Disdain Quotes

Kitsch is: a species of beauty, which, as it is florid and superficial, pleases at first; but soon palls upon the taste, and is rejected with disdain, at least rated at much lower value. ~ David Hume

People that encounter me cannot understand why I refuse to worship, either it is a religion, a prophet or a writer. They don't understand that I was born to be worshipped, and not worship, As me, many others have been here before and face the same. People disdain, ignore and ridicule the living while worshipping the dead. And once I'm gone, the cycle will repeat, with someone better than me facing what I face now. I'm great now, not 300 years from now, when everyone will agree with this statement but I won't be here to disagree wit it and show a better path. ~ Robin Sacredfire

The art of manipulating public opinion, which is a necessary art for the democratic politician, and, like other arts, is sometimespractised with greater virtuosity by knaves than by honest men (who are apt to disdain it), has a different technique in different countries. For instance, in England we excel in whitewashing: in America they excel in tarring and feathering. We strain our nerves and stretch our consciences to avoid a scandal: Americans do the same to make one. ~ George Bernard Shaw

The heart pointed to the brain and said with great disdain, "Those who live their lives in here live the lives most full of fear. ~ Ryan Lilly

Small people have small minds, and thus deride big dreamers.
Small people have small hearts, and thus disparage big chancers.
Small people have small souls, and thus disdain big achievers. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

God of the gaps" Christianity seeks to present Christianity as playing a strong savior role whereby it fills the gaps and provides the missing links for all of society's questions and concerns. This entails the view of God riding into town and miraculously saving the day (deus ex machina). On this view, God delivers his people from their (and his) enemies - in Bonhoeffer's case, the Nazis. In contrast, in Letters and Papers from Prison, Bonhoeffer writes that God allows us to push him out of the world and onto the cross. ~ Paul Louis Metzger

I am the love, the pain, the intensity
I am the remnants of a banished plea;
I am the trivialized doors of a jubilant home
I am the shadows of an abandoned dome;
I am the instinct, the bizarre sound
I am the fate of a trampled mound;
I am the words half-heard when half-said
I am the memories of a longing thread;
I am the anarchist in disdain,
I am the bewilderment of an orphan pain;
I am your hand, I am the bar
I am the bellicosity of our resilient scar;
I am the love, the pain, the intensity
I am the predicament of the silent sea. ~ Ashfaq Saraf

All his longings came out as a kind of disdain for what he longed for. ~ Alan Hollinghurst

Authoritative people bore me: but what bores me even more are those swarms of little people who love authority and in virtue of whom the authority of the authoritative can be exercised. ~ Nanamoli Thera

In each human heart terror survives The ravin it has gorged: the loftiest fear All that they would disdain to think were true: Hypocrisy and custom make their minds The fanes of many a worship, now outworn. They dare not devise good for man's estate, And yet they know not that they do not dare. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Under Polly's eyes, her gaunt cheeks, and her shaking hands as she poured the tea. * * * Cat watches as her cab winds its way through the streets of Soho, thinking she would never stoop to that. It's the lowest of the low. We're supposed to be features writers, not news hacks. But behind her mutterings, behind her disdain, as unwilling as she is to admit it, lies a ribbon of insecurity. The Daily Gazette is the best paper she could ever imagine working for, but Cat, just past her mid-twenties, has yet to prove herself with a big story. She's proving adept at the smaller fluff pieces - How to wear a scarf in thirty different ways! How to put the romance back into your marriage! (As if she would know anything about that.) How to revamp your wardrobe in five easy steps! But the big interviews, the ones that Poppy ~ Jane Green

Since mine own doors refuse to entertain me,
I'll knock elsewhere, to see if they'll disdain me ~ William Shakespeare

Naming the Cat

I called my cat 'mystery',
she ignored the name;
using some very cat-like disdain.
Waiting a while I named her again,
asking her spirit to share in the game.
Now more allowing to me she came;
still not releasing the cat-like disdain. ~ Leland Lewis

I can't curse those who don't believe as I do. I can't express hate or disdain for those who criticize what I hold dear. I can't outshout, bully, or taunt them. I can't exercise the liberty of free speech because I answer to a higher law.
I answer to the Word of God. ~ Lori Hatcher

Educated men - "civilized," as Fourier used to say with disdain - tremble at the idea that society might some day be without judges, police, or gaolers. ~ Peter Kropotkin

The Swimming Pool

All around the apt. swimming pool
the boys stare at the girls
and the girls look everywhere but the opposite
or down or up. It is
as it was a thousand years ago: the fat
boy has it hardest, he
takes the sneers,
prefers the winter so he can wear
his heavy pants and sweater.
Today, he's here with the others.
Better they are cruel to him in his presence
than out. Of the five here now (three boys,
two girls) one is fat, three cruel,
and one, a girl, wavers to the side,
all the world tearing at her.
As yet she has no breasts
(her friend does) and were it not
for the forlorn fat boy whom she joins
in taunting, she could not bear her terror,
which is the terror
of being him. Does it make her happy
that she has no need, right now, of ingratiation,
of acting fool to salve
her loneliness? She doesn't seem
so happy. She is like
the lower middle class, that fatal group
handed crumbs so they can drop a few
down lower, to the poor, so they won't kill
the rich. All around
the apt. swimming pool
there is what's everywhere: forsakenness
and fear, a disdain for those beneath us
rather than a rage
against the ones above: the exploiters,
the oblivious and unabashedly cruel. ~ Thomas Lux

Eschew the ordinary, disdain the commonplace. If you have a single-minded need for something, let it be the unusual, the esoteric, the bizarre, the unexpected. ~ Chuck Jones

Finer feeling, which we now wish to consider, is chiefly of two kinds: the feeling of the *sublime* and that of the *beautiful*. The stirring of each is pleasant, but in different ways. The sight of a mountain whose snow-covered peak rises above the clouds, the description of a raging storm, or Milton's portrayal of the infernal kingdom, arouse enjoyment but with horror; on the other hand, the sight of flower strewn meadows, valleys with winding brooks and covered with grazing flocks, the description of Elysium, or Homer's portrayal of the girdle of Venus, also occasion a pleasant sensation but one that is joyous and smiling. In order that the former impression could occur to us in due strength, we must have *a feeling of the sublime*, and, in order to enjoy the latter well, *a feeling of the beautiful*. Tall oaks and lonely shadows in a sacred grove are sublime; flower beds, low hedges and trees trimmed in figures are beautiful. Night is sublime; day is beautiful. Temperaments that possess a feeling for the sublime are drawn gradually, by the quiet stillness of a summer evening as the shimmering light of the stars breaks through the brown shadows of night and the lonely moon rises into view, into high feelings of friendship, of disdain for the world, of eternity. The shining day stimulates busy fervor and a feeling of gaiety. The sublime *moves*, the beautiful *charms*. ~ Immanuel Kant

Later bad things will be said about Stalin; he'll be called a tyrant and his reign of terror will be denounced. But for the people of Eduard's generation he will remain the supreme leader of the people of the Union at the most tragic moment in their history; the man who defeated the Nazis and proved himself capable of a sacrifice worthy of the ancient Romans: the Germans had captured his son, Lieutenant Yakov Dzhugashvili, while the Russians had captured Field Marshal Paulus, one of the top military leaders of the Reich, at Stalingrad. When the German High Command proposed an exchange, Stalin responded with disdain that he didn't exchange field marshals for simple lieutenants. Yakov committed suicide by throwing himself on the electrified barbed wire fence of his prison camp. * ~ Emmanuel Carrere

I remembered some of what I'd read in the past: the small group of the original Impressionists, including one woman-Berthe Morisot- who'd first banded together in 1874 to exhibit works in a style that the Paris Salon found too experimental for inclusion. We postmoderns take them for granted, or disdain them, or love them too easily. ~ Elizabeth Kostova

I think jazz is actually quite unforgiving in its disdain for nostalgia. It demands creativity and change at its highest level. ~ Pat Metheny

Let him who elevates himself above humanity ... say, if he pleases, "I will never compromise"; but let no one who is not above the frailties of our common nature disdain compromise. ~ Henry Clay

The beautiful dream of young love that ventures only on half-measures, that desires and dares not ask, promises and does not give.

He was homeless in the noble sense of those who, like the Vikings and pirates of beauty, have collected in their intellectual raids all that is most precious in many great cities. He was close to all the arts in the manner of a dilettante, but stronger than his love for them was his sublime disdain to serve them.

Destiny does not always need the powerful prelude of a sudden violent blow to shake a heart beyond recovery.

Memory is always a bond and every loving memory is a bond twice over. ~ Stefan Zweig

I don't think humanity just replays history, but we are the same people our ancestors were, and our descendants are going to face a lot of the same situations we do. It's instructive to imagine how they would react, with different technologies on different worlds. That's why I write science fiction
even though the term 'science fiction' excites disdain in certain persons. ~ Kage Baker

I am convinced that the deepest desire within each of us is to be liberated from the controlling influences of our own psychic madness or patterns of fear. All other things - the disdain of ordinary life, the need to control others rather than be controlled, the craving for material goods as a means of security and protection against the winds of chaos - are external props that serve as substitutes for the real battle, which is the one waged within the individual soul. ~ Caroline Myss

Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,
Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,
Have put on black and loving mourners be,
Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.
And truly not the morning sun of heaven
Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,
Nor that full star that ushers in the even,
Doth half that glory to the sober west,
As those two mourning eyes become thy face:
O! let it then as well beseem thy heart
To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,
And suit thy pity like in every part.
Then will I swear beauty herself is black,
And all they foul that thy complexion lack ~ William Shakespeare

I know of nothing uglier or more saddening than a machine-flailed hedge. It speaks of the disdain of nature and craft that still dominates our agriculture. ~ Roger Deakin

It became increasingly clear that my fellow Christians didn't want to listen to me, or grieve with me, or walk down this frightening road with me. They wanted to fix me. They wanted to wind me up like an old-fashioned toy and send me back to the fold with a painted smile on my face and tiny cymbals in my hands. Looking back, I suspect their reactions had less to do with disdain for my doubt and more to do with fear of their own. ~ Rachel Held Evans

DENIAL OF EMOTIONS
Our culture does not handle emotions well. We like folks to be happy and fine. We learn rituals of acting happy and fine at an early age. I can remember many times telling people "I'm fine" when I felt like the world was caving in on me. I often think of Senator Muskie who cried on the campaign trail when running for president. From that moment on he was history. We don't want a president who has emotions. We would rather have one that can act! Emotions are certainly not acceptable in the workplace. True expression of any emotions that are not "positive" are met with disdain. ~ John Bradshaw

It may be safely averred that good cookery is the best and truest economy, turning to full account every wholesome article of food, and converting into palatable meals what the ignorant either render uneatable or throw away in disdain. ~ Eliza Acton

Intellectual men who quickly wolf down whatever nourishment is necessary for their bodies with a kind of disdain, may be very rational and have a noble intelligence, but they are not men of taste. ~ Charles-Augustin De Coulomb

He searched for words to poison the shaft of his disdain. ~ Margaret Landon

And now he had acquired the wisdom to admit that sometimes experienced his disdain for "weak, sick people" because he was frightened by any suggestion he could ever become that. ~ James C. Coyne

Now we Democrats, well, we're all for higher taxes, right? But man do we hate to pay those taxes, and most of the politicians I worked for took advantage of every tax loophole they could find, and if they couldn't find it, they'd just legislate one out of thin air. That's the D.C. way. Tax policy is a means to buy votes, but at the end of the day, we all share in a mutual disdain for government. It's ~ D.W. Ulsterman

And the chief difference is this: that people will treat with disdain such phenomena as are proved by the evidence of the senses, and commonly experienced - while they will defend to the death the reality of a phenomenon which they have neither seen nor experienced. "Faith is as powerful a force as science," he concluded, voice soft in the darkness, " - but far more dangerous. ~ Diana Gabaldon

Put her in any situation that was even vaguely new and personal and she was lost; her pale, almost translucent skin and auburn hair seemed to signal everything she was feeling. She may raise her chin in proud disdain and even curl her lip in an emergency, but nobody was likely to be fooled if she glowed the colour of a midsummer sunset. ~ Stuart Hill

Trials are won by attorneys whose stories fit, and lost by those whose stories are like the shapeless housecoat that truth, in her disdain of appearances, has chosen as her uniform. ~ Janet Malcolm

For (strange as it may sound to many people, who tend to think of critics as being motivated by the lower emotions: envy, disdain, contempt even) critics are, above all, people who are in love with beautiful things, and who worry that those things will get broken. What motivates so many of us to write in the first place is, to begin with, a great passion for a subject (Tennessee Williams, Balanchine, jazz, the twentieth-century novel, whatever) that we find beautiful; and, then, a kind of corresponding anxiety about the fragility of that beauty. ~ Daniel Mendelsohn

I suspect it's because Truman Democrats have been replaced by Gruber Democrats - self-styled elitists who feed lavishly at the public trough and think government should serve them, not the hoi polloi they disdain and deceive. ~ Jack Kelly

I AM TOLD YOU KNOW EVERYTHING.
The holy man opened the other eye. "The secret of existence is to disdain earthly ties, shun the chimera of material worth, and seek oneness with the Infinite," he said. "And keep your thieving hands off my begging bowl." The sight of the supplicant was giving him trouble.
I'VE SEEN THE INFINITE, said the stranger. IT'S NOTHING SPECIAL.
The holy man glanced around. "Don't be daft," he said. "You can't see the Infinite. 'Cos it's infinite." I HAVE. "All right, what did it look like?" IT'S BLUE. ~ Terry Pratchett

The women take so little stock
In what I do or say
They'd sooner leave their cosseting
To hear a jackass bray ... ~ William Butler Yeats

Jesus knows our world. He does not disdain us like the God of Aristotle. We can speak to Him and He answers us. Although He is a person like ourselves, He is God and transcends all things. ~ Alexis Carrel

In contrast to your usual minions, I imagine, I'm a bit more awed by your conceit and arrogance than I am by your supposed magnificence. ~ Caitlin Crews

No matter the turmoil, struggle, restlessness, and disdain for everyday life, I can rely on the mountain to be just where I left it, ready to hear my woes and absorb them and replenish my soul. ~ Charles Garrett

The joys of possession I have never felt very acutely. I find it hard to think of myself as the owner of anything. But I do tend to slip into the role of guardian and protector of the unloved and unlovable, of what other people disdain or spurn: bad-tempered old dogs, ugly pieces of furniture that have stubbornly stayed alive, cars on the edge of breakdown. It is a role I resist; but every now and then the mute appeal of the unwanted overwhelms my defences. ~ J.M. Coetzee

Even though she could never be an actual librarian because her love for books is only matched by her disdain for the general public. ~ Annie Spence

Some bold adventurers disdain The limits of their little reign, And unknown regions date descry. ~ Thomas Gray

Though you have a man's vigorous brain, you have a woman's heart and--it would not do."

"It would do," I affirmed with some disdain, "perfectly well. ~ Charlotte Bronte

To be completely apolitical and only live for culture is to risk becoming a dandy. To disdain culture and care only for politics is to become mired in soulless earnestness. Balancing the claims of culture and politics is a difficult task but a necessary one, in order to make culture properly grounded in social awareness and politics rightly respectful of aesthetic values. ~ Jeet Heer

To be a Christian is to be a theologian - a student of God and his will. The church is where believers should be nurtured in the practice of correct theology. The contemporary disdain for theological content and emphasis on self-image and emotions were not shared by the apostolic church. ~ R.C. Sproul

Only those who have not paid a high price for the gentle joy of living and breathing can allow themselves feelings of melancholy, denial and lofty disdain of life. ~ Alexander Kushner

Perhaps we still have a basically superstitious tendency to associate failure with dishonesty and guilt - failure being interpreted as "punishment." Even if a man starts out with good intentions, if he fails we tend to think he was somehow "at fault." If he was not guilty, he was at least "wrong." And "being wrong" is something we have not yet learned to face with equanimity and understanding. We either condemn it with god-like disdain or forgive it with god-like condescension. We do not manage to accept it with human compassion, humility and identification. Thus we never see the one truth that would help us begin to solve our ethical and political problems: that we are all more or less wrong, that we are all at fault, all limited and obstructed by our mixed motives, our self-deception, our greed, our self-righteousness and our tendency to aggressivity and hypocrisy. ~ Thomas Merton

When he was twenty-three years old, he (George Fox) saw the inner light in a vision. For him it symbolized the spirit against the letter, silence against chatter, experience against dogma, and equality against all who build inequality on authority and power, be it of the state or religion. His mistrust of the official Anglican Church was immense. He spoke with disdain of the "towered houses" and was tormented by the ringing of church bells. He frequently interrupted preachers, standing in the church's doorway, a hat covering his head, and uttering threatening words toward the pulpit, causing great excitement in the gathered congregation. It often resulted in Fox being beaten up, banished, and, later on, jailed for years.

What aroused his ire, above all, were the priests who, without ever having experienced or even looked for illumination, presented themselves as servants of God but, in truth, comprised a "society of cannibals." It is "not enough to have been educated in Oxford or Cambridge in order to become capable for and efficient in the service of Christ.

To this day it is difficult for many Friends to speak of "Quaker theology." The Friends believe in Scripture - George Fox knew it by heart - but they also believe that the Spirit transcends Scripture and that the inner light is experienced by all human beings without human mediation. "The inner light," "the inward teacher" are names that the early Quakers gave to their experiences of the Spirit. T ~ Dorothee Solle

Marriage is a reflection of your life in general: how you treat people, how you argue, how secure you are in your own thoughts. How vehemently do you argue your point of view? With what disdain do you view the other's point of view? ~ William Shatner

True ownership can come only from within. It comes from a disdain for anything or anybody that impinges upon your mobility, from a confidence in your own decisions, and from the use of your time in constant pursuit of education and improvement. ~ Robert Greene

On a strange and devious way, Siddhartha had gotten into this final and most base of all dependencies, by means of the game of dice. It was since that time, when he had stopped being a Samana in his heart, that Siddhartha began to play the game for money and precious things, which he at other times only joined with a smile and casually as a custom of the childlike people, with an increasing rage and passion. He was a feared gambler, few dared to take him on, so high and audacious were his stakes. He played the game due to a pain of his heart, losing and wasting his wretched money in the game brought him an angry joy, in no other way he could demonstrate his disdain for wealth, the merchants' false god, more clearly and more mockingly. ~ Hermann Hesse

People talk of calf-love with wistful disdain, but mine was as intense as any emotion I knew until I crossed the frontier, years later, when I discovered that all loving is a loving of life in the midst of death. ~ Hugh MacLennan

Taught by centuries of
living, the republic of immortal men had
achieved a perfection of tolerance, almost of
disdain. They knew that over an infinitely long span of time, all things happen to all men. As
reward for his past and future virtues, every
man merited every kindness - yet also every
betrayal, as reward for his past and future
iniquities. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

One can never call me a quitter
I take something right and see it
through till it's wrong
Auctioning myself off to the lowest bidder
Going once, going twice
Gone
Sold to the man for the price of disdain
Some are sold for a song
I don't rate a refrain
I guess it was all going just a little too well
If I wasn't careful I'd be happy pretty soon
Heaven's no place for one who thrives on hell,
One who prefers the bit to the silver spoon.
Then just when I'd almost resigned myself to winning
When it seemed my bright future would never dim
When my luck looked as though it was only beginning
I met him.
Sullen and scornful; a real Marlboro man
The type who pours out the beer and eats the can
A tall guy with a cultivated leer
One you can count on to diaprove or disappear
I knew right away that he was a find
Given this, he was the kindest man I'd ever met
Back came my sense of worthlessness
And my long lost pangs of regret
I was my old self again, lost and confused
Reunited with that old feeling
Of being misunderstood and misused.

Sold to the man for the price of disdain
All of this would be interesting
If it weren't so mundane ~ Carrie Fisher

Greatness starts with the replacement of hatred with polite disdain. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

We are not quite conscious of the reason for our disdain when we refer to the illiterate past as wallowing in ignorance ... What divides us from them is the column of print. Theirs was a total culture involving all the senses, while ours is a culture concentrated in the literate eye. ~ Nick Joaquin

Stick around, though. I'm going to need all the help I can get to figure all this out."
"That's me! Mister Helpful. Captain Dependable."
"That sounds like a brand of adult diapers."
"This nickname needs some work. Lord Wonderful? The Incredible Hunk?"
"Please, for the love, go inside."
He laughed, then clomped up the steps and into the house.
"Reth," I shouted. "Reeeeeeeeth! Reth! Reth, Reth, Reth! If you don't come in the next thirty seconds, I'm going to do find David's golf clubs!"
"That tone and level of voice does nothing attractive you for, my love."
I jumped, startled, but of course Reth would be behind me, leaning heavily on the porch railing.
"You," I said, glaring. "Fix it. Now."
A look of disdain on his face, he leaned over and trailed his fingers across Lend's forehead. A single whispered word, and then . . .
Nothing.
"You liar!" I shouted, standing so abruptly that Lend rolled off my lap and down a step. As he hit the first one, color bloomed through him into his usual glamour and his eyes flew open in panic.
"He was asleep, Evelyn." Reth's lips were pursed, but I knew he was smiling gleefully on the inside.
"Lend!" I lunged forward, knocking into him, and we both rolled down the next two steps, landing in a heap on the gravel at the bottom. "You're awake!"
"Evie! I'm . . . wow, why am I so bruised?"
"Shut up," I said, grabbing his head and pulling him in for a kiss. It was freezing a ~ Kiersten White

Disdain for authority is the bedrock of my character. ~ Mary Jo Putney

I don't even suffer. My disdain for everything is so complete that I even disdain myself. The contempt I have for the sufferings of others I also have for my own. And so all my suffering is crushed under the foot of my disdain. ~ Fernando Pessoa

Exactly. We don't belong here. They're not staring out of disdain, Jordan; they're staring out of jealousy. We don't have to be a part of the horrible modelling industry. You don't have to watch what you eat and I don't have to worry about how many zits are on my face. We can be whoever the fuck we want, a type of liberty that a majority of people crave. ~ Cameron How To Be A Girl

Nothing is more painful to me than the disdain with which people treat second-rate authors, as if there were room only for the first-raters. ~ Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve

All legislation, all government, all society is founded upon the principle of mutual concession, politeness, comity, courtesy; upon these everything is based ... Let him who elevates himself above humanity, above its weaknesses, its infirmities, its wants, its necessities, say, if he pleases, I will never compromise; but let no one who is not above the frailties of our common nature disdain compromises. ~ Henry Clay

Religion is such an icky, sticky thing, full of tortuous - well, everything. Why is it so essential for man to be forced, for that is what religion relies on, force, to believe in anything but himself? And this is what John Winthrop should represent for us: the utter disdain he and Puritanism have for the self, for the human, for the human being. ~ Larry Kramer

So many people accuse and mistreat others just because of their present state of life, as if life is just a one day journey, and they forget that the story line can change tomorrow! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

