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Condescension Quotes

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Condescension Quotes

“I don't purchase people with money, or hiss like a snake to attract their attention, all i do is to rest on my couch because i have the conviction that no human can progress with an exception without a power behind.”

BeliefMoneyProgressHumilityPrideHonorFameIndividualityConvictionAttractionSelf RespectBelieve In YourselfHonourPopularitySelf RelianceBreakthroughBeggarMysticReservedMichael Bassey JohnsonMeekContentEquanimityWithdrawalExcelCondescendingCondescensionSnakeBegAuraBeggarsWithdrawnMuch Ado About NothingContentedUnpopularityCondescendHissPower Behind
Author:Michael Bassey Johnson
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“The girls, their feet in the cold water, utter cries like a seagull's. Moreover, they are immediately transformed into seagulls, and these in turn into the obscure object of desire, swaying and waddling like the ostrich at the end of Buñuel's film. The summer has arrived. I was very anxious she might be disappointed and I could never have forgiven her for that. I shall never forgive anyone who passes a condescending or contemptuous judgement on America. They are at the centre of the world and they don't know it. What they prefer is to be at the centre of books and the earth. Only sequoias have the heroic, fabulous, antediluvian stature of the first days of the world, being contemporary with the great prehistoric animals. And indeed their scaley bark resembles a carapace. They are the only trees on a par with the geological and mineral scenario of the deserts. After them it is the little species that have triumphed.”

AmericaEvolutionUniversalDisappointmentContemptCondescensionBunuel
Book:Cool memories
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“It's sort of self-congratulatory to be the person who walks around pitying other people. I don't do that very much. I just know that there are plenty of people who are in terrible trouble and can't get out. And so I'm impatient with those who think that it's easy for people to get out of trouble. I think there are some people who really need a lot of help.”

AwarenessEmpathyPatiencePityHelpCondescensionVonnegut
Book:Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons
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“He had this in common with Oedipus, that he was growing old. Even to himself it had become obvious. He had lost interest in other people’s affairs, and seldom attended when they spoke to him. He was fond of talking himself but often forgot what he was going to say, and even when he succeeded, it seldom seemed worth the effort. His phrases and gestures had become stiff and set, his anecdotes, once so successful, fell flat, his silence was as meaningless as his speech. Yet he had led a healthy, active life, had worked steadily, made money, educated his children. There was nothing and no one to blame: he was simply growing old.”

LonelinessAgingIsolationOld FashionedCondescensionAntiquated
Book:The Celestial Omnibus and other Stories
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“Lady Darvish nodded sagely to herself. She believed, quite frankly and unapologetically, that women were superior to men; it seemed merely obvious to her that women’s minds were subtler than men’s, more flexible, more capacious, more resilient, and more socially and circumstantially astute, and to those who might doubt that a disparity between the sexes existed in the first place, or indeed, that one could speak of two such categories at all, she would only shake her head and laugh, and say emphatically that raising her daughter could not have been more different from raising her two sons: ‘They were like two different species,’ she would say, ‘I mean—I’m telling you. Talk about “Men are from Mars”!’ But it was as a consequence of her belief in the supremacy of her own sex that she held men to far lower standards than she did women, and so tended to be rather softer on them; with Sir Owen—as with her sons, and with her father before he’d died—her attitude of condescension could take the form of a cosseting, and even an obsequious, indulgence.”

MenWomenStandardsGenderSuperiorityCondescensionDisparitiesSexes
Book:Birnam Wood
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“Arrogant men with knowledge make more noise from their mouth than making a sense from their mind.”

