"Patronising" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... silence ensued,—Mrs. Ready smoothed down her ruffled plumes, and said, in a pitying, patronising tone, ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... much charmed by the "Andante" from his Symphonia in A, as if the lights had been put out to give it effect. We blush for our taste, but thank our stars (Jullien included) that we have the courage to own the soft impeachment in the face of an enlightened Concert d'Ete patronising public. In sober truth, we were ravished! The pianos of this movement were so exquisitely kept, the ensemble of them was so complete, the wind instruments were blown so exactly in tune, so evenly in tone, that the whole passion of that touching andante seemed to be felt by the entire ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 16, 1841 • Various
... the toasting was finished, Councillor Cotterill lapsed somewhat into a patronising irony, as if he were jealous of a youthful success. And he did not stop at "young man." He addressed ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... before she traversed the seemingly endless lane, flanked by the nobility of Germany, which led to the royal presence. Wilhelm, unabashed, holding himself the equal of any there, was not to be cowed by patronising glance, or scornful gaze. The ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... himself, though otherwise so lean and formularly, a heartfelt knowledge of this latter fact;—without which knowledge all other knowledge here is naught, and the choicest forensic eloquence is as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. Most cold, on the other hand, most patronising, unsubstantial is the tone of the Girondins towards 'our poorer brethren;'—those brethren whom one often hears of under the collective name of 'the masses,' as if they were not persons at all, but mounds of combustible explosive material, for blowing down ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... 1839, lonely and miserable, and so ended her wild dreams and fancied importance. During her long residence there she had meddled in local dissensions, patronising the Jonblats of Mokhtarah against the Ameer Besheer and the Egyptian invaders; she kept spies in the principal towns, as Acre and Saida, and had even supplied ammunition to the citadel of Acre for ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... censured. Elsewhere DE QUINCEY certainly shows a glimmering recognition of WORDSWORTH'S great qualities, and that before they had been fully admitted; but everywhere there is an impertinence of familiarity and a patronising self-consciousness that is irritating to any one who reverences great genius and high rectitude. It may be conceded that DE QUINCEY, so far as he was capable, did reverence WORDSWORTH; but his exaggerations of awe and delays bear on the face of ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... he needed. He made his own breakfast, had his dinner sent into the works at one o'clock from a neighboring coffee-shop, had tea made for him by one of the girl folders, and supped at home on bread and cheese. In this way he managed to live and to dress neatly—patronising a very different sort of tailor from his old London one—on a pound a week. Every penny of the rest ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... endowed tribe of Repealers of Unions and Corn-Laws—the practical men of the Mountain genus—the O'Connells, Cobdens, and Brights, who, not yet so fierce as their predecessors of the Robespierre and Clootz dynasty, are so far content with patronising the "strap and billy roller" in factories, instead of carting aristocrats to the guillotine, which may come hereafter, if, as they say, appetites grow with what they feed on. For it is a fact recorded in history, that Robespierre ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... of people' who were present in the Church was that same Mr. Justice Sawrey, 'the Catterpillar,' of whom the last two stories tell. As soon as George Fox opened his mouth and began to preach, up bustled the Justice to him, with a patronising air, and said, 'Now, my good fellow, you may have my permission to speak in this Church, so long as you speak ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... can she possibly help it? She's very young and very pretty and very clever: I think she's charming. But we must walk very straight. If you'll help me, you know, I'll help YOU," he concluded in the pleasant fraternising, equalising, not a bit patronising way which made the child ready to go through anything for him and the beauty of which, as she dimly felt, was that it was so much less a deceitful descent to her years than a ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... effort and enjoyment by this material fulfilment of prophecy and the more glorious future hope which it involved. Susannah was not well rested after her journey when Emma descended upon her with lavish gifts of silks and fine feathers. Emma, grown patronising with prosperity, always plain and maternal, displayed her gifts and argued for their acceptance with ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... advise perfect repose of your every limb, my man," said Cuticle, addressing him; "the precision of an operation is often impaired by the inconsiderate restlessness of the patient. But if you consider, my good fellow," he added, in a patronising and almost sympathetic tone, and slightly pressing his hand on the limb, "if you consider how much better it is to live with three limbs than to die with four, and especially if you but knew to what torments both sailors and ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... wife," repeated the patronising potentate, again patting my hand with an air of understanding all about it, "really an excellent little wife. But you must not let your husband have his own way too much, my dear, and take my advice and insist on his bringing you to town next winter." And then they fell to talking ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... childishness and sitting down by her aunt. 'I did not think so much of it when mother told me they eloped, because, though I know it was very wrong, people do do odd things sometimes when they are very much in love (she said it in a superior patronising tone that would have amused Miss Headworth very much at any other time); and it has not spoilt mother for being the dearest, sweetest, best thing in the world, and, besides, they had neither of them any fathers or mothers to disobey. But, ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he has not been in that position for so very long, a considerably shorter time for instance, than any one of the Elizabethans (excepting Shakespeare) with us. Sainte-Beuve was very tentative about him until the sixties, when his dubious, half-patronising air made way for a safe enthusiasm. And, even now, it can hardly be said that French critical opinion about him has crystallised; the late George Wyndham's essay shows a more convinced and better documented appreciation than any that we have read in French, based as it is on the ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... and take a seat, and I will tell you," returned the lad in a patronising tone. "You see I am staying at Teddington. Fred Courtenay was spliced yesterday, and I had promised to ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... herself Joe's sister by falling desperately in love with Hattie Sterling the first time they met. The actress was very gracious to her, and called her "child" in a pretty, patronising way, and patted ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... air of patronising grandeur that Mrs. Bluemits took her guests by the hand, and introduced them to the circle of females ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... are vociferously made from all parts of the room. The 'professional gentlemen' are in the very height of their glory, and bestow condescending nods, or even a word or two of recognition, on the better-known frequenters of the room, in the most bland and patronising manner possible. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... had its effect. Not a few of Dr. Mountchance's lady customers preferred money to trinkets and he did a profitable trade in buying these presents at his own price. Some of these flighty damsels were haughty and patronising and others were familiar and impudent. The old man disliked both varieties. Lavinia belonged to neither the first nor the second. She was thoroughly natural and the humour lurking in her sparkling eyes was a weapon which few could resist. Dr. Mountchance unclasped ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... she came near, however, and stood staring at her cousin, she felt that somehow there was a great difference in her, something which she could not understand. There was a look in Lilac's small white face which made it impossible to speak to her in the old patronising tone; it was as though she had been somewhere and seen something to which Agnetta was a stranger, and which could never be explained to her. It made her uncomfortable, and almost afraid to say anything; and yet, ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... England obtains another customer. This is no "castle building," if there be the least affinity between the results of great things and small ones. If a grocer want a coat he will have it from the tailor who will take sugar and tea in payment, in preference to patronising one who requires pounds shillings and pence, and the owners of land in all countries will take right good care that they derive some sort of revenue from their possessions. I say, I think my premises are no "castle buildings;" neither do I think I am indulging ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... Culch. (with patronising reassurance). Quite a mistake on your part, I assure you, my dear fellow. I am sure she will learn to appreciate you—er—fully when you meet again, which, I may tell you, will be at no very distant date. I happen to know that she will ...
— Punch, Volume 101, September 19, 1891 • Francis Burnand
... placed in his hands; Mr Dallas took it home, and was not slow in discovering its beauties, for in the course of the same evening he despatched a note to his Lordship, as fair a specimen of the style of an elderly patronising gentleman as can well be imagined: "You have written," said he, "one of the most delightful poems I ever read. If I wrote this in flattery, I should deserve your contempt rather than your friendship. I have been so fascinated with Childe Harold, that I have not been able to ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... friendship arose between the two, the boatswain patronising Fareek on every occasion, and roaring at him as if he were deaf as well as dumb, and Fareek appearing quite confident under his protection, and establishing a system of signs, which were fortunately a universal language. The Abyssinian evidently viewed himself as young Hope's ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to be erected! For a small town like Tralee this proposition to put up 196 buildings at the public expense where only 32 were needed is not bad. It has the right old Tammany Ring smack, and would have commanded, I am sure, the patronising approval of ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... extremely flattered!" exclaimed Aunt Charlotte, reddening. "A respectable-looking body, indeed! Well, it's something to know I look respectable. And who was this very patronising old person, pray? Some old nurse or other, I should say, to judge by ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... very good gipsy boy," said Edith, patting his head with a patronising air; "I shall let you walk out with me and carry the basket to put the eggs in when you come home ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... a foul pipe into the fireplace. After some little time I said; "Why do actors always wear their hair so long?" Carrie in a moment said, "Mr. Hare doesn't wear long HAIR." How we laughed except Mr. Fosselton, who said, in a rather patronising kind of way, "The joke, Mrs. Pooter, is extremely appropriate, if not altogether new." Thinking this rather a snub, I said: "Mr. Fosselton, I fancy—" He interrupted me by saying: "Mr. BURWIN- Fosselton, if you please," which made me quite forget what ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... horse at a distance. Mr Walcot had already hired the boy Charles, whom Hope had just dismissed; and if he obtained the horse too, the old servant who knew his way to every patient's door, all the country round—it really would look too like the unpopular man patronising his opponent. Besides, it would be needlessly publishing in Deerbrook that the horse ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... salutary work it may within you. That it passed into the blood of England's middle-class population, and set many heads philosophically shaking, and filled the sails of many a sermon, is known to those who lived in days when Art and the classes patronising our Native Art existed happily upon the terms of venerable School-Dame and studious pupils, before the sickly era displacing Exhibitions full of meaning for tricks of colour, monstrous atmospherical vagaries that teach nothing, strange ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... better," was not happily said; and even "keep him in good order, for he needs it," might be construed into matter of offence. But I lay it before you in all confidence of your acquittal: was the general tone of it "patronising"? Even if such was the verdict of the lady, I cannot but suppose the blame was neither wholly hers nor wholly mine; I cannot but suppose that Pinkerton had already sickened the poor woman of my very name; so that if I had come with the songs of Apollo, she must ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... but look here, Andrew Forbes, you've often made me want to hit you when you've been so bounceable and patronising. Now, we were going to ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... man was expensively dressed in a flashy way. His oily, pimple-garnished face wreathed itself in a smirk of patronising familiarity, and with the bow of a dancing master he advanced. I saw her give a quick start, bite her lip and shrink back. "Good for you, little girl," I thought. But the man was in ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... after-deck in close conversation with CULCHARD. PODBURY is perched on a camp-stool in the forward part. Near him a British Matron, with a red-haired son, in a green and black blazer, and a blue flannel nightcap, and a bevy of rabbit-faced daughters, are patronising a tame German Student in spectacles, who speaks ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 5, 1891 • Various
... The formal, half-patronising compliment on his tongue's tip remained there, unsaid. He stood silent, touched by the faint under-ringing wistfulness in the laughing voice that challenged his opinion; and something within ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... misses the very obvious chance for a comparison between Dante and Milton such as Macaulay afterwards elaborated in his essay on Milton. Goldsmith, who knew nothing of Dante at first hand, wrote of him with the usual patronising ignorance of eighteenth-century criticism as to anything outside of the Greek and Latin classics: "He addressed a barbarous people in a method suited to their apprehension, united purgatory and the river ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... just Spirit, or a Languishment of Notes, without any Passion or common Sense. We hope those Persons of Sense and Quality who have done us the Honour to subscribe, will not be ashamed of their Patronage towards us, and not receive Impressions that patronising us is being for or against the Opera, but truly promoting their own Diversions in a more just and elegant Manner than has been hitherto performed. We are, SIR, Your most humble Servants, Thomas Clayton. Nicolino Haym. ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... harp, and perform those more sacred, but not less pleasing, duties which become the daughter of a great proprietor, they favourably contrast with those more modish damsels who, the moment they are freed from the Park and from Willis's, begin fighting for silver arrows and patronising county balls. ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... Maurits had said to his uncle, and it had sounded rather patronising. She was so frightened that she ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... their imagination transformed the hall into a kind of improved National Sporting Club. They went about with an air of subdued but tremendous athleticism. They affected a sort of self-conscious nonchalance. They adopted an odiously patronising attitude towards the once popular game of backgammon. I daresay that picture is not yet forgotten where a British general, a man of blood and iron, is portrayed as playing with a baby, to the utter neglect of a table full of important military dispatches. Well, the ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... for Gilby. He had about him a good deal of the modern restlessness that cannot endure one hour without work or amusement. He made further efforts to make up to the men; he asked them questions with patronising kindness, he gave them scraps of information upon all subjects of temporary interest, with a funny little air of pompous importance. When by mere force of habit they grew more familiar with him, he would strut up and engage them ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... and a viperish mouth, who commanded a certain exclusive "set" by virtue of being the wife of a dissolute Earl whose house was used as a common gambling resort, found out Mrs. Sorrel sitting among a group of female gossips in a corner, and laid a patronising hand upon ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... The Patronising Persons. 'Um! HOLBEIN again, you see—very curious their ideas of painting in those days. Ah, well, Art has made great progress since then—like ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various
... Author of Waverley has no adequate means of expression; but he may be permitted to hope, that the powers of his mind, such as they are, may not have a different date from those of his body; and that he may again meet his patronising friends, if not exactly in his old fashion of literature, at least in some branch, which may not ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... her with some sense of family pride. "Upon my word, my dear, you do me credit!" he exclaimed, with a somewhat patronising kindness of tone and manner; "indeed any man might be proud of such a daughter. You are every inch ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... by Mr. TREE is that his Hamlet, entertaining an affectionate remembrance of the late YORICK, assumes a friendly and patronising air towards YORICK's successor, a Court Fool, apparently so youthful that he may still be supposed to be learning his business. So when His Royal Highness Hamlet has what he considers "a good thing" to say, Mr. TREE places the novice in jesting near himself, and pointedly speaks at him; as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 16, 1892 • Various
... 'intellectual,' which is what I suspect Miss Vinrace of doing. It's all the fashion now. If you're clever it's always taken for granted that you're completely without sympathy, understanding, affection—all the things that really matter. Oh, you Christians! You're the most conceited, patronising, hypocritical set of old humbugs in the kingdom! Of course," he continued, "I'm the first to allow your country gentlemen great merits. For one thing, they're probably quite frank about their passions, which we are not. My father, who is a clergyman in Norfolk, ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... Majesty; I had the honour of kissing her hand; I left the apartment by another door and found myself on a back staircase, down which I descended without any one taking any notice of me, until, as I was looking for my carriage at the outer door, a lackey bustled up, and with a patronising air, said, 'Lord Lyndhurst, can I do anything ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... a dangerous gleam in her eyes. She resented the patronising tone that he was adopting. How dare he be cheerful when she was so unhappy—and because of him, too? She determined that his ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... spirit of her ancestors seemed to take possession of her as she passed out of their patronising presence. It helped her to hold her head high, and carried her through a trying interview with the most fashionable dressmaker in the city, whither she had slipped away with some little models of children's dresses of ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... thin, trimly made woman, with small, hard, aquiline features, piercing eyes, and a mien of so much graciousness that had she been a shade less well-bred she would have been patronising. She looked younger than her years in spite of her little cap and the sedateness of attire then common to women past their youth. Lady Constance Mortlake had the high bust and stomach of advanced years; her flabby cheeks were ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... Mrs. Bunnett in a cold voice, and patronising. "You have come to bring your husband some ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... nobility. The great Duke of Ormond had already begun that connection which subsisted between Dryden and three generations of the house of Butler; Thomas Lord Clifford, one of the Cabal ministry, was uniform in patronising the poet, and appears to have been active in introducing him to the king's favour; the Duke of Newcastle, as we have seen, loved him sufficiently to present him with a play for the stage; the witty ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... it, my dear Sir, a very serious responsibility naming one for so peculiar a matter. But you shall not, in the meantime, go to the wall for want of advice. Rely upon it, we'll do the best we can for you,' he continued, in a patronising way, with his chin raised, and extending his hand kindly to shake that of the parson. 