Sneer Quotes - Page 4

• I mean, you're right about the fire and war, all that. But that Rapture stuff--well, if you could see them all in Heaven--serried ranks of them as far as the mind can follow and beyond, league after league of us, flaming swords, all that, well, what I'm trying to say is who has time to go round picking people out and popping them up in the air to sneer at the people dying of radiation sickness on the parched and burning earth below them? If that's your idea of a morally acceptable time, I might add.

  Terry Pratchett

  War, Mean, Ideas

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• Goethe's devil is a cultivated personage and acquainted with the modern sciences; sneers at witchcraft and the black art even while employing them, and doubts most things, nay, half disbelieves even his own existence.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Art, Black, Doubt

  Thomas Carlyle (1872). “Miscellanies”, p.135

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• Stalkers lips curled into a sneer. "You won't make a move without him, huh? That's embarrassing." "No," I said softly. "It just hurts because you wish it was you.

  Ann Aguirre

  Hurt, Moving, Wish

  Ann Aguirre (2012). “Outpost”, p.122, Macmillan

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• An Irishman's imagination never lets him alone, never convinces him, never satisfies him; but it makes him that he can't face reality nor deal with it nor handle it nor conquer it: he can only sneer at them that do, and be 'agreeable to strangers', like a good-for-nothing woman on the streets.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Reality, Imagination, Faces

  1904 Larry Doyle to Tom Broadbent. John Bull's Other Island, Act 1.

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• Curse thee, Life, I will live with thee no more! Thou hast mocked me, starved me, beat my body sore! And all for a pledge that was not pledged by me, I have kissed thy crust and eaten sparingly That I might eat again, and met thy sneers With deprecations, and thy blows with tears.

  Edna St. Vincent Millay

  Sad, Blow, Tears

  Edna St. Vincent Millay (2012). “The Selected Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay”, p.17, Modern Library

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• ... some veil between childhood and the present is necessary. If the veil is withdrawn, the artistic imagination sickens and dies, the prophet looks in the mirror with a disillusioned and cynical sneer, the scientist goes fishing.

  Margaret Mead

  Mirrors, Fishing, Imagination

  Margaret Mead (1975). “Male and female: a study of the sexes in a changing world”, William Morrow & Co

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• The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate;
  He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.
  And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
  And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.
  Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
  The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
  And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
  But there is no joy in Mudville, mighty Casey has struck out.

  Ernest Thayer

  Summer, Children, Hate

  Ernest Lawrence Thayer (2007). “Casey at the Bat: The Billion Dollar Contract”, p.4, Benchmark Education Company

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• The driver got out smiling. He looked about seventeen or eighteen, and for a second, I had the uneasy feeling it was Luke, my old enemy. This guy had the same sandy hair and outdoorsy good looks. But it wasn't Luke. His smile was brighter and more playful. (Luke didn't do much more than scowl and sneer these days.) The Maserati driver wore jeans and loafers and a sleeveless T-shirt. "Wow" Thalia muttered. Apollo Is hot." "He's the sun god," I said. "That's not what I meant.

  Rick Riordan

  Hair, Jeans, Guy

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• To be original is to discover the commonplace of a thousand years--to face at first the sneer that no one would have thought of it, and at last the indifference because any one would.

  Gerald Stanley Lee

  Years, Lasts, Faces

  Gerald Stanley Lee (1896). “The Shadow Christ: An Introduction to Christ Himself”

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• My sister stood up, trembling, and I must admit that I expected her familiar sneer to have taken its usual place on her face. But all I could find there was unhappiness and fear. Fear of my reaction, perhaps. But when a person has lived a life like hers, a life of promiscuity, rootlessness, and substance abuse, resentment and fear tend to replace all reasonable and proper emotions, and the world becomes your enemy.

  J. Robert Lennon

  Fear, Taken, Enemy

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• We must be amusing at all times and sneer at those who express their real feelings; it's dangerous for a tribe to allow its members to show their feelings.

  Paulo Coelho

  Life, Real, Inspiration

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• All men know their children Mean more than life. If childless people sneer- Well, they've less sorrow. But what lonesome luck!

  Euripides

  Children, Mean, Men

  Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides (1959). “Euripides”

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• In time, Mr Hall, one gets to recognize that sneer, that hardness, for fornication extends far beyond the actual deed. Were it a deed only, I for one would not hold it anathema. But when the nations went a whoring they invariably ended by denying God, I think, and until all sexual irregularities and not some of them are penal the Church will never reconquer England.