InspirationalWritingMindReasonPhilosophyWisdomMotivationalQuotesKnowledgeSpeechWittyWitNoiseCommon SenseVanityLoudArroganceMovieReasonableStoryContemptArrogantRhetoricSayingsCreative WritingSlogansEgotismAmit KalantriAmit Kalantri QuotesPublic SpeakingConceitProverbsSocial NetworkingBloggingCharactersSenseAmit Kalantri WriterDisdainAdageNovel WritingBook WritingEssayMouthSwaggerHubrisScriptAdvertisementBlogSnobberyMovie DialogueScript WritingCatchphrasesAlliterationsTag LinesScriptwritingCatch LinesSpeechwritingCondescensionPunchlineInsolencePretentiousnessBoastingMockingBlusterHaughtinessSelf ImportanceSnobbishnessSneeringSuperciliousnessAffectation ScornBumptiousnessHigh HandednessImmodesty LoftinessImperiousness PrideLordlinessScoffing PresumptionSense Of Superiority PompositySmugness Pretension
Book:Wealth of Words
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“HEY NERD BOY! I KNOW YOU THINK YOU'RE SOMEHOW BEING MADE FUN OF, BUT THAT GIRL IS GENUINELY REACHING OUT TO YOU! YOU KNOW ABOUT FRIENDS, RIGHT? INSTEAD OF CONDESCENDING TO HER IN A PREEMPTIVE SHIELDING OF YOUR BRUISED AND BATTERED EGO, MAYBE JUST TALK TO HER ABOUT THE BOOK YOU BOTH LIKE? DO THIS NOW BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE AND YOU'RE WRITING A COMIC TO DEAL WITH ALL THESE FEELINGS YEARS LATER!”

FriendshipChildhoodSelf EsteemEgoNerdCondescensionNerdiness
Book:Strong Female Protagonist: Book One
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“Sadly, the natural world is not short of people who believe that rattling off Latin names incessantly makes them appear clever, whereas most of us know instinctively that this suggests insecurity at best, but possibly social and sexual dysfunction as well. If somebody corrects you sternly by using an obtuse name for something, they probably know neither human nature nor any other kind very profoundly.”

HumorNatureLatinCondescensionKnow It AllsPompousness
Book:How to Connect with Nature
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“She approached them all without a trace of sentimentality or condescension. The older Docklanders were accustomed to meeting middle-class do-gooders, who deigned to act graciously to inferiors. The Cockneys despised these people, used them for what they could get, and made fun of them behind their backs, but Sister Evangelina had no patronising airs and graces.”

Middle ClassSentimentalityTaking AdvantageCondescensionPatronizingDo Gooders
Author:Jennifer Worth
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“You've driven one of these before." "Yeah." One of these, nice way to put it. Oh, you've held a tennis racket before, oh, you've worn shoes before, oh, you've used a toothbrush before. Bug Eyes is a weisenheimer but he was right. The lady is white. That surprised condescension in the voice is an unmistakable characteristic of the Caucasian, a special characteristic of the female Caucasian. The funny thing is they don't even know they do it.”

RaceMen And WomenBlacksRace RelationsWhitesCondescensionWhite Women
Book:The Narrows
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“Then turn your eyes back on me, and tell me that Cathy and I are still children to be treated with condescension, and are incapable of understanding adult subjects. We haven't remained idle, twiddling our thumbs while you were off having a good time.”

ChildrenPhilosophyWisdomKidsUnderstandingSubjectsYouthExperienceAbandonedEyesIncapableIdlenessUnderstandThumbsCondescendingCondescensionAwayGood TimeAbandonementAdult Subjects
Book:Flowers in the Attic
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“[A man], who is in prosperity, while he sees that others have to contend with great wretchedness and that he could help them, thinks: What concern is it of mine? Let everyone be as happy as Heaven pleases, or as he can make himself; I will take nothing from him nor even envy him, only I do not wish to contribute anything to his welfare or to his assistance in distress! Now no doubt, if such a mode of thinking were a universal law, the human race might very well subsist, and doubtless even better than in a state in which everyone talks of sympathy and good-will, or even takes care occasionally to put it into practice, but, on the other side, also cheats when he can, betrays the rights of men, or otherwise violates them. But although it is possible that a universal law of nature might exist in accordance with that maxim, it is impossible to will that such a principle should have the universal validity of a law of nature. For a will which resolved this would contradict itself, inasmuch as many cases might occur in which one would have need of the love and sympathy of others, and in which, by such a law of nature, sprung from his own will, he would deprive himself of all hope of the aid he desires.”

