Cato the Elder
Politician, Orator
"There is a wide difference between true courage and a mere contempt of life."
Contempt quotes
Contempt
85 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Woody Allen
Director, Actor, Writer
"I'm awash in self-contempt!"
George Santayana
Philosopher, Poet
"Familiarity breeds contempt only when it breeds inattention."
Friedrich Nietzsche
Philosopher, Writer
"Behind all their personal vanity, women themselves always have an impersonal contempt for woman."
William Shakespeare
Playwright, Poet
"Nature hath meal and bran, contempt and grace."
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside contempt — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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Contempt quotes (page 1 of 5)
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"Everything can be borne except contempt."
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"What is this world that is hastening me toward I know not what, viewing me with contempt?"
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"She was nothing more than a mere good-tempered, civil and obliging Young Woman; as such we could scarcely dislike her -- she was only an Object of Contempt"
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"I guess like any friendship, marriage, or whatever it is familiarity breeds more contempt, and more love. They're just more settled with each other now."
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"Contempt is not a thing to be despised."
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"No man can fall into contempt but those who deserve it."
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"It is a sad thing that our schoolboys look upon manual labour with disfavour, if not contempt."
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"Familiarity doesn't breed contempt, it is contempt."
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"Only the contemptible fear contempt."
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"I find my familiarity with thee has bred contempt."
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"None but the contemptible are apprehensive of contempt."
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"Those only are despicable who fear to be despised."
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"Familiarity gives rise to contempt."
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"What our contempts do often hurl from us, We wish it ours again."
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"I have nothing but contempt for anyone who can spell a word in only one way."
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"To be too busie gets contempt."
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"Contempt, thought Tyrion, the universal tongue."
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"Man is more sensitive to the contempt that others feel towards him than to the contempt that he feels towards himself."
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"if she had ordered me to throw myself down then, I would have done it! If she had said it only as a joke, said it with contempt, spitting on me--even then I would have jumped!"
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"Contempt for private wrongs was one of the features of ancient morals."
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