  E. M. Forster

  Atheist, Thinking, Church

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• I don't like to lose, and that isn't so much because it is just a football game, but because defeat means the failure to reach your objective. I don't want a football player who doesn't take defeat to heart, who laughs it off with the thought, "Oh, well, there's another Saturday." The trouble in American life today, in business as well as in sports, is that too many people are afraid of competition. The result is that in some circles people have come to sneer at success if it costs hard work and training and sacrifice.

  Knute Rockne

  Sports, Football, Business

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• Anger he smiles, towering in shiny metallic purple armor. Queen Jealousy, envy waits behind him, her fiery green gown sneers at the grassy ground.

  Jimi Hendrix

  Queens, Revenge, Purple

  Jimi Hendrix (2013). “Starting At Zero: His Own Story”, p.120, A&C Black

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• As I sat at the Cafe I said to myself, They may talk as they please about what they call pelf, They may sneer as they like about eating and drinking, But help it I cannot, I cannot help thinking How pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho! How pleasant it is to have money!

  Arthur Hugh Clough

  Money, Drinking, Thinking

  Arthur Hugh Clough, Francis Turner Palgrave (1862). “Poems”, p.45

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• Do not reject anything because it is new or strange, and do not sneer nor jeer at what comes from the Lord, for if we do, we endanger our salvation.

  Brigham Young

  Strange, Lord, Salvation

  Brigham Young (1856). “Journal of Discourses”, p.267

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• It is a fallacy to think that carping is the strongest form of criticism: the important work begins after the artist's mistakes have been pointed out, and the reviewer can't put it off indefinitely with sneers, although some neophytes might be tempted to try: "When in doubt, stick out your tongue" is a safe rule that never cost one any readers. But there's nothing strong about it, and it has nothing to do with the real business of criticism, which is to do justice to the best work of one's time, so that nothing gets lost.

  Wilfrid Sheed

  Strong, Real, Mistake

  "Essays in Disguise" by Wilfrid Sheed, Knopf, (pp. xvi-xvii), 1990.

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• The sophist sneers: Fool, take Thy pleasure, right or wrong! The pious wail: Forsake A world these sophists throng! Be neither saint nor sophist-led, but be a man.

  Matthew Arnold

  Men, Saint, World

  Matthew Arnold (2013). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold (Illustrated)”, p.96, Delphi Classics

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• That I grow sour, who only lack delight; That I descend to sneer, who only grieve: That from my depth I should contemn your height; That with my blame my mockery you receive; Huntress and splendour of the woodland night, Diana of this world, do not believe.

  Hilaire Belloc

  Believe, Night, Grieving

  Hilaire Belloc (1970). “Complete verse [of] H. Belloc: including Sonnets and verse, Cautionary verses, The modern traveller, etc”

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• People talk-- they sneer at escapism. Well, there are those of us who need it.

  Piers Anthony

  People, Needs, Escapism

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• How little praise warms out of a man the good that is in him, as the sneer of contempt which he feels is unjust chill the ardor to excel.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Men, Unjust, Littles

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• The malicious sneer is improperly called laughter.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Laughter, Malicious

  Oliver Goldsmith, Sir James Prior (1837). “The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith, M. B.: Including a Variety of Pieces”, p.133

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• I often think that we are like the carp swimming contentedly in that pond. We live out our lives in our own "pond," confident that our universe consists of only the familiar and the visible. We smugly refuse to admit that parallel universes or dimensions can exist next to ours, just beyond our grasp. If our scientists invent concepts like forces, it is only because they cannot visualize the invisible vibrations that fill the empty space around us. Some scientists sneer at the mention of higher dimensions because they cannot be conveniently measured in the laboratory.

  Michio Kaku

  Swimming, Thinking, Space

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• A novel takes the courage of a marathon runner, and as long as you have to run, you might as well be a winning marathon runner. Serendipity and blind faith faith in yourself won't hurt a thing. All the bastards in the world will snicker and sneer because they haven't the talent to zip up their flies by themselves. To hell with them, particularly the critics. Stand in there, son, no matter how badly you are battered and hurt.

  Leon Uris

  Running, Hurt, Son

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