"Contemn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from her, though grateful, it is something like expected. You are a man; you perhaps have been accustomed to the society of those whose pleasure is the most exquisite when they can most contribute to the miseries of woman: that you should be virtuous enough to contemn such instruction, does more than sooth feelings like mine: and I think we esteem benefits the more the ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... with rosy wine! Around our temples roses twine! And let us cheerfully awhile, Like the wine and roses, smile. Crowned with roses, we contemn Gyges' wealthy diadem. To-day is ours, what do we fear? To-day is ours; we have it here: Let's treat it kindly, that it may Wish, at least, with us to stay. Let's banish business, banish sorrow; To ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... unregarded rout perish, the cause fall or stand alone for me: give me but love, love and my Sylvia; I ask no more of heaven; to which vast joy could you but imagine (O wondrous miracle of beauty!) how poor and little I esteem the valued trifles of the world, you would in return contemn your part of it, and live with me in silent shades for ever. Oh! Sylvia, what hast thou this night to add ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... thy "vary parfait gentil knightes," thy meek and lowly lovers serving their ladies on bended knee; open thine eyes, learn that women to-day love only the strong hand, the bold eye, the ready tongue; kneel to her, and she will scorn and contemn you. What woman, think you, would prefer the solemn, stern-eyed purity of a Sir Galahad (though he be the king of men) to the quick-witted gayety of a debonair Lothario (though he be but the shadow of a man)? Out upon thee, pale-faced ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... instruction, as we may learn from an exceedingly well-penned epistle, addressed thus early to a school-fellow who had found his way to New York. In this remarkable letter, the boy seems to have written with prophetic instinct. "To confess my weakness, Ned," he says, "my ambition is prevalent, so that I contemn the grovelling condition of a clerk or the like, to which my fortune condemns me, and would willingly risk my life, though not my character, to exalt my station.... I mean to prepare the way for futurity.... I shall ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... "I hate them that imagine evil things, but thy law do I love," and will show therewith that we ought diligently to regard the strength of the Word of God, and not to contemn it, as the enthusiasts do, for God will deal with us by such means, and by the same will also work in us. Therefore the ancient Fathers say well touching this point, namely, that we ought not to look to the person baptizing ...
— Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... Chaos will very nearly come when they are disturbed. The barristers are sure of Chaos when the sanctity of Benchers is in question. What utter Chaos would be promised to us could any one with impunity contemn the majesty of the House of Commons! But of all these Chaoses there can be no Chaos equal to that which in the mind of a zealous Oxford-bred constitutional country parson must attend that annihilation of his special condition which will be produced by ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... It is written (Ecclus. 19:1): "He that contemneth small things shall fall by little and little." Now he that sins venially seems to contemn small things. Therefore by little and little he is disposed to fall ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... eyes of light, And feel that all besides is night; I press that snowy hand in mine, And but contemn my art divine. Oh Viviana! I am lost; A life's renown thy smile hath cost. A stone no ages can remove Will be my monument of love; A nation's wail shall mourn my fate, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... mind and will, Till he be proved by exercise of power; And in my case, if one who reigns supreme Swerve from the highest policy, tongue-tied By fear of consequence, that man I hold, And ever held, the basest of the base. And I contemn the man who sets his friend Before his country. For myself, I call To witness Zeus, whose eyes are everywhere, If I perceive some mischievous design To sap the State, I will not hold my tongue; Nor would I reckon as my private friend A public foe, well ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... casarse a mediacarta; i.e. that she is half-married.—If you meet a Spanish woman of any fashion, walking alone without the town, you may join her, and enter into whatever sort of conversation you chuse, without offence; and if you pass one without doing so, she will call you ajacaos, and contemn you: this is a custom so established at Madrid, that if a footman meets a lady of quality alone, he will enter into some indecent conversation with her; for which reason, the ladies seldom walk but with their husbands, or a male friend by their side, and a foot-boy ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... Europe and America, under whose guardianship we have grown to a prominent place among the people of earth, and may arrive at a better prominence among the nations of the saved, has been secured by that Revolution. We could scarcely know whether most to pity or contemn the man who should labor to persuade us that such a Revolution had never occurred, or that the facts had ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... and both tolerably national. Yet there is a point of resemblance, and a strong one. We are both good-humoured fellows, who rather seek to enjoy what is going forward than to maintain our dignity as lions; and we have both seen the world too widely and too well not to contemn in our souls the imaginary consequence of literary people, who walk with their noses in the air, and remind me always of the fellow whom Johnson met in an alehouse, and who called himself "the great Twalmley—inventor of the floodgate iron for smoothing linen." He also enjoys ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... their unformed conceptions of the Beautiful, their unsystematized experiments upon the Sublime. We scorn their velocity; for it is without direction: we reject their decision; for it is without grounds: we contemn their composition; for it is without materials: we reprobate their choice; for it is without comparison. Their duty is neither to choose, nor compose, nor imagine, nor experimentalize; but to be humble and earnest in following the steps of nature, and tracing ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... Sixpence it will cost you, or six hundred pound— expect no lower price, for, by the banner of my front, I will not bate a bagatine, that I will have, only, a pledge of your loves, to carry something from amongst you, to shew I am not contemn'd by you. Therefore, now, toss your handkerchiefs, cheerfully, cheerfully; and be advertised, that the first heroic spirit that deignes to grace me with a handkerchief, I will give it a little remembrance of something, beside, shall please it better, than if I had ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... last hope is shivered, And its fragments are sunk in the wave; Though I feel that my soul is delivered To pain, it shall not be its slave. There is many a pang to pursue me; They may crush, but they shall not contemn; They may torture, but shall not subdue me; 'Tis of thee that I think, ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... may so win upon others, as to bring glory to my Jesus, whom I have this day taken to be my Master and Governor; and I am so proud of his service, that I will always observe, and obey, and do his will; and always call him, Jesus my Master; and I will always contemn my birth, or any title or dignity that can be conferred upon me, when I shall compare them with my title of being a Priest, and serving at the ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... true friend (though far unworthy to be counted so) to show your shape in a glass.... Yet of this resolve yourself, it proceedeth from love and a true desire to do you good, that you, knowing what the general opinion is may not altogether neglect or contemn it, but mend what you may find amiss in yourself.... First, therefore, behold your Errors: In discourse you delight to speak too much.... Your affections are entangled with a love of your own arguments, though they be the weaker.... Secondly, you cloy your auditory: when you would be observed, ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... on Antandros' coast His fair Creusa mourn'd, for ever lost; Yet cut the bonds of Love on Tyber's shore, And bought a bride with young Evander's gore. Here droop'd the victim of a lawless flame: The amorous frenzy of the Cretan dame He fled abhorrent, and contemn'd her tears, And to the dire suggestion closed his ears. But nought, alas! his purity avail'd— Fate in his flight the hapless youth assail'd, By interdicted Love to Vengeance fired; And by his father's curse the son expired. The stepdame shared his fate, and dearly ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... country. His first effort to increase its praise was to instigate Trithemius to put together a 'Catalogue of the illustrious men who adorn Germany with their talents and writings'. The author's preface (8 Feb. 1491) reveals unmistakably the animosity towards Italy: 'Some people contemn our country as barren, and maintain that few men of genius have flourished in it; hoping by disparagement of others to swell their own praise. With all the resources of their eloquence they trick out the slender achievements of their own countrymen; but jealousy ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... must contemn thee in her heart, poor, gentle soul—aye, scorn and despise thee woefully for running away; indeed, 'tis ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... and known to be contemn'd] The meaning is, 'Tis better to be thus contemned, and known to yourself to be contemned. Or perhaps there is an error, which may ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... examples of the kindly and generous affections—to show how the human soul is disciplined and perfected by suffering—to prove how much of possible good may exist in things evil and perverted—how much hope there is for those who despair—how much comfort for those whom a heartless world has taught to contemn both others and themselves, and so put barriers to the hard, cold, selfish, mocking, and levelling spirit of the day—O would I could ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... king succeed the present men; the children of foreigners will, for the future, fill the parliament, and the private interest of their patron will guide their venal votes." "What an act of oppression," rejoined the monks, "to pervert to other objects the pious designs of our holy institutions, to contemn the inviolable wishes of the dead, and to take that which a devout charity had deposited in our chests for the relief of the unfortunate and make it subservient to the luxury of the bishops, thus inflating their arrogant pomp with the plunder of the poor?" Not ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Vpon our sides it neuer shall be broken. And Noble Dolphin, albeit we sweare A voluntary zeale, and an vn-urg'd Faith To your proceedings: yet beleeue me Prince, I am not glad that such a sore of Time Should seeke a plaster by contemn'd reuolt, And heale the inueterate Canker of one wound, By making many: Oh it grieues my soule, That I must draw this mettle from my side To be a widdow-maker: oh, and there Where honourable rescue, and ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... rather like owls than eagles. As of old books, so of ancient virtue, honesty, fidelity, equity, new abridgments; every day spawns new opinions: heresy in divinity, in philosophy, in humanity, in manners, grounded upon hearsay; doctors contemn'd; the devil not so hated as the pope; many invectives, but no amendment. No more ado about caps and surplices; Mr. Cartwright ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... life no longer be Than I am in love with thee! Though our wise ones call it madness, Let me never taste of gladness If I love not thy madd'st fits Above all their greatest wits! And though some, too seeming holy, Do account thy raptures folly, Thou dost teach me to contemn What makes knaves ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... can only be attained by making it respectable, and sheltering its professors from the insult and oppression of the ignorant, the base-minded, and the illiberal. None will profit by the precepts of those whom they contemn; and the youth of the country will be very unlikely to yield to the authority of the instructor whom they see subjected to the sneers and affronts of the very rabble they themselves despise. Besides, if actors were to be treated with injustice and contumely, young ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... king Alfudail had been alive he would have refused the crown; and he actually appointed the son of Alfudail to be his successor, though he had children of his own. This rare example in an unbeliever may put to shame the inhumanity and barbarism of the Christians, who wade through seas of blood, contemn the most sacred bonds of consanguinity and alliance, spoil provinces, oppress the good, exalt the wicked, convert loyalty to treason, perjury into duty, and religion into a cloak to work out their accursed purposes, and to bereave of their crowns and sceptres ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... tripartite To see each other in a tart light. 'Tis thus the bard is scorned by those Who only deal in learned prose: Whilst bards of quick imagination Are hipped by the dull prose oration. Men scoff at apes: apes scoff at them; And all—except themselves—contemn. ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... was Nehemiah that it was the violin in those alien hands which still focussed his attention as he stared gaspingly about. Leander was not here; probably had never been here; and the twanging of those strings had lured him to his fate. Well might he contemn the festive malevolence of the violin's influence! His letter had failed; no raider had intimidated these bluff, unafraid, burly law-breakers, and he had put his life in jeopardy in his persistent prosecution of his scheme. He gasped again at ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... firm chin, Carmela De Sylva did not contemn the meretricious aid of dress. Iris looked fresh and cool in soft muslin, whereas the newcomer was travel-stained and disheveled. The pack-mules were lagging on the road, but a wash and general tidying of dust-covered garments would help the President's daughter to regain the assurance, ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... sail into Hudson's Bay, or inhabit in any of the Countries, Islands or Territories hereby granted to the said Governor and Company, without their Leave and License in that Behalf first had and obtained, or that shall contemn or disobey their Orders, and send them to England; and that all and every Person or Persons, being Our Subjects, any ways employed by the said Governor and Company, within any of the Parts, Places, and Limits aforesaid, shall be liable unto ...
— Charter and supplemental charter of the Hudson's Bay Company • Hudson's Bay Company
... such baseness I disdain; I would not stoop, to purchase all above, And should contemn a power, whom prayer could move, As one unworthy to have ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... printing-press in an endless web of paper, is powerless here; the indistinguishable noise echoed from the smoke-shadowed walls despises the whole. A thousand footsteps, a thousand hoofs, a thousand wheels roll over and utterly contemn them in complete annihilation. Mere illusions of heart or mind, they are tested and thrust aside by the irresistible push of a ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... court had been contemptuously defied, and they were made while wild scenes of anarchy were sweeping away all restraint of law and order. Doubtless the judge of this court made grave mistakes; but the law allows the chancellor great latitude, not only in punishing those who contemn his orders and injunctions, but in preventing the consummation of the wrong which he has judicially forbidden. Whatever may be said or thought of those matters, it was only made known to me that process of the United States ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... fearful consequences," with lightness and ribaldry, was declared by worldly men to be "not merely to sport with the feelings of its propagators and advocates," but "to make a jest of the day of judgment, to scoff at the Deity Himself, and contemn the terrors ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... distinguished from little men by this—they scorn and contemn all which flatters their vanity, or seems to them for the moment desirable, or even useful, if it is not compatible with the laws which they recognize, or conducive to some great end which they have set before them; even though that ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and act upon any responsibility for doing their "bit" in the creation of capital? Very few. Rather than exert himself to work with this in view, on the one hand, and to abstain from unnecessary consumption, on the other hand, the ordinary man will make to himself every excuse. He will contemn money-making as a sordid aim, readily exaggerating itself into a vice; he will dwell upon the obligations and other considerations of a higher life, this being defined as something generous and noble, a something compared with which money-making cannot be regarded as a worthy object but ...
— Creating Capital - Money-making as an aim in business • Frederick L. Lipman
... came forth at one command of the Lord. The Lord every day invites us by Scripture to confession, exhorts us to amendment, promises the life which is prepared for us by him who willeth not the death of a sinner. We neglect his call, we despise his invitation, we contemn his promise. Placed between God and the devil, as between a father and a foe, we prefer the enticement of the enemy to a father's warning. "We are not ignorant," says the Apostle, "of the devices of Satan,"—the devices, I say, by which he induces us to sin, and keeps us back from repentance. ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... warrior of the age—conqueror of Italy—humbler of Germany—terror of the North—saw him account all his matchless victories poor, compared with the triumph you are now in a condition to win—saw him contemn the fickleness of fortune, while, in despite of her, he could pronounce his memorable boast, 'I shall go down to posterity with the ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... men, I mean, of light and leading in England, whose wisdom (if they have any) is open and direct, would be ashamed, as of a silly, deceitful trick, to profess any religion in name, which by their proceedings they appear to contemn. If by their conduct (the only language that rarely lies) they seemed to regard the great ruling principle of the moral and the natural world as a mere invention to keep the vulgar in obedience, they apprehend that by such a conduct they would ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... sees that many things which the world looks down upon are valuable, so he prizes much which the world contemns; he sees that many things which the world admires are contemptible, so he despises much which the world does not; but when the world prizes what is really excellent, he does not contemn it, because the world regards it. If he learns Irish, which all the world scoffs at, he likewise learns Italian, which all the world melts at. If he learns Gypsy, the language of the tattered tent, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground. I ask your indulgence for my errors, which will never be intentional; and your support against the errors of others, who may contemn what they would not, if seen ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... simple manner I will him entertain, Yet must he take it all in good part; And though his diet be small, he may not disdain, Nor yet contemn the kindness of my heart: For though I lack instruments to put him to smart, Yet shall he abide in a hellish black dungeon: As for blocks, stocks, and irons, I warrant ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... rightly gauged the moral capacities of the mob. We sometimes think that the fundamental instincts of the crowd are, after all, sound; leave them to themselves and they will do the right thing. But, on the other hand, those who despise and contemn the mob will always have a sadly large amount of evidence to support their case, even in the ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... eyes upon the life of the world, and wished to take some part in it—not the part she had been wont to picture for herself before reality supplanted dreams. Horace's example on the one hand, and that of Jessica Morgan on the other, helped her to contemn mere social excitement and the idle vanity which formerly she styled pursuit of culture. Must there not be discoverable, in the world to which she had, or could obtain, access, some honest, strenuous occupation, which would hold in check ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... of history, soon afterward began its wily work. Under the name of Gustavus he opened a correspondence with Sir Henry Clinton, an English officer in command at New York. Sir Henry at once scented the sort of villainy which would be of vast use to his cause, however he might loathe and contemn its designer. He instructed his aide-de-camp, Major John Andre, to send cautious and pseudonymic replies. In his letters Arnold showed the burning sense of wrong from which he believed himself (and with a certain amount of justice) to be suffering. He had, when all is told, received harsh treatment ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... description of Negro race found in the interior. Sometimes the men make a boast of being descended from ancestors of pure Arab blood, from immigrants of the princes of Mecca and countries thereabouts in Arabia, but in practice they contemn the principle of uncontaminated blood, cohabiting with their favourite female slaves, and from these rearing up a large family of mixed blood and colour. In the Arab suburb a considerable number of free Negroes, the offspring ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... "The things that are seen, are temporal; the things that are unseen, are eternal." It puts an affront upon nature. It does that for the unschooled, which philosophy does for Berkeley and Viasa. The uniform language that may be heard in the churches of the most ignorant sects, is, —"Contemn the unsubstantial shows of the world; they are vanities, dreams, shadows, unrealities; seek the realities of religion." The devotee flouts nature. Some theosophists have arrived at a certain hostility and indignation towards matter, as the Manichean ...
— Nature • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... wisdom and humility in their hearts; and therefore they conceive that they are wiser than the church, and more able to manage and order church affairs than their rulers. Their pride and self-conceit make them slight and contemn their teachers, and rise up in a rebellious contention with, and opposition unto them; as the prophet complains, Hos. iv. 4, This people are they that strive with the priests. Take heed then of strife and contention, and follow peace one with another, especially ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... wealth e'en of Midas to that fellow who owns neither slave nor store, than that thou shouldst suffer thyself to be loved by such an one. "What! isn't he a fine-looking man?" thou askest. He is; but this fine-looking man has neither slaves nor store. Contemn and slight this as it please thee: nevertheless, he has ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... follow that in its subtler disguises it has lost plausibility, popularity, or power. I believe, as I have said, that it is still the great antagonist of the Historical Method; and whenever (religious objections apart) any mind is seen to resist or contemn that mode of investigation, it will generally be found under the influence of a prejudice or vicious bias traceable to a conscious or unconscious reliance on a non-historic, natural, condition of ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... of my last hope is shivered, And its fragments are sunk in the wave, Though I feel that my soul is delivered To pain—it shall not be its slave. There is many a pang to pursue me: They may crush, but they shall not contemn— They may torture, but shall not subdue me— 'Tis of thee that I think—not ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... claims and ecclesiastical rights; and even as such had so little respect for it that they talked of it themselves as the cloth? How could such a man as Mr Cairns, looking down from the height of his great soberness and the dignity of possessing the oracles and the ordinances, do other than contemn the enthusiasms and excitements of ignorant repentance? How could such as he recognize in the babble of babes the slightest indication of the revealing of truths hid from the wise and prudent; especially since their rejoicing ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... are great tempests, the angels oftentimes have a hand therein,... yea, and sometimes evil angels." He gives several cases of blasphemers struck by lightning, and says, "Nothing can be more dangerous for mortals than to contemn dreadful providences, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... self-examination upon all their actions, every evening, was a practice which he strongly inculcated.[26] In an excellent sermon which he made to his disciples, recorded by St. Athanasius,[27] he pathetically exhorts them to contemn the whole world for heaven, to spend every day as if they knew it to be the last of their lives, having death always before their eyes, continually to advance in fervor, and to be always armed against the assaults of Satan, whose weakness he shows at length. He extols the efficacy ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... not to contemn any friend's expostulation, though unjust, but to strive to reduce him to his former disposition: freely and heartily to speak well of all my masters upon any occasion, as it is reported of Domitius, and Athenodotus: and to love my children ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... all the elements to be confounded, And shuffled all into their former chaos; Were seas of sulphur flaming round about me, And all mankind roaring within those fires, I could not fear, or feel the least remorse. To the last instant I would dare thy power. Here I stand firm, and all thy threats contemn. Thy murderer (to the ghost of one whom he had murdered) Stands here! Now do thy worst!" (He is swallowed up ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Nicholas Cruger's bookkeeper at the age of twelve he wrote to an American friend: 'I contemn the groveling condition of a clerk to which my fortunes condemn me, and I would willingly risk my life, though not my character, to exalt my station.... My youth excludes me from any hope of immediate preferment, but I mean to prepare the way for futurity.' You ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... whom I fear I have little chance to be happy, or of breaking with him in a manner that would have subjected one or both of us to the censures of a prying impertinent world, whose censures the most steady temper cannot always contemn. ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... slovenly than those of the ordinary British; but the latter from his youth up, has imbibed certain ideas of subordination to superiors, which make him yield more pliantly and implicitly to after discipline. Now, the American is taught to contemn all such old-world ideas as respect of persons. Even the All-mighty Dollar cannot command deference, though it may enforce obedience. The volunteer carries with him into the ranks, an ostentatious spirit of self-assertion ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... ample enough even for my ambition. We will go to Palestine, where Conrade, Marquis of Montserrat, is my friend—a friend free as myself from the doting scruples which fetter our free-born reason—rather with Saladin will we league ourselves, than endure the scorn of the bigots whom we contemn.—I will form new paths to greatness," he continued, again traversing the room with hasty strides—"Europe shall hear the loud step of him she has driven from her sons!