'Yes, I certainly will—you must have advice. Can you give me two hours to-morrow evening—say to tea—if you will do me the honour. My friend, ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... in a rallying tone of such geniality that Thomson grew more sanguine than ever as to the remission of the more serious part of his sentence, and, with a ghastly grin in response to Rogers' patronising smile, he began to slowly strip. He even, after drawing his shirt over his head, summoned the courage to walk up to the grating, and, leaning his body upon it, to spontaneously stretch out his arms and legs to the ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... with patronising indifference. He was not going to waste civilities upon this rowdy, drunken remittance-man, whom he had seen reeling through the streets of the stad as he went upon his own ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... adieux, Stanway and his cronies effusively, the opposing and outraged faction with a certain fine acrimony. 'Good-night, Fred,' said John, throwing a backward patronising glance at Ryley, who had strolled uneasily into the room. The young man paused before replying. 'Good-night,' he said stiffly, and his demeanour indicated: 'Do not patronise me too much.' Fred could not dance, but he had audaciously sat out four dances with Ethel, at this his first ball, ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... to see you, my dear Nicolas!" she said as she looked me in the face with an expression of pleasure so sincere that in the words "my dear Nicolas" I caught the purely friendly rather than the patronising note. To my surprise she seemed to me simpler, kinder, and more sisterly after her foreign tour than she had been before it. True, I could now see that she had two small scars between her nose and temples, but her wonderful eyes and smile fitted in exactly with my recollections, ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... any longer possible. There were a few, however, and Samuel Sprink among them, who were either too dull-witted to recognise the change that had come to the young girl, or were unwilling to acknowledge it. Samuel was unwilling also to surrender his patronising and protective attitude, and when patronage became impossible and protection unnecessary, he assumed an air of bravado to cover the feeling of embarrassment he hated to acknowledge, and tried to bully the girl ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... 28. President, the Earl of Shrewsbury and Talbot. The most important of the novelties were Sullivan's "Light of the World," and Schira's "Lord of Burleigh," but the greatest attraction of all was the patronising presence of royalty in the person of the Duke of Edinburgh. ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... respectable professors, like Hutcheson, or saintly prelates, such as Butler, as to present any striking novelty. And they support the cause of righteousness in a cool, reasonable, indeed slightly patronising fashion, eminently in harmony with the mind of the eighteenth century; which admired virtue very much, if she would only avoid the rigour which the age called fanaticism, and the ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... mind wearing it," said Isabel, with a patronising air, "but I want it as narrow as possible, so it won't interfere with my other rings, and, of course, I can take it off ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... however, so completely lost credit with the officers from his conduct in the action that few of them spoke to him. He was glad therefore for some one to speak to. Going up to Owen, he addressed him with a patronising air— ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... eyes, she feels that we are talking about her and can't understand. Pfoo, the owl! Ha-ha! (Cough-cough-cough.) And what does she put on that cap for? (Cough-cough-cough.) Have you noticed that she wants everyone to consider that she is patronising me and doing me an honour by being here? I asked her like a sensible woman to invite people, especially those who knew my late husband, and look at the set of fools she has brought! The sweeps! Look at that one with the spotty face. And those wretched Poles, ha-ha-ha! (Cough-cough-cough.) ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... green-cloth table and massive inkstand and registers, and began to unvest mechanically. He got his coat out of the beautiful carved wardrobe, and was folding up his hood and surplice, when the Rector laid a patronising hand on his shoulder. "A good sermon, Graham," he said—"a good sermon, if a little emotional. It was a pity you forgot the doxology. But it is a great occasion, I fear a greater occasion than we know, and you rose to ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... defence; 240 His vanity requires no response, And makes a welcome of indifference. (And I Tiresias have foresuffered all Enacted on this same divan or bed; I who have sat by Thebes below the wall And walked among the lowest of the dead.) Bestows one final patronising kiss, And gropes his way, finding the ...
— The Waste Land • T. S. Eliot |
