"Contempt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... both. As Christians it is quite impossible in any real sense to have the friendship of the world, though many Christians think that they can. What really is open to us is the enmity of the world if we are sincere and strict in our profession, and the contempt of the world if we are not. You have not to read very deep in contemporary literature to learn what the world thinks about the Christian who ignores or compromises his standards. The world knows perfectly well what constitutes a Christian life, and it shows ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... Laird of Kerse should drive the animal and her attendants away, and hence came a bloody battle about "the flitting of the sow." In the contest, Kerse's eldest son and hope, Jock, is killed, and the point or moral of the narrative is, the contempt with which the old laird looks on that event, as compared with the grave affair of flitting the sow. A retainer who comes to tell him the result of the battle stammers in his narrative on account of his grief for Jock, and is thus pulled ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... came in my way. I was perpetually exasperated with the petty promptings of his conceit and his love of patronage, with his self-complacent belief in Bertha Grant's passion for him, with his half- pitying contempt for me—seen not in the ordinary indications of intonation and phrase and slight action, which an acute and suspicious mind is on the watch for, but in all ...
— The Lifted Veil • George Eliot
... pounds, no more, not counting her expectations from him, which were left out of the question. It was a very small matter altogether, and one which the smart solicitor who was in Mr. Compton's interest spoke of with a certain contempt, as who should say he was not in the habit of being disturbed and brought to the country for any such trifle. It was now August—not a time when any man was supposed to be available for matters like these. Mr. Lynch was just about starting for his annual holiday, but came, ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... reciprocal qualities; and that, unless they themselves employ such means in their intercourse with official authorities, it is hopeless to expect these authorities will put themselves one inch out of their way to oblige persons who manifestly hold them in contempt. At least, until we can procure angels to take the office of master-attendant, master-shipwright, storekeeper, and so forth, the laws and customs of human nature will continue to regulate such influences. Your gruff and sulky letter-of-the-law ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... along, and observed its comparatively little eyes looking inquisitively up at them. On clearing the yacht he came to the surface not more that thirty yards from the side. In fact he had shaved it as near as possible without actually touching. "Familiarity breeds contempt," saith the proverb. The longer this whale played round them, the more did he exhibit a growing tendency to play with them, and as there was no saying what fancies he might take into his great head, Fred resolved to ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... same instant a little bit of paper was slipped in under the door—a letter from the silent Madeleine. I unfolded the paper and saw the following words written across from one corner to the other, with a contempt for French ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... come to Pompeii. The confidence which, before their death, their parents had reposed in the Egyptian was in turn fully given to him by lone and her brother. For Apaecides the Egyptian felt nothing but contempt; the youth was to him but an instrument that might be used by him in bending lone to his will. But the mind of Ione, no less than the beauty of her form, appealed to Arbaces. With her by his side, his willing slave, he saw no limit to the heights his ambition ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... the carpenter, who was to build the bridge, laughed, and looked with contempt upon him, Paul thought, because he was barefoot and had ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... of the county, and achieved expeditions which her coachman had hitherto never permitted to her, in search of ruins, camps, churches, and towers. The colonel had a turn for geology, though a wandering life even with an Indian baggage-train had saved him from incurring her contempt for collectors; but he knew by sight the character of the conformations of rocks, and when they had mounted one of the hills that surrounded Avonmouth, discerned by the outline whether granite, gneiss, limestone, or slate formed the grander ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he ejaculated, forgetting his evident fear of me for the first time, and speaking with a certain manly fierceness that thawed the chill of my contempt for him. "If I've got a right to nothing else on earth, I've got a right to that. It's a portrait ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... a dog loves his master. In all our rows I covered him with my body. He had but to say to me, 'Leap into the water,' and I would not have stopped to pull off my coat. In short, I loved him as a proud man loves one who stands betwixt him and contempt,—as an affectionate man loves one who stands between him and solitude. To cut short a long story: my friend, one dark night, committed an outrage against discipline, of the most unpardonable character. There was ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... child cowed and awed by the object of a love so powerful, so self-sacrificing that she made no attempt to understand it. She had always felt her inferiority to others, and now that she loved her ideal of superiority she seemed to expect ill-treatment—even contempt—at his hands. ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... poetically and very vaguely represent to himself something light and subtle which contrasts with the weight and grossness of material bodies. And thus our philosopher is punished in the sinning part; his contempt of the earthly has led him into an abuse of abstract reasoning, and this abuse has made him the dupe of ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... only been bigger,—bigger than themselves,—they could have shown their contempt for her and chased her; but that little midget! no, indeed, grown-up fellows like them did not waste either words or blows on such small fry! It would be a good plan, however, to talk with her a bit and ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud
... didn't dislike her—we simply despised her. I think contempt is worse than dislike—at all events, it is harder to bear. Week after week passed away, till at length the end of September approached. In a few days we were ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... he was hungry. It came with a great gnawing need. On the fifth day it was Otah who noticed, and more out of contempt than pity tossed him the remnants of a wild-dog he had brought: the portion was little more than stripped bones and sinew, but Gral accepted without question, crawled to his place on the ledge and partially ...
