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Contemn   Listen
verb
Contemn  v. t.  (past & past part. contemned; pres. part. contemning)  To view or treat with contempt, as mean and despicable; to reject with disdain; to despise; to scorn. "Thy pompous delicacies I contemn." "One who contemned divine and human laws."
Synonyms: To despise; scorn; disdain; spurn; slight; neglect; underrate; overlook. To Contemn, Despise, Scorn, Disdain. Contemn is the generic term, and is applied especially to objects, qualities, etc., which are deemed contemptible, and but rarely to individuals; to despise is to regard or treat as mean, unbecoming, or worthless; to scorn is stronger, expressing a quick, indignant contempt; disdain is still stronger, denoting either unwarrantable pride and haughtiness or an abhorrence of what is base.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Contemn" Quotes from Famous Books



... me, I know naught; nothing I deny, Admit, reject, contemn: and what know you, Except, perhaps, that you were born ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... The. I do contemn thee now, and dare come near, And gaze upon thee; for me thinks that grace, Austeritie, which sate upon that face Is gone, and thou like others: false maid see, This is the gain of ...
— The Faithful Shepherdess - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10). • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... has early known the pomps of state, (For things unknown, 'tis ignorance to condemn;) And after having viewed the gaudy bait, Can boldly say, the trifle I contemn; With such a one contented could I live, Contented ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... letters, and knowing, as she said, no prayers save the Pater Noster, Ave Maria, and Credo, yet could speak in such fashion to those who sought her. Was it wonder that the people believed in her? that they would have been ready to tear in pieces any who durst contemn her mission, or declare her possessed of ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green

... suddenly disgrac'd. "But ask of Pallas;—she, though much enrag'd "Will yet my truth confirm. A regal maid "Was I,—of facts to all well-known I speak: "Coroneus noble, of the Phocian lands "As sire I claim. Me wealthy suitors sought— "Contemn me not,—my beauty was my bane. "While careless on the sandy shore I roam'd, "With gentle pace as wont, the ocean's god "Saw me and lov'd: persuasive words in vain "Long trying, force prepar'd, and me pursu'd. "I fled; the firm shore left, and ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... 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

... Levi, said, "every day a Divine voice (bath kol) proceeds from Mount Horeb, which proclaims and says, 'Woe be to those who contemn the law; for whoever is not engaged in the study of the law may be considered as excommunicate'; for it is said, 'as a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion';(504) and it is said, 'And the tables were the work of God, and ...
— Hebrew Literature

... are destitute of spiritual 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 in your assembling together ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London

... and decline to reckon Sectaries among the enemies of the Covenant, from whom danger is to be apprehended, And (though we disallow the abusing and Idolizing of learning to the patrocinie of Errour or prejudice of piety) if any contemn literature as needlesse at best, if not ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland

... the approbation "of Him who seeth in secret." These commands were intended for different stations, one suited the affluent, the other the needy, and they were, beside, limitations and comments on each other, teaching us neither to contemn praise, nor to pursue it too ardently. He spoke much of the passive virtues, patience, returning good for evil (which the most indigent might do by remembering their enemies in their prayers), self-denial, ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... 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. ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... mine. 'Tis now three moons that I have sued in vain; Her casement closed by night, her door by day. O woman, woman! thy mysterious power Chains the whole world, and men are nought but slaves Unto the potent talisman— If man prove false and treach'rous, he is spurn'd, Contemn'd, and punish'd with resentment just. To woman faithless still we kneel and sue, For that return our reason holds as worthless. Well! this shall be my last—for, by yon moon, So oft a witness to my fervent vows, So true an emblem of inconstant beauty, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat

... like a low-roofed dungeon, And only keeps one image there confined— The image of self—the heart soon yields its truth, And makes this self its idol, aim, and end. Such is the Haman pride that mars the man, And makes the wise contemn and hate him too— Hate and contemn the more, ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various

... to mock or contemn. A verb of very common occurrence, but, as might be expected, quite unknown to the commentators on Shakspeare, though its meaning was guessed from the context. As it would be tedious and unnecessary to write all the instances that ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various

... in thy 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; So hath it ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... "Come forth!" and immediately he 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

... in so doing is ignominious, whereas death to avoid what Heaven has in store is cowardly indeed! In that quaint book of Sir Thomas Browne's, Religio Medici there is an exact English equivalent for what is repeatedly taught in our Precepts. Let me quote it: "It is a brave act of valor to contemn death, but where life is more terrible than death, it is then the truest valor to dare to live." A renowned priest of the seventeenth century satirically observed—"Talk as he may, a samurai who ne'er has died is apt in decisive ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe

... orders, 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 to 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 answer'd his criticisms on mine. If (as they say he has declar'd in print) he prefers the version of Ogleby to mine, the world has made him the same compliment: for 't is agreed ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... other creatures. Hence, just as it is an evil for a rational creature to submit, by love, to a lower creature, so too is it an evil for it, if it submit not to God, but presumptuously revolt against Him or contemn Him. Now this evil is possible to a rational creature considered as to its nature on account of the natural flexibility of the free-will; whereas in the blessed, it becomes impossible, by reason of the perfection of glory. Therefore ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... some particular kinds of wood. Neither vestments nor perfumes are heaped upon the pile: [147] the arms of the deceased, and sometimes his horse, [148] are given to the flames. The tomb is a mound of turf. They contemn the elaborate and costly honours of monumental structures, as mere burthens to the dead. They soon dismiss tears and lamentations; slowly, sorrow and regret. They think it the women's part to bewail their friends, the men's to ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus

... the subject. This psalm begins by asking: 'Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?' In enumerating the qualifications of such person, the psalmist says: 'He that contemneth the evil man, but he honoreth them that fear the Lord,' Now that word 'contemn,' for the first time, attracted my special attention. I had read it scores of times, but had never realized how strong a term was here used. No stronger is to be found in the language. It means to despise, detest, spurn, etc. I was startled, but I ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman

... seem not much to care, if any one thinks that you philosophize against the common notions; since you confess that you contemn also the senses, from whence the most part of these notions in a manner proceed, having for their seat and foundation the belief of such things as appear to us. But I beseech you, with what speed you can, either by reasons, ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... 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

... wanders where his will inclines From Tuats heats to Zegzeg's stunted pines! View him, ye craven few, ye living-dead! Wrecks of a being whence the soul has fled! Ye Goths and Vandals of his plundered coast! Ye Christian Bondous, who of feeling boast,[7] Who quickly kindling to historic fire Contemn a Marius' or a Scylla's ire,[8] Or kindly lulled to sympathetic glow, Lament the martyrs of some far-off woe, And tender grown, with sorrow hugely great Weep o'er an Agis' or Jugurtha's fate![9] View him, ye hollow heartlings as he stalks The dauntless monarch of his ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various

... are building, light, and liberality, and, I trust, charity, are extending their influence. We must do our part, by being good, and virtuous, and prudent; try to gain them by our good example, rather than by argumentative or angry discussion. 'They know not what they do' when they contemn, or attempt to stop the progress of, our faith. They are a naturally good and kind-hearted people; as witness how they assist the sick and give hospitality. Such virtues must ultimately gain for them the ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley

... last expression summed up much of his naval philosophy. Keep men at sea, he used to say, and they cannot help being seamen, though attention will be needed to assure exercise at the guns. And it may be believed he would thus contemn the arguments which supported Howe's idea of preserving the ships by retaining them in port. Keep them at sea, he would doubtless have replied, and they will learn to ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan

... the bowl 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 the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... Wafted thy gallant bark with nattering gale To anchor,—where? And other store of ill Thou seest not, that shall show thee as thou art, Merged with thy children in one horror of birth. Then rail at noble Creon, and contemn My sacred utterance! No life on earth More vilely shall be rooted ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles

... of itself be that which (to speak the words of Verulamius) 'crafty men contemn, and simple men only admire, yet is it such as wise men have use of; for studies do not teach their own use, but that is a wisdom without and above them, won by observation. Expert men may execute, and perhaps judge, of particulars one by one; but the general councils and the plots, ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington

... 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

... not contemn a man for his poverty, neighbours," said Liar, gravely composing his hairless face. "Christian's was a character of beautiful simplicity—beautiful! How many rickety children did he leave ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare

... how far behind in everything Willoughby Pastures was, and how the summer folks could not help despising the people that took them to board, and waited on them like servants in cities. He esteemed the boarders at the St. Albans in the degree that he thought them enlightened enough to contemn him for his station; and he had his own ideas of how such a person as Mr. Evans really felt toward him. He felt toward him and was interested in his reading as a person might feel toward and be interested in the attainments of some anomalous animal, a learned ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells

... thus it was in the first and primitive commonwealths, and is yet in the integrity and cradle of well-ordered politics: till corruption getteth ground;—ruder desires labouring after that which wiser considerations contemn;—every one having a liberty to amass and heap up riches, and they a license or faculty to ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan

... designate the policy by which the country had been hitherto governed as "cowardly," and contemn the practice of promoting division between the native princes, which was still practised. He adds: "So far hath that policy, or rather lack of policy, in keeping dissensions among them, prevailed, as now, albeit all that ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... then, be set down as an axiom, without further trouble of demonstration, that a woman is a bad dinner-caterer; either too great and simple for it, or too mean—I don't know which it is; and gentlemen, according as they admire or contemn the sex, may settle that matter their own way. In brief, the mental constitution of lovely woman is such that she cannot give a great dinner. It must be done by a man. It can't be done by an ordinary man, because he does not understand it. Vain fool! and he sends off to the pastry-cook in Great Russell ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... for those who think that 'life is a jest,' (and a bitter, sarcastic one it must be to them,) to mock at all nobler feelings and sentiments of the heart. None do they more contemn than friendship. I would not 'sit in the seat' of these 'scornful,' however they may have found false friends. Yet every man capable of a genuine friendship himself, will in this world find at least one true friend. Oxygen, which comprises one fifth of the atmosphere, is said ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... rock 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 ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... their passengers are, the more cautious and careful the watermen are, and the least apt to run into danger; whereas, if their passengers appear frighted, then the watermen grow sawcy and audacious, show themselves vent'rous, and contemn the dangers which they ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 44, Saturday, August 31, 1850 • Various

... not the vulgar idea of them, is it? But I believe it is what you will always strive to do, Harry." Bessie spoke with pretty eagerness. She feared that she might have seemed to contemn Harry's vocation, and she hastened to make amends. Harry understood her perfectly, and had the impudence to laugh at her quite in his old boyish way. A little confused—also in the old way—she ran on: "I have seen the judges in their ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... 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 her unprofitable ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing

... because his whole time was consumed in wars and voyages, yet he makes his father Laertes a gardener all that while, and seeking his consolation for the absence of his son in the pleasure of planting and even dunging his own grounds. Yet, see, he did not contemn us peasants; nay, so far was he from that insolence, that he always styles Eumaeus, who kept the hogs with wonderful respect, [Greek text which cannot be reproduced], the divine swine-herd; he could have done no more for Menelaus or Agamemnon. And Theocritus (a ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley

... book teaches us how to contemn the terrors of death, and to look upon it as a blessing rather than ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... had a dreadful loss which was her own—only hers, and could meet with no sympathy from others. But then she remembered that it had met with sympathy already—not much in words, but in tone and look and action—from the one unfailing friend of her whole life. Maurice knew—Maurice did not contemn her—there was a little humiliation in the thought, but more sweetness. She went over the whole scene in the chapel, and for the first time there came into her mind a sense of the inexpressible tenderness which had soothed her as she ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill

... meaning or sharing in his emotions. We do not want their crude ideas of composition, 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 ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... 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 ...
— Nature • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... restored to them. Even the reasoning HUME once proposed to change his name and his country; and I believe did. The great poetical genius of our own times has openly alienated himself from the land of his brothers. He becomes immortal in the language of a people whom he would contemn.[A] Does he accept with ingratitude the fame he loves ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... regard with feelings other than those of lively disapproval. It is not that the woman-for this person is a mature female—ever did us any harm, or is likely to; that is not our grievance. What we seriously object to and actively contemn-yea, bitterly denounce-is the nose of her. So mighty a nose we have never beheld-so spacious, and open, and roomy a human snout the unaided imagination is impotent to picture. It rises from her face like a rock from a troubled ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile

... contempt; despisal^, despiciency^; despisement^; vilipendency^, contumely; slight, sneer, spurn, by-word; despect^. contemptuousness &c adj.; scornful eye; smile of contempt; derision &c (disrespect) 929. despisedness [State of being despised]. V. despise, contemn, scorn, disdain, feel contempt for, view with a scornful eye; disregard, slight, not mind; pass by &c (neglect) 460. look down upon; hold cheap, hold in contempt, hold in disrespect; think nothing of, think small beer of; make light of; underestimate &c 483; esteem slightly, esteem ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... out of Charity, And moulded to the height contemn his maker, Curb the free hand that fram'd him? This must ...
— Rule a Wife, and Have a Wife - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... of all such English, or any other Our Subjects, which shall 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 and suffer such Punishment for any ...
— Charter and supplemental charter of the Hudson's Bay Company • Hudson's Bay Company

... 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 only the abbots ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... ducat; no, nor a moccinigo. 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, ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson

... he was 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 ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... usually to contemn the feeble, fastidious sympathy which shrinks from the broad life of mankind; but now, with Mirah before him as a living reality, whose experience he had to care for, he saw every common Jew and Jewess in the light of ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... effect any thing to purpose, in Natural things, especially when his Wisdome in this natural Philosophick Study is barren and sophisticate? It is, for the most part, proper to these Fools and unapt men, presently to contemn a thing, not knowing, that more are yet to be sought by them, than they have the possession of. Therefore, rightly saith Seneca, in lib. de Moribus: Thou art not yet happy, if the Rout deride thee not. But I ...
— The Golden Calf, Which the World Adores, and Desires • John Frederick Helvetius

... to laudable actions, such as please them whose judgement they value; for of these men whom we contemn, we contemn also the Praises. Desire of Fame after death does the same. And though after death, there be no sense of the praise given us on Earth, as being joyes, that are either swallowed up in the unspeakable joyes of Heaven, or extinguished in the extreme torments of Hell: yet is not ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... are made. We may not claim simply a child's 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 delicate tasks, usually ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... My Joy, my Love, my Bliss so free,— The prophet Isaiah writeth well Of His most mild humility: 'Guiltless, when men upon Him fell For never a fault nor felony, As a sheep to the slaughter led was He; Quiet, the while the crowd contemn, As a lamb in the shearer's hands might be, He was judged by Jews ...
— The Pearl • Sophie Jewett

... which his invention readily supplied him with upon any emergency. He was buried at Edinburgh in the common place, though worthy to have been laid in marble, as in his life pompous monuments he used to contemn and despise." ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... augmenteth it, till the body is burned to ashes. The second is designed for those who speak against the Pope and the holy fathers. They are put within the wheel, and the door being locked, the executioner turns the wheel till the person is dead. The third is for those who contemn the images, and refuse to give the due respect and veneration to ecclesiastical persons; for they are thrown alive into the pit, and there they become the food of serpents and toads.' Then Mary said to me that another ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson

... only son—the last hope of my ancient house—the last remnant of the name of Peveril—hath consented to receive obligations from the man on earth I am most bound to hate, were I not still more bound to contemn him!—Degenerate dog-whelp!" he repeated with great vehemence, "you colour without replying! Speak, and disown such disgrace; or, by the God ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... to reign on their brothers, To contemn them as clods and as carles, Who are Graces by grace of such mothers As brightened the bed of King Charles. What manner of banner, What fame is this they flaunt, That Britain, soul-smitten, Should shrink ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... 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

... may appear to you to be only an old wife's tale, which you will contemn. And there might be reason in your contemning such tales, if by searching we could find out anything better or truer: but now you see that you and Polus and Gorgias, who are the three wisest of the Greeks of our day, are not able to show that we ought to live any life which does ...
— Gorgias • Plato

... 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, ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various

... they view these without evincing the least desire to imitate them, prefer 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

... would I that thou hadst given the 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

... evening after the hours of business, some courts and alleys, which a few hours before had been alive with hurrying feet and anxious faces, are as silent as the glades of a forest. The chiefs of the mercantile interest are no longer citizens. They avoid, they almost contemn, municipal honours and duties. Those honours and duties are abandoned to men who, though useful and highly respectable, seldom belong to the princely commercial houses of which the names are renowned ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... fashion of its long boat; and which filled me with such uncommon transports of joy, that I cannot tell how to describe; and yet some secret doubts hang about me, proceeding from I know not what cause, as though I had reason to be upon my guard. And, indeed, I would have no man contemn the secret hints and intimations of danger, which very often are given, when he may imagine there is no possibility of its being real; for had I not been warned by this silent admonition, I had been in a worse situation than before, and perhaps ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe

... keep his ships and men out of danger, which had been held in former times a point of great ability and circumspection, as if the principal requisite in the captain of a ship had been to come home safe again. He was the first man who brought ships to contemn castles on shore, which had been thought ever very formidable.... He was the first that infused that proportion of courage into the seamen by making them see what mighty things they could do if they were resolved, and taught them to fight in fire as well as on water. And though he hath ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... in love with thee. Though our wise ones call thee madness, Let me never taste of gladness, If I love not thy maddest fits More than all their greatest wits. And though some, too seeming holy, Do account thy raptures folly, Thou dost teach me to contemn What makes knaves ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)

... humbleness of birth; I contemn their imbecility. My condition[236] is made an objection to me; their misconduct is a reproach to them. The circumstance of birth,[237] indeed, I consider as one and the same to all; but think that he who best exerts himself is the noblest. And could it be inquired of the fathers,[238] of ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust

... Cleo. Contemn me not, because I kneel thus, Caesar, I am a Queen, and coheir to this country, The Sister to the mighty Ptolomy, Yet one distress'd, that flyes unto thy justice, One that layes sacred hold on thy protection As on an holy ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... lie, and press My forehead's pain out on Thy mantle's hem; And chide not my distress, For this, that I have loved thee less, In loving so much some, whose sordidness Has left me outcast, at the last, from them And their poor love, which I cannot contemn. ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor

... 'I am not child enough to say more than prudence tells me ought to say; this cowardly distrust of my firmness I should and will contemn. Besides, why should I commit myself? It is possible the girl may not care for me. No, no; I need not shrink from this interview. I have no reason to doubt my firmness—none—none. I must cease to be governed by impulse. ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... 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. It can be so disrespectful to ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson

... There are many men that are by others taken to be serious grave men, which we contemn and pitie; men of sowre complexions; mony-getting-men, that spend all their time first in getting, and next in anxious care to keep it: men that are condemn'd to be rich, and alwayes discontented, or busie. For these poor-rich-men, ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton

... misfortune, and 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 Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... extreme cases of debasement she found more to admire than to contemn, and won the confidence of the fallen by manifesting her real respect. "There was in my family," writes a friend, "a very handsome young girl, who had been vicious in her habits, and so enamored of one of her lovers, ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... the strolling bands, Of banish'd fugitives from neighb'ring lands, Have here a certain sanctuary found: The eternal refuge of the vagabond, Where in but half a common age of time, Borrowing new blood and manners from the clime, Proudly they learn all mankind to contemn, And all ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe

... carry our admiration still farther; and like the poet, while we actually contemn the man. Historians share the like fate; hence some, who have no regard to propriety or truth, are yet admired for diction, style, manner, and ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... 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, he likewise ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... 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

... extreme Chaos does not come. The cabman and the letter-carrier always expect that 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 the disestablishment ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... hills: a dark crag rose behind it, and, exposed to the 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 built our fire-place ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... his countrymen. It was the bond which unites all the persecuted: and Ximen loved them, 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 ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the queen upon whose coasts he was driven, his celestial protectress thought him not sufficiently secured against rejection by his piety or bravery, but decorated him for the interview with preternatural beauty. Whoever desires, for his writings or himself, what none can reasonably contemn, the favour of mankind, must add grace to strength, and make his thoughts agreeable as well as useful. Many complain of neglect who never tried to attract regard. It cannot be expected that the patrons of science or virtue should be solicitous to discover ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... desired them to go into the smoke, which they would by no means do. I then took one of them and thrust him into the smoke, and willed one of my company to tread out the fire, and spurn it into the sea, which was done to show them that we did contemn their sorceries. ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... the rock 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 ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... in America the Negro was taught the Gospel of peace. The singing of the American Negro is said to lack the martial strain found in the fatherland. For the peace loving Negro, credit the church and the Negro minister, whom Mr. Dixon would have the world contemn. ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... him, a thing in itself indifferent (p. 7-9). You go on, and say, 'Let us declare—that we are not barely reliers on Christ's righteousness, by being imitators of it' (p. 300). You cannot leave off to contemn and blaspheme the Son of God. Do you not yet know that the righteousness of Christ on which the sinner ought to rely for life, is such, as consisted in his standing to, and doing of the law, without ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... consciousness of lessened prestige, and a painful impression that their political, perhaps even their military place in Europe, as the heirs of Richelieu, Louis XIV., and Napoleon, had been suddenly occupied by a power which they had taught themselves to contemn as an inferior. Until the summer of 1866 the emperor Napoleon fancied that he was strong enough to play with Bismarck a game of ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks

... good of fashion we can,—it rests on reality, and hates nothing so much as pretenders;—to exclude and mystify pretenders, and send them into everlasting "Coventry,"[410] is its delight. We contemn, in turn, every other gift of men of the world; but the habit, even in little and the least matters, of not appealing to any but our own sense of propriety, constitutes the foundation of all chivalry. There is almost no kind of self-reliance, so it be sane and proportioned, which fashion ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... I am lost in the admiration of it. I contemn the world when I think on it, and myself when I ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden

... 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 ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... 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 ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... 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 she was ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... virtues, the greater the thing which a man contemns that he may adhere to God, the greater the virtue. Now there are three kinds of human goods that man may contemn for God's sake. The lowest of these are external goods, the goods of the body take the middle place, and the highest are the goods of the soul; and among these the chief, in a way, is the will, in so far as, by his will, man makes ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... to laws? and what is more advantageous than mutual love and concord? and this so far that we are to be neither divided by calamities, nor to become injurious and seditious in prosperity; but to contemn death when we are in war, and in peace to apply ourselves to our mechanical occupations, or to our tillage of the ground; while we in all things and all ways are satisfied that God is the inspector and governor of our actions. If these precepts ...
— Against Apion • Flavius Josephus

... the Middle Ages, to whom heaven and the life of the next world was such a reality, that it became to them a part of the life upon the earth; which accordingly they loved and adorned, in spite of the ascetic doctrines of their formal creed, which bade them contemn it. ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris

... unconcerned spectators, as being furnished with a guardian and protector abroad of their wealth and fortunes, in the very person of the public enemy. After this incursion and exploit, which was of great advantage to the Volscians, as they learned by it to grow more hardy and to contemn their enemy, Marcius drew them ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... contentions about these, as if it were children struggling among themselves about their order and rank! There is no worth in these things, but what fancy and custom impose upon them and yet poor creatures boast in these empty things. The gentlemen despise citizens, the citizens contemn the poor countrymen, and yet their bloods in a basin have no different colours, for all this hot contention about blood and birth. "Boast not of thyself." Nay, to speak properly, this is not thyself,—Qui genus laudat suum, aliena jactat.(277) Such parents, and such a house are nothing ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... 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 ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... and there landing at the New Exchange stairs, I to Sir W. Coventry: and there he read over to me the Prince's and Duke of Albemarle's Narratives; wherein they are very severe against him and our office. But Sir W. Coventry do contemn them; only that their persons and qualities are great, and so I do perceive he is afraid of them, though he will not confess it. But he do say that, if he can get out of these briars, he will never trouble himself with Princes nor Dukes again. ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... the time was living on his small farm of little more than four acres, which he tilled with his own hand. The story is nobly told by Titus Livius where he says: "This is worth listening to by those who contemn all things human as compared with riches, and think that glory and excellence can have no place unless accompanied by lavish wealth." Cincinnatus, then, was ploughing in his little field, when there arrived from Rome the messengers sent by the senate to tell him ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli

... said he, to take the pains And spenden time if thou contemn'st the fruit? Sweet fruit of fame, that fills the Poets brains With high conceit and feeds his fainting wit. How pleasant 'tis in honour here to live And dead, thy name for ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More

... he announced with kingly dignity, then smiled with satisfaction when they brought him the shield and helmet of Leonidas, the madman, who had dared to contemn his power. But all the generals who stood by were grim and sad. One more such victory would bring the ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... exceed 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, not knowing this, they would cut you down; and when occasion ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... nature, and not to be stifled by any cold reasoning in the matter, that external decorum and suitable habiliments in any of the solemnities of religion and the administration of justice, have a powerful effect on the great mass of mankind, which it is not wise to cast aside or contemn. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... is she with you then? can she wait on you better than your man, has she a gift in plucking off your stockings, can she make Cawdles well or cut your cornes? Why do you keep her with you? For a Queen I know you do contemn her, so should I, and every subject ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... action needed not be grac'd by him: Hee's our old enemie and still maligns us. 'Twill have an end, nay it shall have an end. Why, I have bin too pittifull, too remisse; My easinesse is laught at and contemn'd. But I will change it; not as heretofore By singling out them one by one to death: Each common man can such revenges have; A Princes anger must lay desolate Citties, Kingdomes consume, Roote up mankind. ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various

... a Presbyterian deacon, in whose heart the sterner traditions of the Covenanters lingered. He tried hard to teach his son to contemn amusement, and to impale his youth upon the five points of Calvinism, rather than to play ball. But it was John Knox trying to curb the tricksy Ariel. Perhaps from some bright maternal ancestor the boy had derived his ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis

... necessarily take effect, began to grow mutinous, and rebel, and when the Judges were Landed, who were to Execute these Mandates, laying aside all manner of Love and Fear of God, were so audacious as to contemn and set at nought all the Reverence and Obedience due to their King, and so became Traytors, demeaning themselves like Blood-Thirsty Tyrants, destitute and ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas

... 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 society or the individual. It is chiefly, ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine

... rejoin'd,) Excess of joy disturbs thy wandering mind; How blest this happy hour, should he appear, Dear to us all, to me supremely dear; Ah, no! some god the suitors death decreed, Some god descends, and by his hand they bleed; Blind! to contemn the stranger's righteous cause, And violate all hospitable laws! The good they hated, and the powers defied! But heaven is just, and by a god they died. For never must Ulysses view this shore; Never! the loved Ulysses is ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... either Aristotelian or Platonist, that is to say, if one's tendencies were either scientific or idealistic, there was no doubt on which side of the fight he was arrayed; not that he thought of the two tendencies as antagonistic; and if indeed the scientific mind tended to contemn the idealistic mind, as concerning itself with fancies rather than with facts, he felt that there could not be a greater mistake than for the idealistic mind to contemn the scientific. Rather, he thought, the idealists should use the scientific toilers as patient, humble, ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... in his nature so little reverence for antiquity, and did in truth so much contemn old orders, forms, and institutions, that the objections of novelty rather advanced than obstructed any proposition. He was a great lover of new inventions, and thought them the effects of wit and spirit, and fit to control the superstitious ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... near us, that He knew were profitable for us, but the hurtful He laid deep and hid. Yet do we seek only the things whereby we may perish, and bring them forth, when God and Nature hath buried them. We covet superfluous things, when it were more honour for us if we could contemn necessary. What need hath Nature of silver dishes, multitudes of waiters, delicate pages, perfumed napkins? She requires meat only, and hunger is not ambitious. Can we think no wealth enough but such a state for which a man may be brought ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... on me, and did swell My fortunes, till they overflow'd their banks, Threatning the men that crost 'em; when as swift As storms arise at sea, she turn'd her eyes To burning Suns upon me, and did dry The streams she had bestowed, leaving me worse And more contemn'd than other little brooks, Because I had been great: In short, I knew I could not live, and therefore did desire To ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... century up has stood The test: we call him sterling, old, and good." Well, here's a poet now, whose dying day Fell one month later, or a twelvemonth, say: Whom does he count with? with the old, or them Whom we and future times alike contemn? "Aye, call him old, by favour of the court, Who falls a month, or e'en a twelvemonth short." Thanks for the kind permission! I go on, And pull out years, like horse-hairs, one by one, While all forlorn the baffled critic stands, Fumbling a naked stump between his hands, Who looks for ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... 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 court was resisted, and as said ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson

... the smoke; I willed them likewise to stand in the smoke, in which they by no means would do. I then took one of them, and thrust him into the smoke, and willed one of my company to tread out the fire, and to spurn it into the sea, which was done to show them that we did contemn their sorcery. These people are very simple in all their conversation, but marvellous thievish, especially for iron, which they have in great account. They began through our lenity to show their vile nature; they began to cut our cables; ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt

... it out like water from the pulpit and the press; to raise it up with all the food of the inner man, from infancy to gray hairs; to give 'line upon line, and precept upon precept,' till it forms one of the foundation principles and parts indestructible of the public soul. Let those who contemn this plan renounce, if they have not done it already, the gospel plan of converting the world; let them renounce every plan of moral reformation, and every plan whatsoever, which does not terminate in the gratification of their own ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... 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 ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... plant them on the firm pavement of heaven; to rescue victims from eternal burnings, and to place them as gems in the diadem of God? Would not Gabriel feel himself honored with a work so noble and glorious? Were a presidency or a kingdom offered you, spurn it and be wise; but contemn not the glory of ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble

... as much as possible all that covers it, they rid themselves of whatever separates them from it, they remove whatever conceals it from sight, in order to view it more closely and in the broad light of day. This disposition of the mind soon leads them to contemn forms, which they regard as useless and inconvenient veils placed between them and ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... task, requires courage. The discourse was an able essay. An agent will assay the ore, and forward a receipt. Contemn a mean act; but do not always condemn the actor. They were to seize the fort, and cease firing. They affect great grief; but do not effect their purpose. Do you dissent from my opinion? The hill was difficult ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey

... in their hands, the sudden passing over from one camp to another, have always been condemned by honour as well as duty, civil or military, and denominated treason. Individuals, nations, or armies, men under the influence of a controlling passion, may contemn, at the first moment, or perhaps do not feel the moral impression which naturally attaches itself to their deeds; but it never fails to present itself, and, when seconded by the warnings of prudence or the blows of misfortune, it ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... 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 ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... astrologer, the enlightened prophet of God, ascended the pulpit. With what pious words he warned his hearers to repentance! how eloquently he exhorted them to contemn the hollow and vain world, which God had only made lovely and attractive in order to tempt men to sin and try their powers of resistance! "Resist! resist!" he howled through his nose, "and persuade men to turn to you, and ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... it in a legal way, which is slow but sure. Mr. Clerk, institute proceedings against Charles Gordon for the forfeiture of his lands for high treason, and meanwhile we will publish him throughout the province as a Tory and a traitor. We will teach this Charles Gordon and all Tories what it means to contemn the authority and dignity of this province ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson

... 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 ...
— Creating Capital - Money-making as an aim in business • Frederick L. Lipman

... 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 ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy



Words linked to "Contemn" :   hate, scorn, disdain



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