PoorRichAlmsCondescensionImpoverishedDonations
Book:Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals
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“Never Ask (The Sonnet) Never ask a poet, Why they write what they write. If they knew why they write, No poetry will have any light. Never ask a painter, Why they paint what they paint. If they knew why they paint, All paint will turn bleak and faint. Never ask a scientist, Why they are curious the way they are. If they knew the reason for their curiosity, There wouldn't be any science, nor uplift's desire. The drive for expression takes a million shapes, When all combine without condescension we'll see God's face.”

CuriosityFreedom Of ExpressionPhilosophy Of SciencePursuit Of KnowledgeCondescensionExpressions Of EmotionPoetry QuotationsLife PoemPoetic Truth
Book:Bulldozer on Duty
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“As I slid off my coat and pulled a hanger from the closet, I noticed Gracie glaring at me sanctimoniously. Gracie had an uncannily strong drunk detector for a nine-year-old cat, and her you stayed out past curfew face was something to behold. It told me she knew I'd had too much to drink on a Tuesday night and lied to my family about having a boyfriend. It also told me I should have been home to play with her hours ago. "Meow," Gracie lectured. I couldn't even be mad. "I deserve that," I agreed. "Meow," Gracie said again, with feeling. Okay, that was a bridge too far. "Look. I've had a really rough day." Part of me knew it was ridiculous to get into an argument with a cat. The rest of me needed Gracie to understand. Instead of understanding, Gracie chose to jump onto the kitchen counter where Sophie put my mail. Right there, on top of the spring issue of the University of Chicago alumni magazine and the new issue of Cat Fanciers was the wedding invitation Mom had said was coming. I looked helplessly at Gracie, who seemed to have given up on judging my life choices in favor of bathing her right front paw. "I don't want to open it," I told her. Instead of backing me up, Gracie signaled this conversation was over by jumping off the counter and sauntering over to my living room couch. One downside to having a nonhuman roommate was when I needed someone to validate me, I was usually out of luck.”

CatCondescensionNonhuman
Book:My Vampire Plus-One
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“A number of years ago, when I was a freshly-appointed instructor, I met, for the first time, a certain eminent historian of science. At the time I could only regard him with tolerant condescension. I was sorry of the man who, it seemed to me, was forced to hover about the edges of science. He was compelled to shiver endlessly in the outskirts, getting only feeble warmth from the distant sun of science- in-progress; while I, just beginning my research, was bathed in the heady liquid heat up at the very center of the glow. In a lifetime of being wrong at many a point, I was never more wrong. It was I, not he, who was wandering in the periphery. It was he, not I, who lived in the blaze. I had fallen victim to the fallacy of the 'growing edge;' the belief that only the very frontier of scientific advance counted; that everything that had been left behind by that advance was faded and dead. But is that true? Because a tree in spring buds and comes greenly into leaf, are those leaves therefore the tree? If the newborn twigs and their leaves were all that existed, they would form a vague halo of green suspended in mid-air, but surely that is not the tree. The leaves, by themselves, are no more than trivial fluttering decoration. It is the trunk and limbs that give the tree its grandeur and the leaves themselves their meaning. There is not a discovery in science, however revolutionary, however sparkling with insight, that does not arise out of what went before. 'If I have seen further than other men,' said Isaac Newton, 'it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.”

ScienceHorrorResearchDiscoveryNewtonFallacyHistory Of ScienceCondescensionIsaac NewtonHistorian Of Science
Book:Adding a Dimension: Seventeen Essays on the History of Science
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“By His gracious condescension God became man and is called man for the sake of man and by exchanging His condition for ours revealed the power that elevates man to God through his love for God and brings God down to man because of His love for man. By this blessed inversion, man is made God by divinization and God is made man by hominization. For the Word of God and God wills always and in all things to accomplish the mystery of His embodiment.”

