• Almost all of my early art dealt with the fallout from middle-class taboos, the messy, the ambivalent emotions couples felt, the inherent racism, the sexual tensions and the unhappiness roiling below the surface of our prim suburban lives. Meanwhile I was a suburban bad boy - cynical, sarcastic, contemptuous of all authority.

  Eric Fischl

  Sarcastic, Art, Couple

  "Bad Boy: My Life On and Off the Canvas". Book by Eric Fischl and Michael Stone, www.huffingtonpost.com. 2012.

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• Hannibal at eighteen was rooting for Mephistopheles and contemptuous of Faust, but he only half-listened to the climax. He was watching and breathing Lady Murasaki...

  Thomas Harris

  Breathing, Half, Faust

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