For once I didn't look away immediately. I forced myself to meet her contemptuous gaze. I allowed myself be swept away by it, to drown in it - the way I'd done so many times before. The way I would willingly do again. Because at least she was here to hate me. At least I had that. I watched my daughter conjure up the filthiest look in her vast arsenal before she turned away with complete disdain. I didn't mind that so much. It meant I could watch her, drink her in without her protest.
Look at our daughter, Callum. Isn't she beautiful, so very beautiful? She laughs like me, but when she smiles ... Oh Callum, when she smiles, it's picnics in Celebration Park and sunsets on our beach and our very first kiss all over again. When Callie Rose smiles at me, she lights up my life.
When Callie Rose smiles at me. ~ Malorie Blackman

Her face was upside down, but he could still make out her expression, and it filled him with a pang of curiosity. It was so long since he had seen such an expression that it took a while for him to recognize it as pity. Yes, it was true pity, without superiority or disdain. Just pain felt for pain. How strange it looked! ~ Frances Hardinge

If he had any sense of honor at all, the man would have stayed dead."
"Unfortunately, it appears he was merely unconscious," Daniel murmured. He was becoming quite certain George was dead. This might greaty simplify matters, or at least it would if Richard was willing to uphold the marriage to Christiana...and really, Daniel was beginning to think that would be the most honorable thing to do here. While he didn't think much of their looking to marry a man with money to solve their problems, it did seem a shame to cast the scandal of George's actions on these three women when none of it was their fault at all.
Unconscious," Suzette spat the word with disdain. "He must have been, and he had obviously been drinking." She tsked with exasperation and stomped her foot, muttering, "Why could the beast not have been dead? I should have smothered him in his bed to be sure he was and stayed that way."
Daniel stared at her with amazement. His first thought was that, really, aside froom her fortune hunting and homicidal tendencies, the woman was quite fascinating in her complete and utter lack of artifice. His next thought was that the ton would eat her alive. Artifice and subterfuge were necessary tools to survive society and she was obviously completely lacking in both.
Suzette suddenly heaved a put upon breath and muttered, "I suppose I had best be sure I find a husband tonight. Otherwise, surely Dicky will find some way to throw a spanner in my plans."
Daniel ~ Lynsay Sands

It was at such moments that for an instant he ceased to be a reasoning machine and betrayed his human love for admiration and applause. The same singularly proud and reserved nature which turned away with disdain from popular notoriety was capable of being moved to its depth by spontaneous wonder and praise from a friend. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

Jane Austen has taught me to view the ridiculous and rude with amusement rather than disdain. ~ Natalie Tyler

The next time you find yourself on the receiving end of a conversation assault, take a moment to have a little self-compassion. Remember that other introverts share your slow-talking tendencies, your hatred of small talk, and your disdain for the phone. ~ Michaela Chung

This is part of what we disdain about sweeteners, the fact that we can taste without consequences. Our capitalist ethos loves a certain kind of inscription - insisting we can read tallies of sloth and discipline inscribed across the body itself - and artificial sweeteners threaten this legibility. They offer a way to cheat the arithmetic of indulgence and bodily consequence, just like sentimentality offers feeling without the price of complication. ~ Leslie Jamison

Surpanakha, Ahalya, Renuka, Urmila - each one had a story of her own. Each one had followed a path of her own. Her path, her way, was hers alone.
Sita had learnt what she could from their experiences. At first, she felt only disdain and anger for them. Later, when she understood that the anguish in their lives was similar, she felt a camaraderie, a companionship with them. When Sita heard the sufferings of others, she realized that she was not alone. The awareness that she was one of them gave her strength. And it was that strength which enabled her to withstand the disgrace and bear her children, to give them a happy childhood and to train them in all the skills. ~ Volga

You know for sure Jane would be annoyed she gave you all her money and you're not even enjoying it. Should have given it to me.' Myrna had shaken her head in mock bewilderment. 'I'd have known what to do with it. Boom, down to Jamaica, a nice Rasta man, a good book - '
'Wait a minute. You have a Rasta man and you're reading a book?'
'Oh, yes. Each has a purpose. For instance, a Rasta man is great when he's hard, but not a book.'
Clara had laughed. They shared a disdain for hard books. Not the content, but the cover. Hardcovers were simply too hard to hold, especially in bed.
'Unlike a Rasta man,' said Myrna. ~ Louise Penny

There is, if you don't mind my saying so, something sinister about men who avoid wine, games, the company of charming women, and good dinner-table conversation. People like that are either seriously ill or they secretly disdain their fellow men. ~ Mikhail Bulgakov

His young man's limbs, sleek in their dark male pride, seemed to disdain the covering offered them by the brief shorts and striped jersey. His body might have been naked, like his full, muscled throat, which rose, round and proud as the male organ of a flower, from the neck of his sweater. ~ Stella Gibbons

Among [Applewhite's] other teachings was the classic cult specialty of developing disdain for anyone outside of the Heaven's Gate commune. Applewhite flattered his would-be alien flock that they were an elite elect far superior to the non-initiated humans whom he considered to be deluded zombies.[ ... ]Applewhite effectively fed his paranoid persecution complex to his followers to ensure blind loyalty to the group and himself while fostering alienation from the mundane world. This paradoxical superior/fearful attitude towards "Them" (i.e., anyone who is not one of "Us") is one of the simplest means of hooking even the most skeptical curiosity seeker into the solipsistic netherworld of a [mentally unbalanced] leader's insecure and threatened worldview. ~ Zeena Schreck

Over the course of his wartime service, Lawrence was awarded a number of medals and ribbons, but with his profound disdain for such things, he either threw them away or never bothered to collect them. He made an exception in the case of the Croix de Guerre; after the war, according to his brother, he found amusement in placing the medal around the neck of a friend's dog and parading it through the streets of Oxford. ~ Scott Anderson

Cyphel knew exactly how he felt about her as well - it was there in her expression whenever they spoke that beguiling combination of amusement and haughtiness that she carried off so well. It was a look that expressed disdain at Campion's guarded advances but also a kind of measured probationary respect as well. It was a look that said You dare to think that I will find you as interesting as you obviously find me Well perhaps in that very act of daring you become interesting to me if only fleetingly. ~ Alastair Reynolds

The greatest, like Rembrandt, paint a gallant, a hag, and a carcass with equal passion and rapture; they love the truth as it is. They do not admit that anything can be ugly or evil; its existence justifies itself. This is because they know themselves to be part of an harmonious unity; to disdain any item of it would be to blaspheme the whole. The Thelemite is able to revel in any experience soever; in each he recognizes the tokens of ultimate Truth. It is surely obvious, even intellectually, that all phenomena are interdependent, and therefore involve each other. ~ Aleister Crowley

In Gothic fiction, characters must contend with the dead, with active hauntings or with hallucinations of hauntings, as well as whatever other trying circumstances they might find themselves in: orphanhood, lunacy, imprisonment, inheritances that go astray, troubling romantic situations. The Gothic novel does not strive for subtlety, and it isn't to everyone's taste. It can seem adolescent, an immature version of the stately, measured, grown-up realist novel, except that the line between Gothic and the realist is never clear. A disdain for the Gothic is limiting, since this literature, in all its flagrancy, has something to say about emotional as well as physical death, and a tale of a haunting can have a narrative vitality that is far from conclusive. Gothic stories linger especially in the mind. ~ Brenda Walker

What is thy body but a swallowing grave,
Seeming to bury that posterity
Which, by the rights of time, thou needs must have
If thou destroy them not in dark obscurity?
If so, the world will hold thee in disdain,
Sith in thy pride so fair a hope is slain. ~ William Shakespeare

I scanned through another section finding yet another thing I wasn't about to let happen.
"You want to pick my clothes? What the hell is wrong with my clothes?"
His eyes took in my sleeveless top and sank lower as if he was sneering with disdain at my jeans. They were jeans for monkey butt's sake!
"I have a certain reputation Synthia. I won't have it smeared with being shadowed by a child who wears the clothes of an immature teenager."
"I'm wearing jeans, half the country wears them! ~ Amelia Hutchins

It is true, I never stop wanting to learn the hard eucharisteo for deathbeds and dark skies and the prodigal sons. But I accept this is the way to begin, and all hard things come in due time and with practice. Yet now wisps of cheese tell me gentle that this is the first secret step into euchaisteo's miracle. Gratitude for the seemingly insignificant - a seed - this plants the giant miracle. The miracle of eucharisteo, like the Last Supper, is in the eating of crumbs, the swallowing down one mouthful. Do not disdain the small. The whole of life - even the hard - is made up of the minute parts, and if I miss the infinitesimals, I miss the whole. (Page 57) ~ Ann Voskamp

I don't think this is a good idea. We all live on one planet so we cannot segregate the genders. If the Holy Mosque in Makkah, which is the holiest place on earth, does not segregate women, then why would the Ministry of Health want to segregate them?"
She also went on to object to the selection of a physician based only on gender and not competence, expressing her disdain as follows: "I prefer doctors who are professional in studying my situation and solving my problem, regardless of whether they are male or female. I cannot imagine a men's hospital without female nurses and doctors, and I also cannot imagine women's hospitals without men playing a role in them. ~ Qanta A. Ahmed

It is our genetic nature as a species to believe as young children that our parents and elders are right. We watch them to see what's what. Later on we can judge for ourselves and rebel if need be, but when we're just months old, or a year or two, and a parent looks at us with impatience, or disgust, or disdain, or just leaves us there to cry and doesn't answer us even though we're longing to be embraced and nurtured, we assume that something must be wrong with us. Unfortunately, at that age it's impossible to think there might be something wrong with them. ~ Jean Liedloff

Five a.m. and mooching round
Compartments in my brain
Every corner occupied
By garbage and disdain
Down all day - up all night
Beneath that energy draining light

The Paperboy's Wife ~ John Cooper Clarke

One of the first things many clerks hear from RBG is that the most important job requirement is that they treat her two secretaries well. 'There was one law clerk applicant who came to interview with me - top rating at Harvard - who treated my secretaries with disdain,' RBG recalled. 'As if they were just minions. So that is one very important thing - how you deal with my secretaries. They are not hired help. As I tell my clerks, 'if push came to shove, I could do your work - but I can't do without my secretaries. ~ Irin Carmon

A divine revelation must necessarily be intolerant of contradiction; it must repudiate all improvement in itself, and view with disdain that arising from the progressive intellectual development of man. ~ John William Draper

Rider's head snapped up at the sound of gravel crunching under Willow's boots. The sight of the girl in boy's garb birthed an oath. Beneath her cotton shirt, her breasts bounced freely with each step. And within the tight mannish pants, her hips swung in an unconscious rhythm, clearly proclaiming her all woman. Hell, she might as well be naked! His body's reaction was immediate.
Cursing his lack of control, he turned sideways, facing her horse, and pretended to adjust the saddle straps.
Willow took Sugar's reins and waited for Rider to move aside. He didn't budge an inch. Instead, he tipped his hat back on his head, revealing undisguised disapproval. "Is that the way you always dress?" he bit out.
Willow stiffened, immediately defensive. Criticizing herself was one thing; putting up with Sinclair's disdain was another! "If you were expecting a dress, you're crazy!" she snapped. "It would be suicide in this country."
"Haven't you ever heard of riding skirts?"
"Yes. I'm not as dumb as you seem to think. But fancy riding skirts cost money I don't have. 'Sides, pants are a hell of a lot more useful on the ranch than some damn riding skirt! Now, if you're done jawing about my clothes, I'd like to get a move on before dark."
"Somebody ought to wash that barnyard mouth of yours,woman."
Willow rested her hand on her gun. "You can try, if you dare."
As if I'd draw on a woman, Rider cursed silently, stepping out of her way. As she hoisted herself ~ Charlotte McPherren

As the six, in file, passed into the poorhouse proper they clicked off glances of disdain with industrial precision. ~ John Updike

There is something about eating animals that tends to polarize: never eat them or never sincerely question eating them; become an activist or disdain activists. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

Pamela pulled off her cloak and Alexei gasped.
"You have on breeches!" He stared in disbelief. "Breeches!"
"I've never worn them before, and they are extremely comfortable. I quite like them." She smoothed the fabric over her hip. "Besides, you don't expect me to duel in a dress, do you?"
"I do not expect you to duel at all!"
Pamela ignored him. "That would be most unfair, dueling in a dress, unless, of course, you would be willing to wear a dress as well?"
"Don't be absurd." He snorted in disdain. "I have no intention of ever wearing women's clothing again."
"Again?" She raised a brow.
"It was an unavoidable disguise," he muttered. ~ Victoria Alexander

Even if the devil worshipper is simply 'worshipping one's self,' as their heretical chronicles proclaim, it does nothing to quail my disdain for their kind. The fact that a single evil one whom most of us cannot see or hear in this world, is replaced by an entire army of greedy, heartless and soulless human beings stripped of their conscience and performing human sacrifice, in effigy or otherwise, is indeed far more sinister than the existence of one actual 'devil. ~ Yehuda HaLevi

The reason for the simplicity isn't disdain for uniqueness, as the other factions have sometimes interpreted it. Everything - our houses, our clothes, our hairstyles - is meant to help us forget ourselves and to protect us from vanity, greed, and envy, which are just forms of selfishness. If we have little, and want for little, and we are all equal, we envy no one. I try to love it. ~ Anonymous

Harry has heard this before. Thelma's voice is dutiful and deliberately calm, issuing small family talk when both know that what she wants to discuss is her old issue, that flared up a minute ago, of whether he loves her or not, or why at least he doesn't need her as much as she does him. But their relationship at the start was established with her in pursuit of him, and all the years since, of hidden meetings, of wise decisions to end it and thrilling abject collapses back into sex, have not disrupted the fundamental pattern of her giving and his taking, of her fearing their end more than he, and clinging, and disliking herself for clinging, and wanting to punish him for her dislike, and him shrugging and continuing to bask in the sun of her love, that rises every day whether he is there or not. He can't believe it, quite, and has to keep testing her. ~ John Updike