— The Beginning • Henry Hasse
... it this time?" she whispered, and then she saw his swollen mouth and his battered eye. Her fingers relaxed about the handle of the knife, the fire in her eyes went swiftly down, and with a smile that was half pity, half contempt, she turned away. She could not have told the whole truth better in words, even to Dave, and as he looked after her his every pulse-beat was a new curse, and if at that minute he could have had Hale's heart he would have eaten it like a savage—raw. For a minute he hesitated with ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... no account do," Pao-ch'ai added. "You employ such a lot of people in here that they all lead a lazy life and have nothing to put a hand to, and were I also now to introduce some more, that tribe will look even upon me with utter contempt. But let me think of some one for you. There's in the I Hung court, an old dame Yeh; she's Pei Ming's mother. That woman is an honest old lady; and is furthermore on the best of terms with our Ying Erh's mother. So wouldn't it be well were this charge given to this dame Yeh? Should ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... events, a shrewd observer of the weakness of the Government, and of the popular discontent. He perceived the opportunity of making the Manchu dynasty the scapegoat of national weakness and apathy. He could not be the servant of the Government. Class contempt, the prejudices of his examiners, or it may even have been his own haughty presumption and self-sufficiency, effectually debarred him from the enjoyment of the wealth and privileges that fall to the lot of those in executive power in all ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... was inclined to feel something like contempt for those so much older than himself, who were not ashamed to acknowledge that they were hungry and tired after travelling somewhat under twenty miles in a broiling sun. Denis, who had, it must be confessed, ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... taken to have said votes counted and for general relief. To enable the court to inquire as to the truth of these allegations, a temporary restraining order was issued against the defendants, which was at once wholly disregarded and treated with contempt by those to whom it was directed. These proceedings have been widely denounced as an unwarrantable interference by the Federal judiciary with the election of State officers; but it is to be remembered that by the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... Fooles Beleeue false Teachers: Though those that are betraid Do feele the Treason sharpely, yet the Traitor Stands in worse case of woe. And thou Posthumus, That didd'st set vp my disobedience 'gainst the King My Father, and makes me put into contempt the suites Of Princely Fellowes, shalt heereafter finde It is no acte of common passage, but A straine of Rarenesse: and I greeue my selfe, To thinke, when thou shalt be disedg'd by her, That now thou tyrest on, how thy memory Will then be pang'd by me. Prythee dispatch, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... impossible to feel any serious or general contempt for a person of Mr. Southey's genius;—and, in reviewing his other works, we hope we have shown a proper sense of his many merits and accomplishments. But his Laureate odes are utterly and intolerably bad; and, if he had never written any thing else, must have ranked him below Colley Cibber ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... on the Bench; which neither became him nor he it, for he wanted indeed most of the qualifications requisite for a Justice of the Peace: an estate to defray the charge of the office and to bear him up in a course of living above contempt; a competent knowledge in the laws, and a presence of mind or body, or both, to keep offenders in some awe; in all which he was deficient; for he was but a fellmonger by trade, accustomed to ride upon his pack of skins, and had very little estate, as little knowledge of the law, and of ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... Great Lodge to kill the hunter who sees no danger ahead. And now, when this dog is caught, and tied at your door, would not my brothers bring him to the end of all evil beasts?" As he finished, he made a gesture of bitter contempt and ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... who had been his father's mistress. All the morality which lies buried in our breasts, heaped up at the bottom of our sensuous emotions by centuries of hereditary instruction, all that he had been taught, since he had learned his catechism, about creatures of evil life, the instinctive contempt which every man entertains for them, even though he may marry one of them, all the narrow honesty of the peasant in his character, was stirred up within him and held him back, making him grow red ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... another picture, calling the older boy Saint John, and the wee baby Jesus. The years went by and we find still another picture of the Holy Family by this same artist, in which five children are shown, while back in the shadow is the artist himself, posed as Joseph. And with a beautiful contempt for anachronism, the elder children are called Isaiah, Ezekiel and Elijah. This fusing of work, love and religion gives us a glimpse into the only paradise mortals know. It is the Ideal—and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... that in a being so perfectly formed in all other respects such an important organ as the will should be missing. His absence of volition was but the result of his perception of the vanity of all earthly ambitions, and his absence of desire the outcome of his contempt for all that was worthless and transitory, his aversion to the ways of the world a tragic foregoing of the hope of ever getting behind it, and reaching the eternal root and significance of the ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... hard, as selfish, as exacting, and as eager after money as before, we do not put much faith in his profession, and are very apt to class him with hypocrites. His praying, and fine talk about faith, and heavenly love, and being washed from all sin, excite in us contempt rather than respect. We ask for good works, and are never satisfied with anything else. By their ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur
... clatter and tumult of voices hovered about the two cages. Men appraised the fighters and made their bets, and Grouse Piet and Henri Durant made their throats hoarse flinging banter and contempt at each other. At the end of the hour the crowd began to thin out. In the place of men and women half a hundred dark-visaged little children crowded about the cages. It was not until then that Miki caught glimpses of the hordes of beasts fastened in ones and twos and groups in ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... understand that you are in contempt of this court? Do you intend to show contempt for this court?" he ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... morning?" I asked. There was a chorus of "Qui sait?" and the heads disappeared still further with the respective shoulders to which they belonged. "What do you think of a man on horseback?" I suggested. An indignant "Impossible" was the answer. "Why not?" I asked. The look of contempt with which the clerks gazed on me was expressive. It meant, "Do you really imagine that a functionary—a postman—is going to forward your letters in an irregular manner?" At this moment a sort of young French Jefferson Brick came in. Evidently he was a Republican recently ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... country for courage, talent, and gallantry, was his self-confidence and assurance. He believed himself inferior to none in powers of body and mind, and that he could accomplish whatever he perseveringly attempted. He had, moreover, an overwhelming contempt for the poor, amongst whom his duties so constantly brought him, and it is not therefore wonderful that he was equally feared and execrated by them. I should also state that Myles Ussher had had sagacity enough to keep some of the money which he had received, and ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... him with an air full of contempt. "Tell me once for all," asked the latter, "tell me one way or other, whether I am in your opinion an object for suspicion? Speak up, Porphyrius Petrovitch, and explain yourself without any more beating about the bush, ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... What contempt we have for a man who robs another, who picks his pocket, or knocks him down in some lonely place and strips him of whatever articles of value he may have. But the man who cheats is a thief, just as truly as the ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... laughter into an expression of contempt is contrary to fact, and laughable enough. Laughter is a convulsion of the nerves; and it seems as if nature cut short the rapid thrill of pleasure on the nerves by a sudden convulsion of them, to prevent the sensation becoming painful. Aristotle's definition ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... as he is concerned," answered the other, "he means to show his contempt for people in office. Richard Garman, like all people who have led shady lives, is ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... patronage system viewed the reform with contempt. Roscoe Conkling, for example, expressed his sentiments in the remark, "When Dr. Johnson said that patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel he ignored the enormous possibilities of the word reform!" ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... appealed for help to the American Woman Suffrage Association through her old friends, William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips. Garrison replied that her efforts for a federal amendment were premature and "would bring the movement into needless contempt." This she found strange advice from the man who had fearlessly defied public opinion to crusade against slavery. Wendell Phillips did better, writing, "I think you are on the right track—the best method to agitate the question, and I am with you, though between you and me, I still think ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... confidence. It is better for us first to repeat, "Dare to look up to God and say: Make use of me for the future as Thou wilt, I am of the same mind, I am equal with Thee.... Lead me whither Thou wilt," than to dwell upon such words as these: "It is altogether necessary that thou have a true contempt for thyself if thou desire to prevail against flesh and blood"—or these: "If I abase myself ... and grind myself to the dust which I am, Thy grace will be favourable to me, and Thy light near unto my head.... By seeking Thee alone and purely loving Thee I have found both myself ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... accomplishments in which the Secesh was so pre-eminent as to win his way to the inner depths of the diplomatic heart. The people, I am sure, will heartily applaud those of its representatives for thus incurring the contempt ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... sneer in his heart, he mentally compared the old-fashioned pulpit, with its steep flight of steps and faded trimmings, with the lofty cathedral he had been in the habit of attending in Paris, and a feeling of disgust and contempt was creeping over him, when a soft rustling of silk, and a consciousness of a delicate perfume, which he at once recognized as aristocratic, warned him that somebody was coming; somebody entirely different from the score of females who had distributed themselves within range of his vision, their ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... Fergusson considered him as a man of a powerful capacity and original ideas, but whose mind was thrown off its just bias by a predominant degree of self-love and self-opinion, galled by the sense of ridicule and contempt, and avenging itself upon society, in idea at least, by ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... shaking sobs, telling her pitiful stories, and begging her for money, for a word with the management. And, when they had gone, she had turned to her looking-glass and gazed at herself with conscious pride and delight. Contempt, not pity, stirred her heart for the draggled butterflies whose gauzy irridescence was but for a moment; and before her mirror she constantly renewed her vows that never would she barter her bloom, her freshness, her exquisite grace for what those ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... he wanted above all, the contempt of his true antagonists; and he used it as a cloak to hide his real power. For four consecutive months his face wore a torpid expression, like that of a snake as it gulps and digests its prey. But at times he would rush into the garden with Colleville or Flavie, to laugh ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... His soul lived in the past. All the evils of the age he ascribed to the demerits of the traitors who had raised the banner of revolt against the lawful king; and as for the countrymen of Mr. Gould, the intrusive Yangueses, his vocabulary hardly approached the measure of his contempt when he called them herexes y ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... arid land. I never see the supercilious curl of a camel's lip or meet the bland contempt of his eye but I imagine him saying, 'Ah, Feringhi, were it not for your white skin I might whisper strange secrets into your ear, but you are an unbelieving dog, so perforce I remain dumb.' Hence, Miss Fenshawe, inclination pulls one way and common sense the other. ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... England to dresse his vineyarde, many promise ful faire, whome I coulde name, but what fruite followed? Nothing but bitter grapes, yea, bryers and brambles, the wormewood of auarice, the gall of crueltie, the poison of filthie fornication, flowing from head to fote, the contempt of God, and open defence of the cake idole, by open proclamation to be read in the churches in steede of God's Scriptures. Thus was there no reformation, but a deformation, in the time of the tyrant and lecherouse monster. The bore I graunt was busie, wrooting ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... to take away something from the dignity of writing, and therefore are never communicated but with hesitation, and a little fear of abasement and contempt. But it must be remembered, that life consists not of a series of illustrious actions, or elegant enjoyments; the greater part of our time passes in compliance with necessities, in the performance of daily duties, in the removal of small inconveniences, ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... companions, and had been drowned before he reached the shore. He had had a few days of grace granted him, but he had made no use of them. Instead of trying to be reconciled to his enemy, he had treated him with haughtiness and contempt. In vain he endeavoured to pray,— confusion of mind, brought on by fever, prevented him from collecting his thoughts, and all sorts of fearful phantoms passed before him. Again he was on the deck of the Marie, surrounded by the dead and dying, when he saw as clearly as if they had been present, ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... to Carleton has been treated with contempt, no parley being entered into nor conditions considered. Montgomery tried various expedients to have his messages received, but without success, until an old woman was found willing to carry them in. On her errand becoming known, she was arrested, imprisoned for a few hours and then drummed out ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway
... moment he might come to the conclusion that their continued presence about the works or in the town was inconvenient, and denounce them as hostile to the occupation. In fact—and a bitter realization it was—they were only saved from this by the manager's contempt of them as adversaries and his calm assurance that they were really not worth considering one way ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... dark moments, he remembered the time when he had come to Paris from the country, with a volume of poetry and plays in his portmanteau, feeling a supreme contempt for all the writers who were then in vogue, and sure of supplanting them. She often, when she awoke in the morning to another day's unhappiness, remembered that happy time when she had been launched onto the world, when she already saw that she was more sought after than Marie G. or Sophie N. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... thought the war more a folly than a crime, and if he had been free, he would have withdrawn, like Perrotin, into high dilettantism of art and thought, without attempting the hopeless task of fighting the prevailing opinion, for which he then felt more contempt than pity. Since his forced participation in the war, he had been obliged to acknowledge that this folly was so largely expiated by suffering that it would be superfluous to add anything to it. Man had made his own hell upon earth, ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... then became ridiculous, and were wholly disregarded. Acolytes were exposed to tests, and compelled to perform acts, which, if real, would have been abominable; but being mere chimeras, were preposterous, and excited contempt and laughter only. Eight hundred Degrees of one kind and another were invented: Infidelity and even Jesuitry were taught under the mask of Masonry. The rituals even of the respectable Degrees, copied and ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... exclaimed his companion with patrician contempt. "That reminds me," she continued. "What is your ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... see if anybody partook of his opinion; but on the contrary, he saw nothing but eager eyes which were devouring, in anticipation, that sublime fowl which was the object of his contempt. ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... attractiveness, so far as it is a matter of clothes, depends far more upon the manner in which they are made and worn than upon costliness. It was always thought that she ruled her husband and had just a spice of contempt for him. She gained thereby in Eastthorpe, at least with the men, for her superiority to him gave her an air which was slightly detached, free, and fascinating. She always drove when she went out with ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... Cornelius Sylla. Two other patricians, Aurelius Cotta and Manlius Torquatus, had stood against them. The successful competitors were unseated for bribery; Cotta and Torquatus took their places, and, apparently as a natural resource in the existing contempt into which the constitution had fallen, the disappointed candidates formed a plot to kill their rivals and their rivals' friends in the Senate, and to make a revolution. Cneius Piso, a young nobleman of the bluest blood, joined in the conspiracy. Catiline threw himself into it as his natural element, ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... merely in the abstract, this conception might be treated as a harmless eccentricity or speculative aberration, and is likely to be so treated by the ordinary "practical" man, with his contempt for "theories," and his pathetic conviction that speculation does not matter; let us, however, see what is implied in this particular speculative theory. From the primary assumption of this philosophy it follows with an irresistible cogency that there ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... was clean of all growth, as though scraped with a sharp knife. Only traces of powdery dust, not yet scattered by a breeze, lay here and there. I was jubilant, but Miss Francis affected an air of contempt. "Ive proved nothing I didnt know before, merely confirmed the powers of the deterrent—under optimum conditions. It has killed ordinary grass and some miscellaneous weeds—and that's all I can say so far. What it will do to inoculated Cynodon dactylon ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... tall, thin woman of forty years or thereabouts, with high features, dark eyes, a pale olive complexion, black hair white at the temples, considerable taste in dress and an absolute contempt for physical exertion, mental occupation ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... Apartments a la Louis Quatorze represent the ideas and the sympathies of a period when the rich lived by themselves in luxury, and the poor were trodden down in the gutter; when there was only aristocratic contempt and domination on one side, and servility and smothered curses on the other. With the change of the apartments to the style of that past era, seemed to come its maxims and morals, as artistically indicated for its completeness. So John walked ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... cheerless and comfortless place in the house. Other families, more good-natured and liberal, provide their domestics with more suitable accommodations, and are more indulgent; but there is still a latent spirit of something like contempt for the position. That they treat their servants with so much consideration seems to them a merit entitling them to the most prostrate gratitude; and they are constantly disappointed and shocked at that want of sense of inferiority on the part of these people ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... respect, could be nothing else but perfect; while the opposite extreme were disposed to think that nothing good could come of Nazareth. In this way, four of our number became decided politicians, not only entertaining a sovereign contempt for the sides they respectively opposed, but beginning to feel sensations approaching to hatred ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free—if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... touch of life or humor, and to overvalue the piece in which he found it; but, mainly his judgments of letters and men were just. One of the dangers of scholarship was a peculiar danger in the Cambridge keeping, but Lowell was almost as averse as Longfellow from contempt. He could snub, and pitilessly, where he thought there was presumption and apparently sometimes merely because he was in the mood; but I cannot remember ever to have heard him sneer. He was often wonderfully patient of tiresome ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Abraham, whose childhood had fallen on the evil times at the beginning of this century, and who remained amid this smart and instructed generation as a preserved specimen, soaked through and through with the effect of the poverty and contempt which were the common heritage of most English Jews seventy years ago. He had none of the oily cheerfulness observable in Mr. Cohen's aspect: his very features—broad and chubby—showed that tendency to look mongrel without due cause, which, in a miscellaneous London neighborhood, may ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... the hope, belief, and certitude My wife to me was faithful evermore, Should with contempt the beauty have eschewed Of that famed daughter which fair Leda bore; And all the wit and wealth wherewith was wooed The illustrious shepherd upon Ida hoar. But no repulse withal with her avails, Who me, for ever ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... said Jack to himself, giving him a look full of contempt. "What interest could I possibly have in a ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... personal interest in fostering prejudice, where the masses are in such an inert condition, where ignorance so generally prevails, where there is so little ambition for improvement, where life is so hard and material in its tone, it is not strange to find much hatred and contempt. Ignorance is generally cruel, and frequently brutal. The political leaders of this people have apparently indoctrinated them with the notion that they are superior to any other class in the country. Hence ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... Encyclopaedists, from their having been the first to conceive and execute the plan of the Encyclopaedia. These savans were DIDEROT, D'ALEMBERT, and VOLTAIRE, all professed atheists, who, by the dissemination of their pernicious doctrine, introduced into France an absolute contempt for all religion. This infidelity, dissolving every social tie, every principle between man and man, between the governing and the governed, in the sequel, produced anarchy, rapine, and all ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... offers of capitulation, and Karaiskakes, now uncontrolled by Lord Cochrane or General Church, and in contempt of his positive assertion, made two days before, that the garrison had not a ration of provisions left and could easily be starved into utter submission, had acceded to their terms. It was agreed that they were to be allowed ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... personated in it by the Pharisee. One can fancy their faces as they listened, and how they would love the speaker! Their two characteristics are self-righteousness and depreciation of every one else, which is the natural result of such trust in self. The self-adulation was absolute, the contempt was all-embracing, for the Revised Version rightly renders 'set all others at nought.' That may sound exaggerated, but the way to judge of moral characteristics is to take them in their fullest development ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... drinking party for thirty miles around took place without his lank figure turning up among the guests; so that they were used to him by now, and put up with his presence as a necessary evil. They all, it is true, treated him with contempt; but the Wild Master was the only one who knew how to keep his ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... saw falling from the same cloud. Ah, Brethren, let us beware of the unholy fire of evil passion, anger, malice, wrath, strife, that would burn and consume our love for one another; and on the other hand avoid all feelings and expressions or other manifestations of contempt, or neglect, or unkindness that would freeze it ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... an able official of the War Department, who deserved and obtained the confidence of Grant and his officers, to accompany the Western army and report to him. Apart, however, from the reports he thus received, he had always treated the attacks on Grant with contempt. "I cannot spare this general; he fights," he said. In reply to complaints that Grant drank, he enquired (adapting, as he knew, George II.'s famous saying about Wolfe) what whisky he drank, explaining that he wished to send barrels of it to some of his other generals. His attitude ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... abilities and calm common sense. For when the public knows, as all those who have paid any attention to the subject do know, that the members of the Congress are now selling pamphlets which are intended to bring the Queen's Government into hatred and contempt, its opinion of the educated natives of India is not likely to be a high one. And in order to make quite sure that the Congress is still selling the pamphlets in question, I suggested to the secretary of the Athenaeum in June, 1892, to purchase for the library of that club ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... dogmatic Medievalism, with its crassly materialistic view of the Eucharist; its insistence on the saving grace of asceticism and celibacy; and its scarcely veiled contempt for women, overwhelmed the original conception. Certain of the features of the ancient ritual indeed survive, but they are factors of confusion, rather than clues to enlightenment. Thus, while the Grail still retains its character of a Feeding Vessel, comes ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... to look. It didn't interest him, his father was an idiot, only a child would lose his head over a girl in that fashion. And with his contempt for woman the young ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... time here and indulging in their mania for gambling. And here, too, you will see wealthy French, Italian, English or Russian civilians who have returned to Monte Carlo to gamble, though later on they are pretty certain to be held up to contempt at home for gambling money away here instead of buying government ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... appearance Remonencq was short and thin; his little eyes were set in his head in porcine fashion; a Jew's slyness and concentrated greed looked out of those dull blue circles, though in his case the false humility that masks the Hebrew's unfathomed contempt ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... creature endowed with five senses can grow up into the perfection of this crass and earthly vanity. In towns or the busier country sides, he is roughly reminded of other men's existence; and if he learns no more, he learns at least to fear contempt. But Irvine had come scathless through life, conscious only of himself, of his great strength and intelligence; and in the silence of the universe, to which he did not listen, dwelling with delight on the sound of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... unanswerable, "as our mayor said!" How often have I felt my blood boil, to hear my worthy friend and preceptor insulted by one of these contemptible jackanapes. In fact, more than once, when I found that my friend the clergyman did not condescend even to return a look of contempt in answer to such despicable trash, I have taken up the cudgels myself; but, being fully as ignorant of such matters as my opponent, it generally followed that I retorted nothing more than flat contradictions ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... and so, in my time, had many ladies and coxcombs at Court. It is likewise true, that there is an odd provincial cant in most counties in England, sometimes not very pleasing to the ear; and the Scotch cadence, as well as expression, are offensive enough. But none of these defects derive contempt to the speaker: whereas, what we call the Irish brogue is no sooner discovered, than it makes the deliverer in the last degree ridiculous and despised; and, from such a mouth, an Englishman expects nothing but bulls, blunders, and follies. Neither ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... words came to us: "A traill," says she to her helper. "Traill," it seems to me, would be meaning in the English, "lazy, useless, bedraggled"; but there is no word in English that would be giving the contempt of that word, which I am thinking would have some connection with the Norse word "troll," but I am not sure of it. But there was no end to her kindness ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... had occasion to talk of soldiers and soldiering—a far-away theme to which the mind seldom wandered—their eyes would become pensive and their voices take an accent of pity tinged with gentle contempt. 'There were such men. People back inland, among various strange avocations, followed this one; at a shilling a-day, too!' Some months before, as young Seth Minards happened to be dandering along the western cliff-track, he was met and accosted by an officer in uniform, who asked him many questions ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... two Kaskaskia warriors in scarlet blankets who stood at the corner, watching with silent contempt the antics of the French inhabitants. Now and again one or the other gave a grunt and wrapped his ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... should not have been allowed to do. I have no recollection of being taught to read or write; so I presume I was born with both faculties; but many people seem to have bitter recollections of being forced reluctantly to acquire them. And though I have the uttermost contempt for a teacher so ill mannered and incompetent as to be unable to make a child learn to read and write without also making it cry, still I am prepared to admit that I had rather have been compelled to learn to read and write with tears by an incompetent ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... easily-acquired wealth, made the most ridiculous mistakes. Preserving the language and manners of their old, with the finery of their new station, they afforded continual subjects for the pity of the sensible, the contempt of the sober, and the laughter of everybody. But the folly and meanness of the higher ranks of society were still more disgusting. One instance alone, related by the Duke de St. Simon, will show the unworthy avarice which infected the whole ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... Satan's seers abounded with lies, as all heathen history testifies, or their oracles were capable of such different interpretations that they became a subject of mockery and contempt to the wise amongst the ancient philosophers. But be not surprised if they sometimes spoke truth, as the Lapland wizard has done, for the devil's power is superior to man's, and he can see events which, though close at ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... exasperation and rancour; and the results of inquiries carried on with a singleness of mind, in search only for the truth, may be offered on the one side without insult or offence, and should be received and examined without contempt ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... Adonis, did I not deserve "Most grateful thanks in smoking incense paid? "Mindless, nor thanks, nor incense yielded he; "And sudden anger in my bosom rag'd. "Irk'd at the slight, I instantly provide "That future times with less contempt behave: "And 'gainst them both my raging bosom burns. "Now pass'd they near a temple, long since rais'd "By fam'd Echion, in a shady wood, "To the great mother of the heavenly gods, "When the long ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... Necessity acts so much more powerfully on those who do not enjoy the same advantages, that they soon come to an equality.— In whatever the superiority exists, emulation and envy prompt to rivalship in peace, and to frequent trials of strength in war. The contempt and pride which accompany wealth and power, and the envy and jealousy they excite amongst other nations, are continual causes of change, and form the great basis of the revolutions amongst the ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... those it employs a complex personality with ideas and even fads of its own. It depends on the loyal devotion of its servants, and the devoted loyalty of trusted servants is associated with a certain amount of affectionate contempt, which keeps it sweet, as it were. By a benevolent provision of Nature no man is a hero to his valet, or else the heroes would have to brush their own clothes. Likewise no department appears perfectly wise ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... women ate greedily and drank deeply, a gloom seemed to hang over the feast. The Carthaginians, whether influenced by native dignity or by a real or simulated contempt for their hosts, were reserved and silent, while the Capuans seemed, at one moment, forcing themselves into strained merriment, and, at another, cowering before the cold eyes that watched their efforts with scarcely veiled indifference. With fear on the one side and distrust upon ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... evenings spent in Macgregor's home in the small boy period, and a funeral or two, Willie's experience of tea parties was nil. Despite his frequently expressed contempt for such 'footerin' affairs,' he was secretly flattered by Christina's invitation. At the same time, he suffered considerable anguish of mind on account of his ignorance of the 'fancy behaviour' which he deemed indispensable in the presence of a hostess whom he considered ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... am angry now, and I see things more clearly. If she had only thought of it because Mr. Binnie came, I could have forgiven her more easily; but she has been making coarse plans all the time, and treating me with contempt. Octavia," she added, turning upon her, with flushing cheeks and sparkling eyes, "I think that, for the first time in my life, I am in a passion,—a real passion. I think I shall never be afraid of her any more." Her delicate nostrils were dilated, she held her head up, ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... death on maimed and defenseless captives. And, what was never before seen, British commanders have extorted victory over the unconquerable valor of our troops by presenting to the sympathy of their chief captives awaiting massacre from their savage associates. And now we find them, in further contempt of the modes of honorable warfare, supplying the place of a conquering force by attempts to disorganize our political society, to dismember our confederated Republic. Happily, like others, these will ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson
... of his novel to a publisher who had not yet expressed any eagerness to accept it, and he had made a half-hearted effort to write a play for the Creams, but had not been very successful with it, chiefly because he felt contempt for The Girl Gets Left and had little liking for Mrs. Cream. She came to the sitting-room one morning when Hinde was away and her husband was interviewing his agent, and went straight to John, nibbling a pen at the writing desk, and put ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... of eight yeares have shewed I have done." He would not refuse their call, he wrote, if they accepted his conditions, for "I should be worthily thought hospitall mad, if I would not change povertie for wealth,—contempt ...
— Virginia Under Charles I And Cromwell, 1625-1660 • Wilcomb E. Washburn
... forget if in my hearing), that the days of chivalry were past. Here was an opportunity to disprove it and declare that the spirit of their ancestors survived and animated the Cornishmen of to-day. (A Voice—"How about the Millennium?") He would pass over that interruption with the contempt it deserved. They were not met to bandy personalities, but as citizens united in the face of calamity by affection for their common borough. As stars upon the night, as the gold coins on their Duchy's sable shield, so might their free-will offerings ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... not of great use to citizen Collot last autumn at Boulogne," he said, and spat on the ground by way of expressing both his independence and his contempt. ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... American existed than Thoreau. His preference of his country and condition was genuine, and his aversation from English and European manners and tastes almost reached contempt. He listened impatiently to news or bon mots gleaned from London circles; and though he tried to be civil, these anecdotes fatigued him. The men were all imitating each other, and on a small mould. Why can they not live as far apart ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... when he is most beloved; the young girl, confident and proud, longs to make sacrifices to prove her love, and knows the world and men too little to continue calm in the midst of her rising emotions and repel with contempt the man who accepts a life offered in expiation of ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac
... a distance of a few feet stopped. She gave him a last look—a fierce one in its contempt and anger, and her affluence of beauty had never been so stubborn a ...
— Lodusky • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... which were to be seen on every side—how it must have writhed under the smart of general ridicule, or have groaned under the torture of contemptuous indignation! Peace to Henley's[384] vexed manes!—and similar contempt await the efforts of all literary quacks ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... cried, "Hate! Velasco—man, there is many a sin at my door; I am far from a saint heaven knows; but to deceive one who has trusted—to desert one who has loved and been loyal! God! There is no worse crime than that, or more despicable! Can one love, or hate, where there is only contempt?" ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... shall not pass away. In his kingdom shall be gathered the saints of the Most High. Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to ever-lasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt. ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... talk with Mr. Evringham without her mother's knowledge, and the prospect was a dreaded ordeal. She felt that they had won his contempt, and she feared the loss of her own self-control when she should come to touch ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... opposed to is not the feeling of the pacifists, but their stupidity. My heart is with them, but my mind has a contempt for them. I want peace, but I know how to get ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... face of "Atalanta, the Silver Queen of the Moon," appears, strongly illuminated, inside the glass-box, and regards the spectators with an impassive contempt—greatly to their confusion. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various
... denied that the answer of the large majority is in the negative, and that in many instances this answer comes in the form of the laugh of ridicule or in the sneer of contempt. Such is the fate of all incipient efforts for reformation; but where a cause is intrinsically just, it ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... upon its merits—the Senators had seen for themselves. The painter of the picture was the grandson of Lucien Briscoe. Then came the word-pictures of Briscoe's life set forth in thrilling colours. His rude and venturesome life, his simple-minded love for the commonwealth he helped to upbuild, his contempt for rewards and praise, his extreme and sturdy independence, and the great services he had rendered the state. The subject of the oration was Lucien Briscoe; the painting stood in the background serving simply as a means, now happily ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... drive a trade in wisdom and politics, and it is not for his credit to have it thought he has made an ill return, which must be if he should allow of any of the growth of his own country. This makes him quack and blow up himself with admiration of foreign parts and a generous contempt of home, that all men may admire at least the means he has had of improvement and deplore their own defects. His observations are like a sieve, that lets the finer flour pass and retains only the bran of things, for his whole return ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... protest against a prejudice which, where it is not due to simple thoughtlessness or to blind following of fashion, argues a certain constitutional defect of the understanding powers. But it may be just necessary to repeat pretty firmly that any one who regards, even with a tincture of contempt, such work (to take various characteristic examples) as Dryden's lyrics, as Shenstone's, as Moore's, as Macaulay's Lays, because he thinks that, if he did not contemn them, his worship of Shakespeare, of Shelley, of Wordsworth would be suspect, is most emphatically not a critic of poetry ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... both these would provoke only a smile of contempt in the voyager who now crosses the atlantic, at a rate of 20 knots or more in the hour. Then, again, compare with these the cyclist, who now flashes past us with the speed of lightning; or the motorist, who vanishes from our sight, ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... effect whatever upon her mother, who still kept on with her plans, treating with silent contempt the remarks of the neighbors, or wishing, perhaps, that they would attend to their own business, just as she was attending to hers! Day after day the work went on. Scaffoldings were raised—paper and plastering torn off—boards were seasoning ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... constant in their time of prayer, and abused my interpreter for never saying his. When I made him cut the deer's throats a little lower down the throat than their canons permit, to save the specimen, they spat on the ground to show their contempt, and abused him heartily. If I threw date-stones in the fire (the seed of paradisiacal food), they looked upon it as a sacrilege. They were also very suspicious. If I walked up and down the same place to stretch my legs, they formed councils of war on my motives, considering I must ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... 1805, on the advice of Dr. Drury, Byron was removed to Trinity College, Cambridge, and kept up a connexion with the University for less than three years of very irregular attendance, during which we hear nothing of his studies, except the contempt for them expressed in some of the least effective passages of his early satires. He came into residence in bad temper and low spirits. His attachment to Harrow characteristically redoubled as the time drew near to leave it, and ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... Haco, arriving from Lihou, admitted that he had not been seen at the monastery, her heart sank; she, better than any of those around her, knew the stern, implacable patriotism and fanaticism of Judith's nature; she fully realized the savage dispositions of her countrymen, their contempt of human life, and their brutal treatment of captives. She had some conception of their fearful orgies, and she shuddered when her mind touched, not daring to dwell, on Jean's possible fate. She had sufficient presence of ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... they are disciples of initiates who have entirely resigned the life of the world, and lead a life of monastic chastity. Between the Sadhus and the Shivaite bunis there exists a mortal enmity, which manifests itself by a silent contempt on the side of the Sadhus, and on that of the bunis by constant attempts to sweep their rivals off the face of the earth. This antipathy is as marked as that between light and darkness, and reminds one of the dualism of the Ahura-Mazda and Ahriman of the Zoroastrians. ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... of hours before the train started she dispatched Turner to Septimus's hotel to remind him of the journey. Turner, a strong-minded woman of forty—like the oyster she had been crossed in love and like her mistress she held men in high contempt—returned with an indignant tale. After a series of parleyings with Mr. Dix through the medium of the hotel chasseur, who had a confused comprehension of voluble English, she had mounted at Mr. Dix's entreaty to his room. There she found him, half clad and in his dressing-gown, staring ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... Paris that though he could set Gilbert right on many a detail yet his generalisations were marvellous. He had, said Mr. Eccles, an intuitive mind. He had, too, read more than was realised, partly because his carelessness and contempt for scholarship misled. Where the pedant would have referred and quoted and cross-referred, he went dashing on, throwing out ideas from his abundance and caring little if among his wealth were a few faults of fact ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... can not strengthen them, to the spiritually blind who can not even see them. I may of course belong to the latter class myself—it is the one thing about which no one can decide for himself—but an inherent contempt for certain parts of my character seems to hint to me ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... that, feeling greatly pleased with myself, I noticed, for the first time, the presence of a lady in my compartment. She looked at me in the greatest contempt. It confused me; and I am ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... their flavor? How shall I write now so that at a later time men may read of the way America was taken, may see what America then was and now is, and what yet, please God! it may be? How shall be set down that keen zest of a nation's youth, full of ambition and daring, full of contempt for obstacles, full of a vast and splendid hope? How shall be made plain also that other and stronger thing which so many of those days have mentioned to me, half in reticence—that feeling that, after all, this fever of the blood, this imperious insistence upon new lands, ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... great scale, like an observer from some distant Planet; all then seems to me so infinitely small, and I could almost pity my enemies for giving themselves such trouble about so very little. What would become of us without philosophy, without this reasonable contempt of things frivolous, transient and fugitive, about which the greedy and ambitious make such a pother, fancying them to be solid! This is to become wise by stripes, you will tell me; well, if one do become wise, what matters it how?—I read ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Make art the hand-maiden of humanity. Seek not for beauty but for truth. Go to the people. Hold out the hand of fellowship to the liberated masses and learn from them the true purpose of life.' To this democratic and utilitarian spirit, to this deep compassion for the people, to this contempt for the dandyism and dilettantism of an earlier generation Moussorgsky strove to give expression in his music, as Perov expressed it in painting, as Tchernichevsky, Dostoyevsky, and Tolstoi expressed it in fiction. We may disagree with his ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding |
