Contempt is a strong feeling of disrespect for someone or something. It can be expressed through words and actions, often resulting in an atmosphere of hostility and alienation. We’ve gathered some of the best contempt quotes to help you better understand this emotion and its implications. From famous authors to everyday people, these quotes will help you explore the complexities of contempt and how it can affect relationships, both good and bad. Read on to see what some of the wisest people have said about contempt and its impact on our lives.
The best contempt quotes
1. War, like children’s fights, are meaningless, pitiless, and contemptible. — Rumi
2. Nature hath meal and bran, contempt and grace. — William Shakespeare
3. The moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible. — Salman Rushdie
4. The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity. — Samuel Johnson
5. I have nothing but contempt for the kind of governor who is afraid, for whatever reason, to follow the course that he knows is best for the State. — Sophocles, Antigone
6. Speculation is the romance of trade, and casts contempt upon on all its sober realities. It renders the stock–jobber a magician, and the exchange a region of enchantment. — Washington Irving
7. Nature hath meal and bran, contempt and grace. — William Shakespeare
8. ..what our contempt often hurls from us, We wish it our again; the present pleasure, By revolution lowering, does becomeThe opposite of itself.. — William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra
9. The rape of a child is a violent act of contempt, not an expression of sexuality or affection. — Mike Lew, Gay Men and Childhood Sexual Trauma
10. No one in the Iliad is spared by it, as no one on earth is. No one who succumbs to it is by virtue of this fact regarded with contempt. — Simone Weil
11. Contempt is a kind of gangrene which, if it seizes one part of a character, corrupts all the rest by degrees. — Samuel Johnson
12. Atheism is an exercise in intellectual contempt. — Ravi Zacharias
13. Unfortunately, in Hollywood, there are those directors that have some contempt for actors. We’ve all experienced that, in one way or another. — Vin Diesel
14. If German boys had learned to be contemptuous of violence, Hitler would have had to take up knitting to keep his ego warm. — J.D. Salinger, The Complete Uncollected Stories
15. I have nothing but contempt for anyone who can spell a word in only one way. — Thomas Jefferson
16. There is small risk a general will be regarded with contempt by those he leads, if, whatever he may have to preach, he shows himself best able to perform. — Xenophon
17. I’m not at all contemptuous of comforts, but they have their place and it is not first. — E.F. Schumacherm
18. You have very little morally persuasive power with people who can feel your underlying contempt. — Martin Luther King
19. When thou seest thine enemy in trouble, curl not thy whiskers in contempt; for in every bone there is marrow, and within every jacket there is a man. — Saadi
20. I’m always annoyed about why black people have to bear the brunt of everybody else’s contempt. If we are not totally understanding and smiling, suddenly we’re demons. — Toni Morrison
21. The Negro cannot win the respect of his oppressor by acquiescing; he merely increases the oppressor’s arrogance and contempt. — Martin Luther King
22. What our contempts do often hurl from us, We wish it ours again. — William Shakespeare
23. There is small risk a general will be regarded with contempt by those he leads, if, whatever he may have to preach, he shows himself best able to perform. — Xenophon
24. The Negro cannot win the respect of his oppressor by acquiescing; he merely increases the oppressor’s arrogance and contempt. — Martin Luther King
25. Though familiarity may not breed contempt, it takes the edge off admiration. — William Hazlitt
26. Nothing is so contemptible as that affectation of wisdom, which some display, by universal incredulity. — Oliver Goldsmith
27. He who lives upon the fruit of his own labor, escapes the contempt of haughty benefactors. — Saadi
28. Nothing can be more contemptible than to suppose Public Records to be true. — William Blake
29. Unfortunately, in Hollywood, there are those directors that have some contempt for actors. We’ve all experienced that, in one way or another. — Vin Diesel
30. Every heroic act measures itself by its contempt of some external good. But it finds its own success at last, and then the prudent also extol. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
31. A healthy–minded boy should feel hearty contempt for the coward and even more hearty indignation for the boy who bullies girls or small boys, or tortures animals. — Theodore Roosevelt
32. Contempt is egotism in ill–humor. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge
33. There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt. — Niccolo Machiavelli
34. Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry, cannot have much respect for himself, or for anything else. — William Hazlitt
35. [a]nd you may know how little God thinks of money by observing on what bad and contemptible characters he often bestow — Thomas Guthrie
36. Contempt for China on the part of the enemy is his weak point. Knowledge of this weak point is our strong point.–Chiang Kai — Shek
37. A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great government of the United States helpless and contemptible. — Woodrow Wilson
38. The rape of a child is a violent act of contempt, not an expression of sexuality or affection. — Mike Lew, Gay Men and Childhood Sexual Trauma
39. I’m not at all contemptuous of comforts, but they have their place and it is not first. — E.F. Schumacherm
40. 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
41. The rape of a child is a violent act of contempt, not an expression of sexuality or affection. — Mike Lew, Gay Men and Childhood Sexual Trauma
42. We must endure the contempt of others without reciprocating that contempt. — Neal A. Maxwell
43. To my eye Rubens’ colouring is most contemptible. His shadows are a filthy brown somewhat the colour of excrement. — William Blake
44. Hezbollah’s contempt for human suffering is total, as it showed once again this morning when its rockets murdered two Israeli Arab children in Nazareth. — Tom Lantos
45. Speculation is the romance of trade, and casts contempt upon on all its sober realities. It renders the stock–jobber a magician, and the exchange a region of enchantment. — Washington Irving
46. I’m always annoyed about why black people have to bear the brunt of everybody else’s contempt. If we are not totally understanding and smiling, suddenly we’re demons. — Toni Morrison
47. A contempt of the monuments and the wisdom of the past, may be justly reckoned one of the reigning follies of these days, to which pride and idleness have equally contributed. — Samuel Johnson
48. What our contempts do often hurl from us, We wish it ours again. — William Shakespeare
49. Age is rarely despised but when it is, contemptible. — Samuel Johnson
50. The Negro cannot win the respect of his oppressor by acquiescing; he merely increases the oppressor’s arrogance and contempt. — Martin Luther King
Conclusion
We often feel contempt for those who deserve it, but it’s important to remember that even these people have value, worth, and dignity. Contempt quotes can be a reminder to look beyond someone’s actions, and to consider the underlying causes of their behavior. We can learn to forgive and to understand, to have compassion and to show mercy.