MenMadeChristianMysteryConditionsAll ThingsBlessedSakeAccomplishGods WillGod LoveOrthodoxWord Of GodHis LoveGraciousOrthodox ChristianEmbodimentExchangingCondescensionInversions
Author:Maximus the Confessor
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“Right now religion has the romantic aura of the forbidden - Christ is cool. We need to bring it into the schools, which kids already hate, and associate it firmly with boredom, regulation, condescension, makework and de facto segregation ... Prayer in the schools will rid us of the bland no-offense ecumenism that is so infuriating to us anticlericals: Oh, so now you say Jews didn't kill Christ - a little on the late side, isn't it?”

NeedsLittlesKidsSchoolHateSidesChristPrayerAtheismRight NowLateJewPositive AtheismBoredomRegulationOffenseAssociatesForbiddenSegregationAurasBlandCondescensionInfuriatingEcumenism
Book:Subject to Debate: Sense and Dissents on Women, Politics, and Culture
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“That politeness which we put on, in order to keep the assuming and the presumptuous at a proper distance will generally succeed. But it sometimes happens that these obtrusive characters are on such excellent terms with themselves that they put down this very politeness to the score of their own great merits and high pretensions, meeting the coldness of our reserve with a ridiculous condescension of familiarity, in order to set us at ease with ourselves.”

SometimesCharacterHappensOrderTermSucceedDistanceAssumingMeetingsRidiculousExcellentEaseMeritScoreReservesFamiliarityPolitenessPretensionColdnessCondescensionPresumptuous
Book:Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan
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“the true art of the gods is the comic. The comic is a condescension of the divine to the world of man; it is the sublime vision, which cannot be studied, but must ever be celestially granted. In the comic the gods see their own being reflected as in a mirror, and while the tragic poet is bound by strict laws, they will allow the comic artist a freedom as unlimited as their own.”

MenWorldArtLawArtistVisionComedyDivinePoetMirrorsBoundsGrantedComicTragicStrictSublimeUnlimitedCondescensionStrict Laws
Book:Winter's Tales
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“I would not preach tolerance, which seems to me another name for condescension and presupposes faults in those to be tolerated ... Nor do I believe in demanding love - that should be the gift of a free will. But simply to be kind - that is not too much to ask of any of us.”

ShouldBelieveKindSeemsAsksNamesI BelieveKindnessToo MuchFaultsI Believe InToleranceFree WillBe KindCondescensionCondescension And
Book:Let Us Consider One Another
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“But the severe rules of discipline which the prudence of the bishops had instituted were relaxed by the same prudence in favour of an Imperial proselyte, whom it was so important to allure, by every gentle condescension, into the pale of the church; and Constantine was permitted, at least by a tacit dispensation, to enjoy most of the privileges, before he had contracted any of the obligations, of a Christian.”

ImportantChristianEnjoyChurchHistoryDisciplinePrivilegeObligationGentlePaleSevereFavourRelaxedPrudenceBishopsRoman EmpireAllureCondescensionTacitConstantine
Book:Guizot's Gibbon: History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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“There is almost a touch of condescension in the act of hiring friends that secretly afflicts them. The injury will come out slowly: A little more honesty, flashes of resentment and envy here and there, and before you know it your friendship fades. The more favors and gifts you supply to revive the friendship, the less gratitude you receive.”

KnowsLittlesHonestyGratitudeEnvyFavorsInjuryResentmentFadesFlashHere And ThereHiringReviveCondescension
Book:The 48 Laws Of Power
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“I believe in human liberty as I believe in the wine of life. There is no salvation for men in the pitiful condescension of industrial masters. Guardians have no place in a land of freemen.”

MenBelieveHumansI BelieveLibertyLandMastersSalvationWineI Believe InGuardianPitifulFreemanCondescension
Book:Works: ¬The new freedom of call for the emancipation of the generous energies of a people
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“The insolent civility of a proud man is, if possible, more shocking than his rudeness could be; because he shows you, by his manner, that he thinks it mere condescension in him; and that his goodness alone bestows upon you what you have no pretense to claim.”

IfsThinkingMenShowsProudGoodnessClaimsMereShockingCivilityPretenseRudenessCondescensionInsolentProud Man
Book:The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author
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