—Not the millions whom her crusaders ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... made receptive of all gentle sympathies. Heroism might point him to an unending struggle with adverse conditions, but how was heroism possible without faith? Absolute faith he had none; he was essentially a negativist, guided by the mere relations of phenomena. Nothing easier than to contemn the mode of life represented by this wealthy middle class; but compare it with other existences conceivable by a thinking man, and it was emphatically good. It aimed at placidity, at benevolence, at supreme cleanliness,—things which more ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... below. Not wine, as wine, men choose, but as it came From such or such a vintage: 'tis the same With life, which simply must be understood A black negation, if it be not good. But if 'tis wretched all—as men decline And loath the sour lees of corrupted wine— 'Tis so to be contemn'd. Merely TO BE Is not a boon to seek, nor ill to flee, Seeing that every vilest little Thing Has it in common, from a gnat's small wing, A creeping worm, down to the moveless stone, And crumbling bark from trees. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... extravagant a hope? Have you not heard how it has gone with many a cause before now? First few men heed it; next most men contemn it; lastly, all men accept it—and ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... satisfied and rests easy because it has a gracious, loving God. Therefore it despises all the favor, grace, goods and honor of men, lets them come and go as they please; as is written in Psalm xv: "He contemneth them that contemn God, and honoreth them that fear the Lord" [Ps. 15:4]; that is, the tyrants, the mighty, who persecute the truth and despise God, he does not fear, he does not regard them, he despiseth them; on the other band, those who are persecuted for the truth's sake, and fear ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... frugality is quite out of fashion, and he that goes about to set up for the practice of it, must mortify every thing about him that has the least tincture of frugality; it is the mode to live high, to spend more than we get, to neglect trade, contemn care and concern, and go on without forecast, or without consideration; and, in consequence, it is the mode to go on to extremity, to break, become bankrupt and beggars, and so going off the trading stage, leave it open for others to come ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... and fear, one knows not one's own self. Filled with joy at one's own respectability of birth, one is seen to traduce those that are not high-born. Swelled also with pride of wealth, one is seen to contemn the poor. One regards others to be ignorant fools, but seldom takes a survey of one's own self. One attributes faults to others but is never desirous to punish one's own self. Since the wise and the ignorant, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... across the bay of Santiago, and his handful of companions have, by exposing themselves to imminent risk of an awful death, deeply stirred the feelings of their fellow-countrymen and filled us all with a sense of admiration at the heroism which can contemn danger and death in the execution of duty or the quest of glory. But we must ask whether humanity is in need of such exhibitions of bravery, whether there are not other fields of danger which offer tasks equally arduous and difficult of accomplishment? We are not insensible to ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... for them as for William Wordsworth. The days of Mr. Moore's follies are long since over; and, as he is a thorough gentleman, he must necessarily entertain the greatest contempt for such an under-bred person as Leigh Hunt. But Lord Byron! How must the haughty spirit of Lara and Harold contemn the subaltern sneaking of our modern tuft-hunter. The insult which he offered to Lord Byron in the dedication of Rimini,—in which he, a paltry cockney newspaper scribbler, had the assurance to address one of the most nobly-born of English Patricians, and ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... your authority, Captain Alvarado. We contemn treason in whatsoever guise it doth appear, and we hate and loathe a traitor, but thy word is passed. It will be held inviolate as our own. You are free, knave. I will appoint soldiers to guard you, for should my men see you, ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... call those studies now, and contemn, gravely or jeeringly, the obsolete practice of "going through" the Bible yearly by reading a given number of chapters every day. We assume that those were mechanical contrivances which, at the best, filled the mind with an undigested ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... his daughter to a Lutheran, and the widow remained undecided; but under their influence, Christopher and Hubert learned to contemn each other's choice, and dispute over creeds which neither acknowledged. Thus the controversies of the age, with all their bigotry and uncharitableness, found entrance to their home. Christopher lost no opportunity of throwing scorn on the Puritans, on account of the bookseller; ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... him in keenness of observation, are not behind him in verity of report, while surpassing him often in pictorial effect,—but who bring to the picture out of themselves only a noble indignation against baseness. They contemn; he uses. They cry, "Fie!" upon unclean substances; he ploughs the offence into the soil, and sows wheat over it. They see the