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.