Self-contempt

“ It is one of the evils of a course like his, that by the time it is run, the energy which might have shaped a new one is lost, and the self-deluded victim falls, too probably never again to rise. And then is such a course most miserable, when its slave is aware of his own degradation, repents and sins on, always harassed by self-contempt, never safe in self-reliance, always thinking of what he might have been, never remembering what he yet may be. ”

“ This temper of mind, which all men should be able to attain, must preserve him from the unprofitable and ignoble sufferings of fools and cowards; and self-contempt, the appointed scourge of all envious egotists, will have no sting for him. ”

“ He had reached that almost morbid stage of self-contempt in which a man, while still admiring goodness in others, checks even the aspiration towards it in his own heart, because he is convinced that it cannot be really genuine, and looks upon it as one of the affectations most to be despised in himself. ”

“ When one is found fault with for nothing, or for doing one’s best, one is apt to give the world their revenge. All the former part of my life I was treated as a cipher; and since I have got into notice, I have been set upon as a wild beast. When this is the case, and you can expect as little justice as candour, you naturally in self-defence take refuge in a sort of misanthropy and cynical contempt for mankind. One is disposed to humour them, and to furnish them with some ground for their idle and malevolent censures. ”

“ Be a martyr if you must, but do not try living under the weight of your own self-contempt. Of all failures that is the weakest, saddest, most loathsome. Dear lady, I’ve carried mine with me like an atmosphere. People have felt it ”

“ But in our own case, the uneasy feeling is heightened in a tenfold degree, because self-contempt and disgust are brought into competition with the warmest self-love, and the strongest desire of self-approbation. ”

“ Contempt is a legitimate sentiment when it has for its object base and culpable actions; it is a bad and blameworthy passion when it bears upon a pretended inferiority, either of birth, or fortune, or talent, and then belongs to false pride. False pride, however, is not always accompanied by contempt. We see men full of self-satisfaction, who yet [Pg 328] know how to be polite and courteous toward those they regard their inferiors; others, on the contrary, who look down upon their inferiors and treat them like brutes. Contempt, with such, is added to false pride. ”

“ But must not the nature and the disposition suffer from the depression, and will the moral vigour take no scathe? Ah! What if one were to give way to the pressure—to settle down into a hypocrite—to become an object of contempt to one's self and the rest of mankind. ”

“ The contempt (often most undeserved, no doubt) in which they are held by the world, and which they naturally reflect back on one another; for they must soon learn to despise a profession which they see despised by every one else, at least with that single exception which self-love contrives to reserve for us all. 2. The circumstance that they live by repeating the wit of others, and that they must naturally ape what they live by. In nine instances out of ten, however, this habitual temptation must produce impertinence instead of wit. ”

“ The time passes wearily for the principal victim, who is thinking of something else and makes mistakes. The patron loses his temper, speaks with increasing acerbity, and finally either flies into a passion and storms (the old-fashioned way) , or else adopts, with grim self-control, a tone of insulting contempt towards his victim that is even more difficult to endure. ”

“ It is that of flatterers, of whom courts are full, because men are so self-complacent in their own affairs, and in a way so deceived in them, that they are preserved with difficulty from this pest, and if they wish to defend themselves they run the danger of falling into contempt. ”

“ And yet some there are that will bear blows, and death itself, rather than contumelious words. A contumely is an indignity below the consideration of the very law; and not worthy either of a revenge, or so much as a complaint. It is only the vexation and infirmity of a weak mind, as well as the practice of a haughty and insolent nature, and signifies no more to a wise and sober man than an idle dream, that is no sooner past than forgotten. It is true, it implies contempt; but what needs any man care for being contemptible to others, if he be not so to himself? ”

“ If so, worse, almost, than anything else, is the fact that you have lost your own self-respect. What is more undignified, more ridiculous than one who has lost control of himself and is saying and doing things to-day of which he will bitterly repent to-morrow? Remember that nothing can more easily cost you the respect of others than a display of temper. ”

“ They dislike, therefore, to hear of 'contempt' of themselves. So I will appeal to their pride. ”

“ The point is that our will, in flowing outwards, at its capricious pleasure, met with opposition—met with resistance. We do not really recover our self-esteem until every memory of such an event has been obliterated by a complete revenge. ”

“ The Folly of Contempt.—Wrongs are often given, but contempt never is. Our pride remembers it forever. It implies a discovery of weaknesses, which we are much more careful to conceal than crimes. Many a man will confess his crimes to a common friend, but I never knew a man who would tell his silly weaknesses to his most intimate one. ”

“ Of all the mental tortures which a man can undergo, what is there worse than the agony of self-reproach? To be condemned by another's judgment may seem to us comparatively a light thing—but to be condemned by our own, what escape or chance of escape can there be from that! ”

“ Do you think detection to a man so lost to honor would wound as deeply as the sights which make his daily watch a torment? Or that a blow would be as hard to bear as the knowledge that his own act has placed you where you are and made him what he is? Silent contempt is the law now, so let this insult pass, unclench your hand and turn that defiant face to me, while I console you for submission with a kiss. ”

“ People who did nothing, or who did not know exactly what they were going to do, or who did not take the most direct way to accomplish what they set their hands to, were objects of her entire contempt,—a contempt shown less frequently by anything she said, than by a kind of stony grimness, as if she scorned to say anything about the matter. ”

“ But unfortunately, when you are dealing with crimes of violence, moral suasion and gentle treatment produce nothing more poignant in the bosom of your adversary than a sensation of amused and derisive contempt. ”

“ To doubt—to tremble with anxiety—to vacillate hither and thither between this course and the other as to which may be the better—to complain within one's own breast that this or that thing has been an injustice—to hesitate within one's self, not quite knowing which way honor may require us to go—to be indignant even at fancied wrongs—to rise in wrath against another, and then, before the hour has passed, to turn that wrath against one's self—that is not to be a coward. ”

“ That rare possibility of self-contemplation which comes in any complete severance from our wonted life made her judge herself as she had never done before: the compunction which is inseparable from a sympathetic nature keenly alive to the possible experience of others, began to stir in her with growing force. ”

“ Therefore, any person who, be the cause what it may or the circumstances what they may, deprives himself by violence of his own life, must be said to be guilty of an act inexcusable and cowardly, as well as mean, and entirely opposed to the principle of independence and self respect. ”

“ To reprove those, that although they confesse the power in words, yet in their deeds resist it, nor do they respect it farther then it makes for their lusts.
Doctrine 7. The effect of contempt is, to reproach a man, and speak evill of him.
Reason. Because reproaches and contumelies come properly from pride, whereby a man thinks himself better then another. For otherwise he could not reproach another man, but the same reproach would fall upon himselfe also. Contempt is the daughter of pride, and the mother of such nephewes. ”

“ There is not in human nature a more odious disposition than a proneness to contempt, which is a mixture of pride and ill-nature. Nor is there any which more certainly denotes a bad mind; for in a good and benign temper there can be no room for this sensation.—Fielding. ”

“ Clean from meanness, clean from falsehood, clean from spite, not only for his sake, but for the sake of my own self-respect? Shall I let things take their course until they culminate of themselves in the pre-ordained catastrophe that always follows evil? ”

“ There, after all, is the rub. A want of hardy self-respect, an unwillingness to face with dignity the actual facts and necessities of our situation in life,—this, after all, is the worst and most dangerous feature of the case. ”

“ Even he who merely observes the weak or vicious frailties of his fellow creatures with an intention to study philosophically the nature and disposition of man, cannot avoid remembering their defects with severity, and viewing the character he contemplates with contempt, especially if he happens to be the object of their artifices, and the dupe of their villanies. Contempt is closely allied with hatred; and hatred of mankind will corrupt, in time, the fairest mind: it tinges, by degrees, every object with the bile of misanthropy ”

“ For myself, as you know, uncanny things hold no fear. I suppose it is that I have been up against so many different kinds of fears, or, rather, of things which for most people have terrors of their own, that I have come to have a contempt--not an active contempt, you know, but a tolerative contempt--for the whole family of them. ”

“ You should have had the courage to risk yourself—you’re always too careful of yourself and your own poor feelings—you never could brace yourself up to a shower-bath of contempt and hard usage, so you’ve saved your feelings and lost—not much, I suppose—you couldn’t. ”

“ But, if we watch the influence upon the will itself, of its own wrong decisions, its own yielding to temptations, we shall discover that the voluntary faculty may be ruined from within; may be made impotent to good by its own action; may surrender itself with such an intensity and entireness to appetite, passion, and self-love, that it becomes unable to reverse itself, and overcome its own wrong disposition and direction. ”

“ A Fragment on the Cultivation and Improvement of the Animal Spirits.—It is surprising to see for what foolish causes men hang themselves. The most silly repulse, the most trifling ruffle of temper, or derangement of stomach, anything seems to justify an appeal to the razor or the cord. I have a contempt for persons who destroy themselves. Live on, and look evil in the face ”

“ In fact, in his own self-control under difficult or dangerous circumstances, lies his chief ascendancy over others who impulsively betray every emotion which animates them. Exhibitions of anger, fear, hatred, embarrassment, ardor or hilarity, are all bad form in public. ”

“ Too many yield in the perpetual conflict between temptation to gratify the coarser appetites and aspiration for the good, the true, and the beautiful. Voices unheard by those around us whisper "Don't," but too often self-respect is lost, the will lies prostrate, and the debauch goes on. ”

“ The petty human aims, the smallness of all our former standards, the instinct for "retaliation" must all be overcome, laid upon one side—a slow task of much humiliation to the creature, revealing to it its own smallness and vanity and its own extraordinary ineffectiveness of self-control, its puny powers over itself: nothing short of an absolute self-conquest is aimed at and demanded by this inward monitor—the Soul. ”

“ Taking two extreme types, he draws a picture of the proud, arrogant, self-assertive, domineering person, with the feeling of masterful superiority, and angry resentment of criticism and control, and who knows no shame and is indifferent to moral approval and disapproval. In this personality the instincts of self-assertion and anger are the dominating innate dispositions of the self-regarding sentiment. ”

“ So that they cry out at the suggestion that it is no more than a selfish vice; and finding truth where they had looked for the materials of another debauch of self-delusion, they moan aloud: they protest, and they demand as their sacred right that the bitter cup be taken from before them. ”

“ When therefore you see the violence of other mens passions, the folly of their tempers, and vanity of their minds, remember that you see so many plain reasons for denying yourself, and resisting your own nature, which has in it the seeds of all the same evil tempers. ”

“ I cannot ask you to believe that I appreciate your heroic impulse of self-sacrifice—your purpose to atone for wrong by inflicting irreparable wrong on yourself. It is natural that you should think of me only as an instrument of revenge with no more feeling than some keen-edged weapon would have. ”

“ For if they do not find it ridiculous to feel contempt, they are perfectly right to feel contempt, it being natural to them; and you have no business to be sorry for them, for that is, after all, only your euphemism for contempt. ”

“ People in general, knowing themselves to be innocently made to suffer, would take comfort in righteous indignation and justified contempt: but to you the indignation and contempt would be the worst part of suffering ”

“ They are often unfair, punishing on one occasion what they smile at or wink at on another; thus teaching injustice. They lose self-control, and punish when in anger; thus setting examples of violence and bad temper. ”