world as it is; he sees it, and through it. They probe sores; he leads forth into the air and the sunshine. They tinge the cheek with blushes of honorable ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... his eyes bent on her beneath the high, bald forehead, just as we see him in the bust, she would have met him fearlessly, and controverted his claims to the authorship of the plays, to his very face. She had taught herself to contemn "Lord Leicester's groom" (it was one of her disdainful epithets for the world's incomparable poet) so thoroughly, that even his disembodied spirit would hardly have found civil treatment ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... such affront I labour to avert From thee alone, which on us both at once The Enemie, though bold, will hardly dare, Or daring, first on mee th' assault shall light. Nor thou his malice and false guile contemn; Suttle he needs must be, who could seduce Angels, nor think superfluous others aid. I from the influence of thy looks receave Access in every Vertue, in thy sight 310 More wise, more watchful, stronger, if need were Of outward strength; while shame, thou looking on, Shame ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... give very short specimens of Bacon's two styles. In 1597, he wrote thus: "Crafty men contemn studies; simple men admire them; and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use: that is a wisdom without them, and won by observation. Read not to contradict, nor to believe, but to weigh and consider. Some books are ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... more firmly to their religion during Mohammedan sway, most of the non-Moslem inhabitants are Brahmans, and they live chiefly in the city. Unlike their co-religionists of the province of Jummoo, many of whose high-caste men cultivate the soil, the Kashmiri Brahmans contemn manual occupations. They are largely employed in the offices of the state. The lowest occupations are left to a class of pariahs called Batals, who are considered by some to represent a wholly distinct race, a remnant of the aborigines who were dispossessed by the first Aryan settlers. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... fathers of the inquisition; for they are put into the machine through the little wheel, which is locked after them, and then the wheel is turned swiftly, till they are cut to pieces. The pit is for those who contemn the images, and refuse to give proper respect to ecclesiastical persons; for they are thrown into the pit, and so become the ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... to the insults of a foe defied! With all that habit of familiar fame, Doomed to exhaust the dregs of life in shame! The sole sad refuge of thy baffled art To act a stateman's dull, exploded part, Renounce the praise no longer in thy power, Display thy virtue, though without a dower, Contemn the giddy crowd, the vulgar wind, And shut thy eyes that others may ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... them, than he was to be Wheedled; he told 'em plainly, They were betraying their Country, selling and sacrificing the Priviledges of the Nobility, making themselves Tools to a Party, and giving themselves up in a base Manner to the Pleasure of a few Men, who, when they had got their Will would contemn them, would love the Folly, but P....s upon the Fools; and as to their List, he scorn'd to come into it, or into any of their menacing Measures. This put a short end to their Attempts upon him; and indeed, had ...
— Atalantis Major • Daniel Defoe
... fortunes; for in them[hz] Ambition steeled thee on too far to show That just habitual scorn, which could contemn Men and their thoughts; 'twas wise to feel, not so To wear it ever on thy lip and brow, And spurn the instruments thou wert to use Till they were turned unto thine overthrow: 'Tis but a worthless world to win or lose; ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... service, where the ability of a giant clearly exists. Achilles would spurn the light offices of Adonis. So will that woman, who regards her sex as co-equal in every part of their nature, with the opposite sex, contemn the ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... generally the most ordinary liquids to the finest-flavoured wines, and, as guests, are much easier to please than to catch; for not only do they appear indifferent to these luxuries, but they seek to avoid them, contemn their use, and return to their log-houses and the cane-brake to seek in ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... not lightly contemn. I have here a warrant from the Council to procure all fitting help and suppliance for the bringing up the body of Margaret de la Bech, who is suspected of being detained in this neighbourhood, by persons hitherto unknown, against her ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... it be to fall into the Annals of Cicely or no, this must I needs say—and Jack may flout me an' he will (but that he doth never)— that I do hate, and contemn, and full utterly despise, this manner of dealing. If I love a man, maybe I shall be bashful to tell him so: but if I love him not, never will I make lout nor leg afore him for to win of him some manner of advantage. I would speak a man civilly, whether I loved him or ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... so dearly bought Titles of my chapters do not always comprehend the whole matter To be a slave, incessantly to be led by the nose by one's self To be, not to seem To condemn them as impossible, is by a temerarious presumption To contemn what we do not comprehend To die of old age is a death rare, extraordinary, and singular To do well where there was danger was the proper office To forbear doing is often as generous as to do To forbid us anything is ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne
... war, we defended Dymae excellently well! The calamities of others afford us abundant examples; let us not seek how we may render ourselves an example to others. Do not, because the Romans voluntarily desire your friendship, contemn that which you ought to have prayed for, nay, laboured with all your might to obtain. But, it is insinuated, that they are impelled by fear, in a country to which they are strangers; and that, wishing to shelter themselves under your assistance, they have recourse ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... find in the tablets of Nature and Art, within our daily reach, inexhaustible sources of inquiry and contemplation. We are on every side surrounded by interesting objects; but, in nature, as in morals, we are apt to contemn self-knowledge, to look abroad rather than at home, and to study others instead of ourselves. Like the French Encyclopaedists, we forget our own Paris; or, like editors of newspapers, we seek for novelties in every quarter of the world, losing sight of ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... north, the snow lay in its crevices the summer through. Before dawn I led my flock to the sheep-walks, and guarded them through the day. It was a life of toil; for rain and cold were more frequent than sunshine; but it was my pride to contemn the elements. My trusty dog watched the sheep as I slipped away to the rendezvous of my comrades, and thence to the accomplishment of our schemes. At noon we met again, and we threw away in contempt our peasant fare, as we ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... because he could not envy their happiness. The power—the knowledge—the lofty, though wild designs of his master, stung and humbled him—he secretly hated, because he could not compassionate or contemn him. But the bowed frame, and slavish voice, and timid nerves of his crushed brotherhood presented to the old man the likeness of things that could not exult over him. Debased and aged, and solitary as he was, he felt a kind of wintry warmth in the thought that even he had the ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Great, the Contempt of which is Great. The Possession of Wealth and Riches cannot give a Man a Title to Greatness, because it is looked upon as a Greatness of Mind, to contemn these Gifts of Fortune, and to be above the Desire of them. I have therefore been inclined to think, that there are greater Men who lie concealed among the Species, than those who come out, and ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... moral lay And in these tales mankind survey; With early virtues plant your breast, The specious arts of vice detest. Princes, like beauties, from their youth Are strangers to the voice of truth; Learn to contemn all praise betimes; For flattery's the nurse of crimes; Friendship by sweet reproof is shown, (A virtue never near a throne); 10 In courts such freedom must offend, There none presumes to be a friend. To those of your exalted station Each courtier is a dedication. ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... is the shade of immortality, And in itself a shadow; soon as caught Contemn'd, it shrinks to nothing in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... form the ready material for the careers of statesmen and the glory of famous soldiers. It is more unusual. We see it as often as we do comets and signs in the heavens, a John in the Wilderness again, pastors who would die for their lambs, women who contemn the ritual and splendour of man-slaying, and a politician never moved by the enticements of a successful career. It is therefore likely that when we see great prose for the first time we may not know it, and may not enjoy it. ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... But not so with us. We survey the heavens and admire Him that made them; for we do not believe them to be a god, but a work of God. I look on the whole creation, and am led by it to the Creator. He looks on wealth, and longs for it with earnest desire; I look on wealth, and contemn it. He sees poverty, and laments; I see poverty, and rejoice. I see things in one light; he in another. Just so in regard to death. He sees a corpse, and thinks of it as a corpse; I see a corpse, and behold sleep rather than death. And as in regard to books, both learned persons and unlearned see ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... pretends amongst the rest this quarrel to me, that I have fallen foul on priesthood; if I have, I am only to ask pardon of good priests, and am afraid his part of the reparation will come to little. Let him be satisfied that he shall not be able to force himself upon me for an adversary. I contemn him too much to enter into competition with him. His own translations of Virgil have answered his criticisms on mine. If (as they say he has declared in print) he prefers the version of Ogilby to mine, the world has made him the same compliment, for it is agreed on all hands that he writes even below ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... contemn her mother so? Her father was not a fool. That she was quite submissive to life, that it was unthinkable that she could rebel against society or persons, was not because she was foolish, but because ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... of Charity, And moulded to the height contemn his maker, Curb the free hand that fram'd him? ...
— Rule a Wife, and Have a Wife - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher |
