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Despise   /dɪspˈaɪz/   Listen
Despise

verb
(past & past part. despised; pres. part. despising)
1.
Look down on with disdain.  Synonyms: contemn, disdain, scorn.  "The professor scorns the students who don't catch on immediately"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Despise" Quotes from Famous Books



... shattering the offspring of his infamous teachings,—the armed treason of the South, and its more cowardly ally the insidious treachery that lurks under doubtful cover in the loyal States. In thunder tones do the masses declare, that now and for ever, they repudiate the Treason and despise the Traitor. Nobly are the hands of our Honest President sustained in prosecuting ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong

... for instance, that he who toils in the sweat of his brow suffers want while the sluggard lives in luxury. It is wrong to punish murder in times of peace and reward it in times of war. It is wrong to despise the hangman and yet, as soldiers do, to bear proudly at one's side a murderous weapon whether it be rapier or sabre. If the hangman displayed his axe thus he would doubtless be stoned. It is wrong, finally, to support as a state religion the ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann

... cannot hear what the man is saying. I think the Kohleren Gorge would be just the spot; it is so wild and romantic, with a hundred waterfalls dashing down the precipices. I must ask Archie if he has ever seen the Kohleren Falls. I suppose he will despise them because they are not ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr

... humiliated her. You drove her to do this desperate thing. And you face me now, you dare to face me, because I am a weak woman. If I were a man, I would kick you out of the house. I—I believe I would kill you! Even Nan cannot hate you or despise you one-tenth as much as ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... cheering people. For, from boyhood, young Louis of Bourbon had been taught to regard himself as the most important lad in all the world. Think, then, what a terrible shock to his pride must have been this invasion of his palace by the people, whom he had been taught to despise. ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks

... taking all my examples from the calling I was lately pretending to despise. I should like to read you some passages of a letter from a man of another calling, which I think will hearten you. I have the little filmy sheets here. I thought you might like to see the actual letter; it has been a long journey; it has been to the South Pole. It is a letter ...
— Courage • J. M. Barrie

... particular patriarch or head, by whose name they distinguish themselves, and each occupying its own separate portion of territory. They are scarcely ever engaged in external commerce; they dislike the restraints and despise the security of residence in towns, and dwell invariably in tents made of a stuff woven from goats' hair and the fibrous root of the palmeta. In some of the provinces, their residences form large circular encampments, consisting ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... said the Queen, "and when thou has spun it all, thou shalt have my eldest son for a husband. Although thou art poor, yet I do not despise thee on that account, for thy untiring ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various

... are but the unregarded parts that fill your triumph. Our sight is so intent on the object of its admiration, that our tongues have not leisure even to praise you: for language seems too low a thing to express your excellence; and our souls are speaking so much within, that they despise all foreign conversation. Every man, even the dullest, is thinking more than the most eloquent can teach him how to utter. Thus, madam, in the midst of crowds, you reign in solitude; and are adored with the deepest veneration, that of silence. 'Tis true, you are above all mortal wishes; no man ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden

... cack'st in total year, 20 And harder 'tis than pebble or bean Which rubbed in hand or crumbled, e'en On finger ne'er shall make unclean. Such blessings (Furius!) such a prize Never belittle nor despise; 25 Hundred sesterces seek no more With wonted ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... to Moses, "How long will this people despise me? How long will they refuse to trust me in spite of all of the wonders which I have performed before their eyes? I will send sickness upon them and destroy them, and I will make you and your family a nation greater ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman

... and not without grounds. Many a time, as he himself said, just before he sat down to dinner, a note would be put into his hand, running thus:—"If you do not send me immediately the sum of five hundred pounds, I will blow your brains out." He affected to despise such threats; they, nevertheless, exercised a direful effect upon the millionaire. He loaded his pistols every night before he went to bed, and put them beside him. He did not think himself more secure in his country ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... questions about one of the volumes and she replied with a meek and forgiving voice that made me despise myself heartily. Other questions and answers followed and soon we were talking again of books as if we had no overwhelming sense of the personal presence ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings

... a dozen corpulent detectives. The only person in the Vicarage who seemed to approve of what he had done was Esther; she who had always seemed to ignore him, even sometimes in a sensitive mood to despise ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... with all my might this great hussy of a town," he rolled out in Southern accents; "but since this morning I despise her! The poor little province you think so petty is an honest girl; but Paris is a prostitute, a greedy, lying comedian; and I am very thankful not to be robbed ...
— Unconscious Comedians • Honore de Balzac

... your stump, nor turn away your nose; Poor donkeys ain't so stupid as rich horses may suppose! I could feed in any manger just as well as you, Though I don't despise a thistle—with sauce of ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald

... well between those showy, occasional acts of so-called generosity which such men perform, and the true, habitual, self-denying benevolence of a solvent and just member of society. "Despise the usurer and the miser as much as you will," he would exclaim, "but the spendthrift is more selfish than they." But his very honesty was most curiously blended with his toryism. One of his friends ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... was more to be trusted than his general morality, "It is strange that most men think not enough of themselves till a woman shows them how. But it is the great wonder that the woman does not despise him for it. Quel caractere! She has so often to show him his way like a babe, and yet she says to him, Mon grand homme! my master! my lord! Pshaw! I have often thought that women are half saints, half fools, and men half fools, half rogues. But Quelle vie!— what life! ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... was, as she knew well, as impossible to Miss Altifiorla as to herself. The invitation contained the sneer, and was intended to contain it. But it created no anger. She, too, had sneered at Miss Altifiorla quite as bitterly. They had each learned to despise the other, and not to sneer was impossible. Miss Altifiorla had come to tell of her triumph, and to sneer in return. But it mattered nothing. What did matter was whether that threat should come true. Should she always be left living at Exeter with her mother? Then she dreamed her dream again, ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope

... the world, by lust, covetousness, sloth, and finally also by that vice which he had used to despise and mock the most as the most foolish one of all vices: greed. Property, possessions, and riches also had finally captured him; they were no longer a game and trifles to him, had become a shackle and a burden. On a strange and devious way, Siddhartha had gotten into this final and most ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse

... still desired to be held in honor, of the whereabouts of the man who had led her on through the byways of love into a dismal maze of chicanery. Only a woman, ill, perhaps dying. A woman crying out for the one boon that she could ask of a person she knew to distrust and despise her, seeking the thing that now was her greatest desire in the world, and willing to promise—whether truthfully or not, Barry had no way of telling—to reveal to him secrets of the past, if he would but comply. Was she honest? As he stood there looking ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... than ever. Fifty-one, Peter feared, was going down the hill. The Berovieri goblet had made a little piece of level road for it, but that was soon over, and the descent began again. Peggy, try as she would, could not make both ends meet. Hilary, despise his job as he might, found it slipping from him more and more. Week by week he seemed to earn a little less; week by week they seemed to spend a little more. Peggy, as Hilary had frequently remarked, was not a good manager. One or two of ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay

... funeral it was. These gentlemen, however, began fighting about some dozen shillings I had thrown among them then; and he whom your Majesty mentions having beaten three or four of his companions, I retained him for his valour. As for the parade of coaches and footmen, I despise it: I have sometimes had five or six valets-de-chambre at once, without having a single servant in livery, except my chaplain Poussatin." "How!" said the queen, bursting out laughing, "a chaplain in your livery! he surely was not a priest?" "Pardon ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... came to the conclusion that the methods employed and the results attained were alike erroneous. Although he preserved a reverence for Aristotle (of whom, however, he seems to have known but little), he learned to despise the current Aristotelian philosophy. It yielded no fruit, was serviceable only for disputation, and the end it proposed to itself was a mistaken one. Philosophy must be taught its true purpose, and for this purpose a new method must be devised. With the [v.03 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... exclaimed, as the colour deepened in her cheeks and neck, then went sweeping out again in the white and still passion of outraged indignation. "I hain't got no feelin' fer ye save only ter despise ye beyond all measure. A woman kain't love no craven an' liar thet does his ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... enbrasinges of the straunger. Emong them selues thei iudge nothinge vnlawfull. Thei deuised to rounde of the foreskinne of their yarde (whiche we call circumcision) because thei would haue a notable knowledge betwene them, and other nacions. And the firste lesson thei teache vnto their children, is to despise the goddes. The soules of those that die in tormentes, or in warre, thei iudge to be immortall. A continuall feare haue thei, and a regard of heauen and helle. And where the Egiptians honour many similitudes and Images of beastes, and other creatures, whiche thei make ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt

... Whom I despise almost,— But the soot's come down the chimney, John, And fairly spoilt ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun

... Master. I met them at the back of Jakko, and the rain had made the lace lie down. To complete the effect, she was wearing an unclean terai with the elastic under her chin. I felt almost too well content to take the trouble to despise her." ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... of Mardonius," he turned to Roxana now, "do not think I despise your love or your beauty. That I have given you pain, is double pain to me. But I loved you only in a dream. My life is not for the rose valleys of Bactria, but for the stony hills by Athens. May Aphrodite give you another love, a brighter ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... the speech," said Maltrana. "It's an easy matter, I know the recipe. We shall speak of the holy traditions of the past, we shall despise certain daring innovations on the part of the inexperienced youth, which were perfectly proper twenty years ago, when you were beginning, but which now are out of place. Do you care for a thrust ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... eyebrows, and had a peculiar smile. He began by expressing his apprehension that Mr. Reding must have been wearied by impertinent and unnecessary visitors—visitors without intellect, who knew no better than to obtrude their fanaticism on persons who did but despise it. "I know more about the Universities," he continued, "than to suppose that any congeniality can exist between their members and the mass of religious sectarians. You have had very distinguished men among you, sir, at Oxford, ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman

... forbear, Mr Cypress—a maxim which you perhaps despise. Ideal beauty is not the mind's creation: it is real beauty, refined and purified in the mind's alembic, from the alloy which always more or less accompanies it in our mixed and imperfect nature. But still the gold exists in a very ample degree. To expect too much is a disease ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock

... not your clothes." And the prophet David saith, "A contrite heart and an humbled"—that is to say, a heart broken, torn, and laid low under foot with tribulation of heaviness for his sins—"shalt thou not, good Lord, despise." He saith also of his own contrition, "I have laboured in my wailing; I shall every night wash my bed with my tears, my couch ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More

... tyrants known as the 'Slave-Dealer'. He watches your necessities, and crawls up to buy your slave at a speculative price. If you cannot help it, you sell to him; but if you can help it, you drive him from your door. You despise him utterly. You do not recognize him as a friend, or even as an honest man. Your children must not play with his; they may rollick freely with the little negroes, but not with the slave-dealer's children. If you are obliged to deal with him you try to get through ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various

... them by a superior and over-ruling Intelligence. It was the part of an ancient Roman, like Augustus, to believe in portents and omens, however insignificant; it might even require some philosophy to despise them; and among ourselves in modern times it will be found, if we mistake not, that strong poetical sensibilities, or a peculiarly impressible temperament, is the foundation of what can be regarded in no other light than an hallucination. The world of spirits, with all its shadowy tenants ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... unheeded, knows remonstrance vain; He ceases now the feeble help to crave Of man; and silent sinks into the grave. But ere his death some pious doubts arise, Some simple fears, which "bold bad" men despise; Fain would he ask the parish priest to prove His title certain to the joys above: For this he sends the murmuring nurse, who calls The holy stranger to these dismal walls: And doth not he, the pious man, appear, He, "passing rich, ...
— The Village and The Newspaper • George Crabbe

... greatest men being, in all times of art, Naturalists, without any exception; and the greatest Purists being those who approach nearest to the Naturalists, as Benozzo Gozzoli and Perugino. Hence there is a tendency in the Naturalists to despise the Purists, and in the Purists to be offended with the Naturalists (not understanding them, and confounding them with the Sensualists); and this is grievously ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin

... character of a fond old dotard, betrayed into disgrace by an unsuitable match, is supported in a lively manner," refrains from making himself ridiculous by mealy-mouthed moralities which on such a subject every person of sense and honesty must despise. Mr Horne keeps foolishly carping at Pope, or "Mr Pope," as he sometimes calls him, throughout his interminable—no, not interminable—his hundred-paged Introduction. He abominates Pope's Homer, and groans to think how it has corrupted the English ear by its long ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... is necessary to prove your cowardly meanness. Go on, and do your best. I am not afraid of the whole of you, even with my hands tied behind me. I despise the ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic

... she had been deprived of her office and banished to earth, where Allfather decreed she should wed like any other member of her sex. This sentence filled Brunhild's heart with dismay, for she greatly feared lest it might be her fate to mate with a coward, whom she would despise. To quiet these apprehensions, Odin took her to Hindarfiall or Hindfell, and touching her with the Thorn of Sleep, that she might await in unchanged youth and beauty the coming of her destined husband, he surrounded her with a barrier of flame which none ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... members of the royal family itself, who now get their pensions after long intervals—often after two and even three years, and with shameful reductions in behalf of those favourites and parasites whom they detest and despise, but whom the minister, for his own personal purposes, is obliged to conciliate by such perquisites. It would be popular among the educated classes, as opening to them offices now filled by knaves and vagabonds from ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... From this wild laughter's surge, Perchance there may emerge Foul jealousy and scorn and spite. But this our glory! and pride! When thee I despise, I turn but mine eyes, And the fair one beside thee will welcome my gaze; And she is my bride; Oh, happy, happy days! Or shall it be her neighbour, Whose eyes like a sabre Flash and pierce, Their glance is ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... so much depends upon God's Word that without it no holy day can be sanctified, we must know that God insists upon a strict observance of this commandment, and will punish all who despise His Word and are not willing to hear and learn it, especially at the time appointed for the ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther

... worship, with men who do not believe in me, a God that does not believe in me?" If heaven itself (represented as a rich and idle place,—seats free in the evening) were opened to the true laboring man on the condition that he should despise his hands by holding palms in them, he would find some excuse for staying away. He feels in no wise different with regard to his present life. "Unless your God," says the man who sings with his hands, to those who pity him and do him good,—"unless your God is a God I can worship in a factory, ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee

... to despise anonymous letters. Pure delusion! they know they ought to, and so fancy they do; but they don't. The absence of a signature gives weight, if the letter is ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... "he won't. That's why he's to be reckoned with. Look out for their grip! It's easy to laugh, but don't mistake me. It doesn't do to despise a Forsyte; it doesn't do ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... believe, with equal godliness at bottom: some of them are atheists, some sectaries, yet all true protestants. Most of them love all whores, but her of Babylon. In few words, any man may be what he will, so he be one of them. It is enough to despise the King, to hate the Duke, and rail at the succession: after this it is no matter how a man lives; he is a saint by infection; he goes along with the party, has their mark upon him; his wickedness is no more than frailty; their righteousness is imputed to him: so that, as ignorant rogues ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... right. I think, too, that these locutions have done your soul good, and in particular that they have made you see your own wretchedness and your faults more clearly, and amend them. They have lasted long, and always with spiritual profit. They move you to love God, and to despise yourself, and to do penance. I see no reasons for condemning them, I incline rather to regard them as good, provided you are careful not to rely altogether on them, especially if they are unusual, or bid you do something out of the way, or are not very plain. In all these and the like cases ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila

... I started out to hunt for them. I do not wish to try for a moment to lead the reader to believe that I do not like the taste of liquor, for I am confident at that time I really liked it better than either of my associates, but I always despise the effect, and that seemed to be what they, like thousands of other, drink it for. It always seemed to me that when a man is drunk he is more disposed to show the brute that is in him than to ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan

... I transport you poor fools from the land of their birth; they preserve here their old habits—obedience and awe. They would wait till they starved in the solitude—wait to hearken and answer my call. And I, who thus rule them, or charm them—I use and despise them. They know that, and yet serve me! Between you and me, my philosopher, there is but one thing worth living ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... great love, and am praying to my Lord that I may continue in this love which I have experienced this night. I am not veiled, because the veil of corruption is taken from me, and I am not ashamed, because the deed of shame has been removed far from me, and I am cheerful and gay, and despise this deed of corruption and the joys of this wedding-feast, because I am invited to the true wedding-feast. I have not had intercourse with a husband, the end whereof is bitter repentance, because I am betrothed to ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... as these were far from me then. I lived because I despaired of death. I ate by a sort of blind animal instinct, and so lived. The time had been when I would despise myself for being able to eat in the midst of emotion; but now I cared so little for the emotion even, that eating or not eating had nothing to do with the matter. I ate because meat was set before me; I slept because ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... searching!" She chuckled. "Co'se he say he loves me already better'n he love Ca'line, but of co'se a widder man he feels obleeged ter talk dat-a-way. An' ef he didn't have the manners ter say it, I wouldn't have him, to save his life; but ef he meant it, I'd despise him. After Ca'line lovin' de groun' he tread fur nine long yeahs, he ain't got no right ter love no 'oman better'n he love her des 'caze he's a-projec'in' ter git married to 'er. But of co'se, Mis' Gladys, I ca'culates ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart

... than even justice or virtue; and where her attention is disputed by a virtue lost in abstraction, and by a humble, walled-in life, she will incline to the humble life, and not to the magnificent virtue that holds itself proudly aloof. It is of the nature of wisdom to despise nothing; indeed, in this world there is perhaps only one thing truly contemptible, and that thing is contempt itself. Thinkers too often are apt to despise those who go through life without thinking. Thought is doubtless of high value; our first endeavour ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck

... porter, a man fervent in deed, and devout in prayer, who was born at Deventer. All these knew Gerard Groote in the flesh, and often heard him preach the Word of God among the people. By these humble, simple-hearted, and devout little servants of Christ—these who did verily despise the world—was our House on mount Nemel begun, which House after that it became a Monastery was called Mount St. Agnes. Moreover by little and little several devout clerks and lay folk from the neighbouring towns and from far off districts came to join these ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis

... was proportionate to the grief it created in Holland; and the arrogant confidence of Louis seemed to know no bounds. "I will punish these audacious merchants," said he, with an air of disdain, when he read the manifesto of Holland; not foreseeing that those he affected to despise so much would, ere long, command in a great measure the destinies of his crown. Queen Anne entered upon the war with masculine intrepidity, and maintained it with heroic energy. Efforts were made by the English ministry and the states-general to mediate ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... the house of your mistress, Molly Pierrepont, to-night, I saw you. I, your wife, whom you swore to honor and protect, saw you. She saw you embrace and kiss a Negro woman, the woman of a race whom you pretend to despise, and whom you and your pals are secretly scheming to cold bloodedly murder and drive from their homes. Take care! God knows your hypocrisy and the deeds you commit will recoil ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton

... energy of the wind or tide will be employed to produce from the magnetic lines of force given out by the earth's magnetism electrical currents far surpassing anything we have yet seen or of which we have heard. Therefore let us not despise the smallness of the force, but rather consider it an element of power from which might arise conditions far higher in degree, and which we might not recognize as the same as this developed in its ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 417 • Various

... May, which it was supposed you had burnt. This is my guilt, Walter," she said, turning to her husband; "this is the barrier which has lifted itself, like a wall of lead, between my soul and heaven. Now spurn me, my husband—despise me, May; then, perhaps, loaded with disgrace, and forsaken and desolate, my Father in heaven may receive me ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey

... shall tell you. There is a knight in this country that owneth this white shield, and he is a passing good man of his hands, but he hateth all ladies and gentlewomen, and therefore we do all this despite to the shield. I shall say you, said Sir Gawaine, it beseemeth evil a good knight to despise all ladies and gentlewomen, and peradventure though he hate you he hath some certain cause, and peradventure he loveth in some other places ladies and gentlewomen, and to be loved again, an he be such a man of prowess as ye speak of. Now, what is his name? Sir, said they, his name is Marhaus, ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... our cake and eat it too, I suppose," he said rather carelessly. "Personally I don't care a straw whether people respect me, or despise me, as long as I respect myself. The people that matter to ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... secret play-producing society, and to watch other plays of a character not suited to the requirements of the censorship. He is morally a ruined man. He will never any more be a decent member of society, for he has become an intellectual. He has been taught to despise ordinary human beings, for they do not want to be wicked or silly, except in the normal humdrum way, and they have not seen his play and are not members of his play-producing society. He discovers that the censored is the only good art. He is driven to ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... despise me, I think, friends, when I tell you that in these days I made one or two pitiful little efforts to imitate her, to copy, distantly and humbly indeed, the fashion of her clothes, to learn the trick of her voice, of her ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... about it handsomely! If you wished me to despise you, to hate you, this would be very fit, what ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough

... boyish little figure in the doorway. Mary Rose ran to her. "I was so proud of wearing girls' clothes that maybe that was the reason Jenny Lind was taken from me," she explained in a whisper. "I just hate these, Aunt Kate. I despise them! But I'm going to wear them. You know proud people are punished, the Bible says so, and I was as proud—as proud as the proudest. That's the way I've thought it out and that's why I put on this hateful ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett

... not heed the interruption. "Years went by," he continued, musingly, like one in a dream, "years in which they grew more and more confident of their own power, and learned to despise their red foes. But the Seminoles were only waiting with the patience of their race. Mark the cunning of the savage. There comes a day and night of feasting and rejoicing in the Spaniards' religious calendar. Work and worry is laid aside and they gather ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... this 1916 trip some faint glimmering must have penetrated the density of my cranium. I had always prided myself upon my conviction that I did not know it all, but, just the same, I had looked down from my lofty height of tuna and swordfish rather to despise little salt-water fish that could not pull me out of the boat. The waahoo and the dolphin had opened my eyes. When some mild, quiet, soft-voiced gentleman said bonefish to me again I listened. Not only did I listen, I grew interested. Then I saw a ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey

... a lark, arresting the people who at first affected to despise you. I can always keep myself cheerful by the humour of that. If you've lost your sense of the ridiculous, you'd better join the Northwest Mounted Police—for an ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson

... uncut. Schaban[Footnote: The Mahometans give this name generally to their black eunuchs.] (for such was the eunuch's name) did the same. The widow of Noureddin Ali observed, with regret, that her grandson did not like the tart. What! said she, does my child thus despise the work of my hands? Be it known to you, that not one in the world can make such cream-tarts, except myself and your father Bedreddin, whom I myself taught. My good mother, replied Agib, give me leave to tell you, that if you do not know how to make them better, there ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous

... contumacia, obstinacy; derived from the root tem-, as in temnere, to despise, or possibly from the root tum-, as in tumere, to swell, with anger, &c.), a stubborn refusal to obey authority, obstinate resistance; particularly, in law, the wilful contempt of the order or summons of a court (see CONTEMPT OF COURT). In ecclesiastical ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various

... also valuable as coming from a man of enormous scholarship and knowledge—the most learned physician of his time—who knew Aristotle and Plato, and all those old fellows, as we know Maunder or Lardner—a hard-working country surgeon, who was ready to run at any one's call—but who did not despise the modern enlightenments of his profession, because they were not in Paulus Agineta; though, at the same time, he did not despise the admirable and industrious Paul because he was not up to the last doctrine ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... very angry, and said that what had happened was rather owing to the negligence of the commander, than to any valor of the enemy: and as he thought it fit for him, who bare the burden of the whole empire, to despise such misfortunes, he now pretended so to do, and to have a soul superior to all such sad accidents whatsoever. Yet did the disturbance that was in his soul plainly appear by the solicitude he was in [how ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... criticism I am far from seeking to despise. Indeed, considering the character of some of my own books, such an attempt would be gross inconsistency. But, while I appreciate its importance in a philological view, I am inclined to set little store on its aesthetic value, especially in poetry. Three parts of the ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... Only despise all human wit and lore, The highest flights that thought can soar— Let but the lying spirit blind thee, And with his spells of witchcraft bind thee, Into my snare the victim creeps.— To him has destiny a spirit given, That unrestrainedly still onward ...
— Faust • Goethe

... war is a war fer the spreadin' o' slavery; Thet our army desarves our best thanks fer their bravery; Thet we 're the original friends o' the nation, All the rest air a paltry an' base fabrication; Thet we highly respect Messrs. A, B, an' C, An' ez deeply despise Messrs. E, F, an' G. In this way they go to the eend o' the chapter, An' then they bust out in a kind of a raptur About their own vartoo, an' folks's stone-blindness To the men thet 'ould actilly do 'em a kindness,— ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell

... exclaims, we who can boast of such things during life are more certain of the future world than those whose sole reliance is on promises of the hereafter. It would not be correct, the Rabbi says to the king of the Chazars, who was tempted to despise the Jews as well as their religion because of their material and political weakness, to judge of our destiny after death by our condition during life, in which we are inferior to all other people. For these very ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik

... in a world of common men, and not of philosophers; for one of these, when he appears (which is very seldom) among us, is distinguished, and very properly too, by the name of an odd fellow; for what is it less than extreme oddity to despise what the generality of the world think the labour of their whole lives well employed in procuring? we are therefore to adapt our behaviour to the opinion of the generality of mankind, and not to that of a ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... rather the effect of their pride and their presumption; since there is no nation in Europe more haughty, more disdainful, more besotted with the idea of its own excellence. If you were to take their word for it, mind and reason are only found with them; they adore all their opinions and despise those of all other nations; and it never occurs to them to listen to others, or to doubt themselves. . . . Examine what are called with them maxims of state; you will find nothing but the laws of pride itself, adopted through ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... like this business of runnin' off women, nohow you can fix it. It allers looked mean and cowardly, somehow, and I despise meanness ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison

... gentleman who seemed to be about thirty, drest in cloaths that once were laced. His person was well formed, and his face marked with the lines of thinking. He had something short and dry in his address, and seemed not to understand ceremony, or to despise it. Upon the landlord's leaving the room, I could not avoid expressing my concern to the stranger at seeing a gentleman in such circumstances, and offered him my purse to satisfy the present demand. 'I take it with all my heart, ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith

... amusements—hunting and fishing, fowling and playing at ball. Like his descendants to-day, he was an agriculturist at heart. The wealth and very existence of Egypt depended on its peasantry, and though the scribes professed to despise them and to hold the literary life alone worth living, the bulk of the nation was well aware of the fact. Even the walls of the tombs are covered with agricultural scenes. In one of them—that of Pa-heri, at El-Kab—the songs of the labourers have been preserved. Thus the ploughmen sing at the plough: ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce

... would tolerate Mormonism or Atheism or Diabolism, if they thought it would have a similar effect; but at the same time they would not themselves legalize polygamy, or deny the existence of God, or inaugurate the worship of the Devil. Indeed, while giving slavery a politic sanction, they despise in their hearts the people who are so barbarous as to maintain such an institution; and the Southern rebel or Northern demagogue who thinks his championship of slavery really earns him any European respect is under that kind of delusion which it is always for the interest of the plotter ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

... and what is your business? 'I am a trainer,' he will reply, 'and my business is to make men beautiful and strong in body.' When I have done with the trainer, there arrives the money-maker, and he, as I expect, will utterly despise them all. 'Consider Socrates,' he will say, 'whether Gorgias or any one else can produce any greater good than wealth.' Well, you and I say to him, and are you a creator of wealth? 'Yes,' he replies. And who are you? ...
— Gorgias • Plato

... everything but I never doubt my application when I am about to act. Perhaps I will some day, but I don't think so. I have learned a certain 'science de la vie,' meaning this time the artificial, irrational life that is practiced and that I despise. Apart from this I have my own notion of real life and that is my own luxury. When I write so it sounds so big and so out of place for a girl, I always regret saying anything. If what I think means anything it will be shown ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff

... entreaties to play with them, till the Christmas gift was finished. It was no small task, for Maud most heartily hated to sew, and her fingers were anything but nimble in the operation. "I always did despise to sew, Miss Fanny," she said, "but I'm going to make ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various

... eyes as she spoke seemed to me—a physically weak but still mentally strong man at the moment—to have in them something weird, something that one could not affect either to ignore or despise. What could this woman know of my desire to leave the island in my boat? What could the man Tematau know of it? Never had I spoken of such an intention to any person, and I knew that, even in my worst attacks of fever and ague, I had never been delirious in the slightest degree. A sudden ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke

... the term in its broadest sense as indicating a belief in spirits), may feel that his faith discloses a beauty and perfection in the union, otherwise imperceptible by him, there is no reason why this difference in faith should make him despise or quarrel with his materialist co-worker, for the latter may do as good service to science, may be as true a man, and live as holy a life, although from ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... the whole business go, and get to work. He was wasting half the morning. Yet, if she DID want to give him the opportunity of kissing her, and he failed to take advantage of it, what a ninny she would think him; she would despise him for being afraid. He afraid! He, Annixter, afraid of a fool, feemale girl. Why, he owed it to himself as a man to go as far as he could. He told himself that that goat Osterman would have kissed Hilma Tree ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... thought, which I was at some pains in detailing to you just now, concerning the invariable principle of policial action in searches for articles concealed,—I felt that this whole train of thought would necessarily pass through the mind of the Minister. It would imperatively lead him to despise all the ordinary nooks of concealment. He could not, I reflected, be so weak as not to see that the most intricate and remote recess of his hotel would be as open as his commonest closets to the eyes, to the probes, to the gimlets, and to the microscopes ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various

... and potent stimulus to the desire of acquiring wealth. The earlier decline of feudalism [in England] having removed or much weakened invidious distinctions between the originally trading classes and those who had been accustomed to despise them, and a polity having grown up which made wealth the real source of political influence, its acquisition was invested with a factitious value independent of its intrinsic utility. And, inasmuch as to be rich without industry has always hitherto constituted ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... They are far, those times when Frederick the Great wrote French at which Voltaire laughed, and could find no better occupation for his leisure hours at Sans-Souci than the discussion of the materialistic philosophy of the Encyclopedists, while he affected to despise his own tongue, rejecting every effort towards the popularization of a national literature. Well is it for Germany that other ideas now prevail,—well, that Goethe in his old age overcame the Gallomania, which for a while possessed him, of translating all his works, and thenceforth ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various

... forbid you to do it! You despise me, perhaps, and think I'm feeble. But you're mistaken. You are ungrateful and impertinent and contemptible, but I will save you in order to save Irma and our name. There is going to be such a row in this town that you and he'll be sorry you came to it. I shall shrink ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster

... devotion. The speech which he made to the people was such as might be expected from the passages already related. The same mixture of firmness and mildness is conspicuous in every part of it. "We ought not," says he, "to despise our afflictions, nor to faint under them. We must not suffer ourselves to be exasperated against the instruments of our troubles, nor by fraudulent, nor pusillanimous compliances, bring guilt upon ourselves; faint hearts are ordinarily ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox

... loss of fortune, and the gloomy view he took of the future. It was in vain that Agnes begged of him to do just the work that came to his hand, to listen attentively to Uncle Clair's instructions and explanations; in vain Aunt Amy entreated him fondly to be patient, and despise not the day of small things; Eddie sulked, grumbled, worst of all, idled, or worked indifferently, and kept on telling himself that he was misunderstood and undervalued, and would not be even allowed to show what he could do; for on that point ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various

... Employment of our Life, requiring those who cultivate the Ground to live in the Country, remote from City-Luxury, and the temptation to the Vices he condemns. It was indeed a plain Man{lxxxii:1} (a Potter by Trade) but let no body despise him because a Potter (Agathocles, and a King was of that Craft) who in my Opinion has given us the true reason why Husbandry, and particularly Planting, is no more improved in this Age of ours; especially, where Persons are Lords ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... his chief occupation spending these remittances as speedily as possible. All very well, as I have said, for fun, if you can pay the shot. But to play the role of gentleman cowboy, while somebody else pays for it, is the sort of thing I despise." ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor

... understand Russia, do you? No, and I don't and no one does. But we can all talk about her—and love her too, if you like, although our sentiment's a bad thing in us, some say. But for us not to talk—for one of us to be silent—do you know how hard that is?... And through it all how I despise myself for wishing to tell them! What business is it of theirs? Then this war. Can you conceive what it is doing to Russians? If you have loved Russia and dreamed for her and had your dreams flung again and again to the ground ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole

... goes mad about the clergy, Dolph, and I despise the way this new rector-man of ours keeps my eyes glued upon him, all the time he's preaching. It isn't the quality of his sermons, either; it is something inherent in the man himself that causes me ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... judge, and slower to despise, Man of broad shoulders and heroic size The tiger, writhing from the boa's rings, Drops at the fountain where the cobra stings. In that lean phantom, whose extended glove Points to the text of universal love, Behold the master that can tame thee down To ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... its head in. And fetch a pannikin, somebody. There's good water at the beach-head; and I dare say your men, Captain, won't despise a tot of French liquor ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... your exertions, does not wish you to engage in her cause without amply remunerating you for the services rendered. Your intelligent minds are not to be led away by false representations. Your love of honor would cause you to despise the man who would attempt to deceive you. In the sincerity of a soldier and the language ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... by music; and, if I had been consulted, I should not have advised the Marcia Reale Italiana, because that composition, on account of its inherent frivolity, has always seemed to me unfit for the accompaniment of any manifestation of power. To despise Bellini because he is not Schubert would be to adopt the attitude of the buffo's critic who escaped from Paris in the teatrino at Palermo; nevertheless the countrymen of Schubert have known how to appear before the world clothed in the solemn ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones

... Montecatino now persuaded his master that prudence and his own dignity indicated a very different line of treatment. If Tasso was to be great and honored, he must feel that his reputation flowed wholly from the princely favor, not from his studies and illustrious works. Alfonso accordingly affected to despise the poems which Tasso presented, and showed his will that: 'I should aspire to no eminence of intellect, to no glory of literature, but should lead a soft delicate and idle life immersed in sloth ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... the Reflections, whether he fears the designs of that set of people with reason or not, cannot prevail on himself to despise them. He cannot despise them for their numbers, which, though small, compared with the sound part of the community, are not inconsiderable: he cannot look with contempt on their influence, their ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... philosopher was once asked), "in consequence of your admiration of these abstruse speculations?" He answered; "What I am, it does not become me to say; but what thousands are, who despise them, and even pride themselves on their ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 43, Saturday, August 24, 1850 • Various

... a regular butterfly for a little while and see what it is like. You know I couldn't help seeing a good deal of fashionable life abroad, though we were not in it, and here at home the girls tell me about all sorts of pleasant things that are to happen this winter, so if you won't despise me very much, I ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... tears fell over her pale cheeks. The only window from which she could be seen was Mrs. Pinckney's, and that lady, she knew, was too much absorbed in her own sensations to give her a thought. "How I despise myself!" she murmured, "how degraded I am in my own eyes! Can I ever recover my self-respect? I'm so miserable that I should like to die because Colonel Pinckney has left the house, and"—she hesitated—"because his sister-in-law thinks he ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various

... lengthen that king's reign, as he has that of me, the king of righteousness, that he may reign in righteousness over his subjects. If this ruler do not esteem my words, which I have written in my inscription, if he despise my curses, and fear not the curse of God, if he destroy the law which I have given, corrupt my words, change my monument, efface my name, write his name there, or on account of the curses commission another so to do, that man, whether king or ruler, patesi [priest-viceroy] ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... How our children will despise us all for this! Why shall we seek for histories, why make museums, why study the manners of the dead, when we foully neglect or barbarously spoil their homes, their castles, their temples, their colleges, their courts, their graves? He who tramples on the past does not create ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... resent her own passion for Egbert—just a little she began to despise it. For after all there he was, he was charming, he was lovable, he was terribly desirable. But—but—oh, the awful looming cloud of that but!—he did not stand firm in the landscape of her life like a tower of strength, ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence

... does it!" said Harry Dart, coming up to me. "Quite the brilliant belle! By Jove! how she dances! I despise the girl with her greedy maw, and deuced airs of high gentility when she is a perfect beggar, but it is a second heaven to dance with her. She has the go of a wild animal in her. She is a little like a panther—so ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... imaginations from within? And in thus speaking, I am not denying that a strong and ready memory is in itself a real treasure; I am not disparaging a well-stored mind, though it be nothing besides, provided it be sober, any more than I would despise a bookseller's shop:—it is of great value to others, even when not so to the owner. Nor am I banishing, far from it, the possessors of deep and multifarious learning from my ideal University; they adorn it in the eyes of men; I do but say that they constitute no type of the results at ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... That is another man who should have been arrested at dark, tried at midnight, and shot at daybreak. No man can serve God and Mammon. No man can be faithful to the United States who hates England and loves Germany. He must love the one and hate the other; he must hold to the one and despise the crimes of the other. No man can serve God and the Allies, Germany and the devil, at one and ...
— The Blot on the Kaiser's 'Scutcheon • Newell Dwight Hillis

... tawdry magnificence in his dress, sparkling with gold and silver, and with the inscription, "For the Men of Chili," set in his bonnet. It was a foolish taunt; but the poor cavaliers who were the object of it, made morbidly sensitive by their sufferings, had not the philosophy to despise it. *7 ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... prelinpinpin. Everything in existence," said he, taking a handful of Louis from his pocket, "is contained in these little pieces of metal, which will convey you commodiously from one end of the world to the other. All men obey those who possess this powder, and eagerly tender them their services. To despise money, is to despise happiness, liberty, in short, enjoyments of every kind." A cordon bleu passed under the window. "That nobleman," said I, "is much more delighted with his cordon bleu than he would be with ten thousand of your pieces of metal."—"When ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe



Words linked to "Despise" :   despisal, despising, disdain, look down on, hate, detest



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