Top 80 Condescension Quotes & Sayings

The thing that was bad about colonialism, and the thing which is residually bad in some of our aid programs, is that it involved elements of coercion and condescension.

A preoccupation with theory has been a defensive response by academic biographers in this country, I submit, to the condescension of traditional humanists and social scientists pervading higher education for many years.

I thought I'd been condescended to as an Indian - that was nothing compared to the condescension for writing young adult literature.

Tony Blair adopted the accent of the audience he was speaking to, which worked very well initially, but then voters began to perceive him as phoney. The 'man of the people' act is the height of condescension.

Obama's Nobel Peace Prize is an exquisite act of condescension from Norwegians, a dog biscuit and a pat on the head to the American hyperpower for agreeing to spay itself into a hyperpoodle.

There are no ugly questions except those clothed in condescension.

Obama's style of argumentation is unlike any president I have ever met, and I've met a lot of them. And the condescension that oozes from him when he's talking about his opponents, it's really striking.

One who strictly prosecutes the misdemeanors of others will find not condescension towards his own.

Every empire suffers from hubris, arrogance and condescension, and therefore a moral blindness. That's true of the American empire, it was true of the British Empireearlier, and it will certainly be true of the Chinese Empire in the future.

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.

We must win the common people in every corner. This will be obtained chiefly by means of the schools, and by open, hearty behavior, show, condescension, popularity, and toleration of their prejudices, which we shall at leisure root out and dispel.

If your church conveys that spirit of condescension or judgment, it's likely not a place where grace is on tap.

It means eating your words, this thing of refusing to be a fence-sitter, but I'd rather eat my words than get calluses from sitting. No one who has not experienced the condescension of a buyer toward an ordinary salesgirl can have any conception of its withering effect.

The mistake we make with many people - not just Russia - is that we believe we have the model, and there is a sort of a condescension in our dialogue with other societies, which was especially painful in several administrations to Russia. I think in Russia, the Yeltsin period is not considered a period of great achievement, but a period of corruption and humiliation.

It is not the case that I can predict your views knowing that you are a white male. I cannot predict your views if you are a black female, and it is height of both arrogance and condescension to think that somebody can be type casted on the base of.

There used to be a certain condescension to Mozart. His music was regarded as pleasant. He was a porcelain figure playing a porcelain harpsichord.

I may have come into politics with an unacknowledged condescension toward the game and the people who played it, but I left with more respect for politicians than when I went in. The worst of them - the careerists and predators - you find in all professions. The best of them were a credit to democracy.

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.

That is why, as one who values the U.S.-Israel relationship, and loves Israel, I was near tears throughout the Prime Minister’s speech — saddened by the insult to the intelligence of the United States as part of the P5 +1 nations, and saddened by the condescension toward our knowledge of the threat posed by Iran and our broader commitment to preventing nuclear proliferation.

Take advantage of the gracious condescension of the elegant calf's kidney, multiply its metamorphoses: you can without giving it any offence, call it the chameleon of cuisine.

There's a lot of hypocrisy and condescension in Israel's institutionalized support for Mubarak's tyrannical rule, in its backing of a corrupt leader who established a brutal secret police state to suppress his citizens and keep their mouths shut.

Wallace's sales agent, back in London, heard mutterings from some naturalists that young Mr. Wallace ought to quit theorizing and stick to gathering facts. Besides expressing their condescension toward him in particular, that criticism also reflected a common attitude that fact-gathering, not theory, was the proper business of all naturalists.

All Nigerians must learn from Christ and be determined to imbibe the lesson of divine condescension.

I thought I’d been condescended to as an Indian - that was nothing compared to the condescension for writing Y.A.

There is a condescension on the part of the infinite to the mind of man. That is what looks like God.

We must not look at the past with the enormous condescension of posterity.

The praise of free men is worth having, for it is the only praise which is free from either servility or condescension.

We certainly would be happy for more help, but not at the price of condescension and arrogance. If the Europeans believe they can afford to be less committed in Somalia, please - we can deal with it ourselves.

There aren't many irritations to match the condescension which a woman metes out to a man who she believes has loved her vainly for the past umpteen years.

Politics deserves much praise. Politics is a preoccupation of free men, and its existence is a test of freedom. The praise of free men is worth having, for it is the only praise which is free from either servility or condescension.

There are days when the great are near us, when there is no frown on their brow, no condescension even; when they take us by the hand, and we share their thought.

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.

Of all insults, the temporary condescension of a master to a slave is the most outrageous and galling. That potentate who most condescends, mark him well; for that potentate, if occasion come, will prove your uttermost tyrant.

I never met Lou Reed, never was one of those journalists lucky enough to be the object of his derision, contempt, condescension, indifference, and occasional piercing honesty.

I have always had the greatest respect for students. There is nothing I hate more than condescension—the attitude that they are inferior to you. I always assume they have good minds.

We're understanding what Obama is. He is the great teacher. He is this guy that stands above everybody. There's some condescension in it, but he stands above everybody and says, 'Now, listen. You people have to stop blaming each other unreasonably. You have to get along here and I am going to show you the way.' It is a pretty brave role in many ways.

We often hear that people mean well: that so many just don't how to interact with people with disabilities. They're unsure of the 'right' reaction, so they default to condescension that makes them feel better in the face of their discomfort.

Almost Kien was tempted to believe in happiness, that contemptible life-goal of illiterates. If it came of itself, without being hunted for, if you did not hold it fast by force and treated it with a certain condescension, it was permissible to endure its presence for a few days

What employing thousands of people in the middle of the country has taught me is how good and hard-working Americans in all cities are, and how much most of the country resents our wealthiest cities' sense of entitlement and condescension.

When I started out, there were three things that made film people look at me with condescension, I was young, I was black, and I was female. I have won a certain respect, but I think the film community still sees directing as a male job.

The [Nobel] award [of Bob Dylan] is no affront to literature; it is an insult to pop music. It is a condescending ruffle of pop's hair while handing it a lollipop. An act of beaming condescension whose transparent message is: "This one guy, and just this one guy, he's so good, he transcends his trivial idiom and elevates himself into our significant one."

My commodity as a writer, whatever I'm writing about, is me. And your commodity is you. Don't alter your voice to fit the subject. Develop one voice that readers will recognize when they hear it on the page, a voice that's enjoyable not only in its musical line but in its avoidance of sounds that would cheapen its tone: breeziness and condescension and clichés.

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.

Jesus Christ, the condescension of divinity, and the exaltation of humanity.

Lisp is still #1 for key algorithmic techniques such as recursion and condescension.

We are a society that treats people with disabilities with condescension and pity, not dignity and respect.

Eucharistic worship is not so much worship of the inaccessible transcendence as worship of the divine condescension, and it is also the merciful and redeeming transformation of the world in the human heart

Words change over time. 'Condescending,' for instance, was once a good thing to be. It meant that a person was willing to interact politely with people of lower social ranks. In Jane Austen's world, a lady praised for her condescension was receiving a sincere compliment.

"Nationwide" featured an amazing collection of apprentice impersonators. From all over Britain, schoolchildren materialised via local studios to give us their imitations of the mighty. There were at least three uncannily accurate Margaret Thatchers, their eyelids fatigued with condescension and their voices swooping and whining like dive-bombers.

Poets are regarded as handicapped writers whose work must be treated with a tender condescension, such as one accords the athletic achievements of basketball players confined to wheelchairs.

Golf has been the sport of the social elite, with lawyers and doctors. But I have never been embarrassed by the looks I've been given by others. I have sometimes been looked at with condescension and it still happens now, but I know how to deal with it - I know whose opinions count.

With a few notable exceptions, literary fiction in the U.K. is dominated by an upper and upper middle-class clique who usually have a tin ear for the demotic and who portray working-class characters with, at best, a benevolent condescension.

This does not mean that I fail to recognise that Lisp is still #1 for key algorithmic techniques such as recursion and condescension. It just means that I have no idea how, or indeed if, Lisp handles exceptions.

'Laura' was overtly political for sure. Caspary was trying to make a point about women and independence and how men viewed them, with derision or condescension or on a pedestal, when the real person was ignored.

When you are young, it's deeply annoying to be told that certain things are a condition of your youth. There's almost always some condescension in the proposition that your reality, your hopes, your frustrations, are just a condition of your age, that what feels unique to you is a very common thing after all.

Good motives aside, white condescension does more damage than good. White condescension says to a black child, 'The rules used by other ethnic groups don't apply to you. Forget about work hard, get an education, posses good values. No, for you, we'll alter the rules by lowering the standards and expecting less.' Expect less, get less.

There comes an end to all things; the most capacious measure is filled at last; and this brief condescension to evil finally destroyed the balance of my soul.

What he says, even on his knees, about his own sinfulness is all parrot talk. At bottom, he still believes he has run up a very favorable credit-balance in the Enemy's ledger by allowing himself to be converted, and thinks that he is showing great humility and condescension in going to church with these 'smug', commonplace neighbors at all.

What counts now are the value-less facts, the material and the rational. All else is regarded with condescension as being of only sentimental value.

He grew weary of this condescension, and began to treat the opinions of his wife with that haughtiuess and insolence, which none but those who deserve some contempt themselves can bestow, and those only who deserve no contempt can bear.