Wrongfully to be contemptuous of other human beings is inviting mental unhealth for oneself.

Hatred is a thing of the heart, contempt a thing of the head. Hatred and contempt are decidedly antagonistic towards one another and mutually exclusive. A great deal of hatred, indeed, has no other source than a compelled respect for the superior qualities of some other person; conversely, if you were to consider hating every miserable wretch you met you would have your work cut out: it is much easier to despise them one and all. True, genuine contempt, which is the obverse of true, genuine pride, stays hidden away in secret and lets no one suspect its existence: for if you let a person you despise notice the fact, you thereby reveal a certain respect for him, inasmuch as you want him to know how low you rate him — which betrays not contempt but hatred, which excludes contempt and only affects it. Genuine contempt, on the other hand, is the unsullied conviction of the worthlessness of another.

We all have contempt for whatever there's too many of. Out here it's sheep, but in the city it's people.

Contempt

The contempt I feel for others — for myself different, less internal than guilt.

It’s not that I think (or have ever thought) I was bad — through and through. I think I’m unattractive, unloveable, because I’m incomplete. It’s not what I am that’s wrong, it’s that I’m not more (responsive, alive, generous, considerate, original, sensitive, brave etc.).

My profoundest experience is of indifference, rather than censure.

Nothing is so contemptible as habitual contempt. It is impossible to remain long under its control without being dwarfed by its influence.

There is nothing that people bear more impatiently or forgive less, than contempt: and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.

One who forced another was beneath contempt. One who needed to was despised

Nothing can be more contemptible than to suppose Public RECORDS to be True.

Familiarity does breed contempt; — doesn’t it?

How could man have such utter contempt for man? Because he had reached the point of contempt for God.

There is a tendency to class such men with toreadors and gamblers. People extol their contempt for death. But I would not give a fig for anybody’s contempt for death. If its roots are not sunk deep in an acceptance of responsibility, this contempt for death is the sign either of an impoverished soul or of youthful extravagance.

Familiarity breeds contempt.

Familiarity breeds contempt.

There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain.