Sneers At Quotes & Sayings

It is remarkable by how much a pinch of malice enhances the penetrating power of an idea or an opinion. Our ears, it seems, are wonderfully attuned to sneers and evil reports about our fellow men. — Eric Hoffer

The opportunity was too perfect to miss. Harry crept silently around behind Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, bent down, and scooped a large handful of mud out of the path.
'We were just talking about your friend Hagrid,'
Malfoy said to Ron. 'Just trying to imagine what he's saying to the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures. D'you think he'll cry when they cut off his hippogriff's - '
SPLAT.
Malfoy's head jerked back as the mud hit him; his silverblond hair was suddenly dripping in muck. — J.K. Rowling

I am not all sneers and scathings, you see, I have my gentler side. — John Banville

There is always a sneer in Las Vegas. The mountains around it sneer. The desert sneers. And arrogant in the middle of its wide valley, dominating those diligent sprawling suburbs, the downtown city sneers like anything. — Jan Morris

Who sneers? wondered Eliza, fadingly. She'd thought it was something only book characters did. — Laini Taylor

We no longer dare to believe in beauty and we make of it a mere appearance in order the more easily to dispose of it. Our situation today shows that beauty demands for itself at least as much courage and decision as do truth and goodness, and she will not allow herself to be separated and banned from her two sisters without taking them along with herself in an act of mysterious vengeance. We can be sure that whoever sneers at her name as if she were the ornament of a bourgeois past
whether he admits it or not
can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love. — Hans Urs Von Balthasar

He moved very quickly to her and put his arms around her. And there was hunger and eagerness in his body and in his face.
"Not angry," he said. "No, not angry. And still, angry."
He stroked her cheek.
"Angry at time when you were away. Angry at time. Irritated with the minutes when you aren't with me."
"I like that," she said. "It's good to be missed. I came back as soon as I could. It's good to be away a little. Then I know how well and strongly I love you."
He strained her tight to him.
"I get frightened," he said. "My mind plays games, it whispers that you don't exist, it sneers that you'd gone away, it whines to me that there's no Mordeen. It's a cruel and mischievous game. — John Steinbeck

Goethe's devil is a cultivated personage and acquainted with the modern sciences; sneers at witchcraft and the black art even while employing them, and doubts most things, nay, half disbelieves even his own existence. — Thomas Carlyle

I, with other Americans, have perhaps unduly resented the stream of criticism of American life ... more particularly have I resented the sneers at Main Street. For I have known that in the cottages that lay behind the street rested the strength of our national character. — Herbert Hoover

Fellow-servant of God, your sphere may be an humble and inconspicuous one; the flock to which God has called you to minister may be a small one; but faithfulness to your trust is what is required of you. There may be an Eliab ready to taunt you, and speak contemptuously of "those few sheep in the wilderness" (1 Sam. 17:28), as there was for David to encounter; but regard not their sneers. It is written, "His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord" (Matthew 25:21). — Arthur W. Pink

She is not old, she is not young, The Woman with the Serpent's Tongue. The haggard cheek, the hungering eye, The poisoned words that wildly fly, The famished face, the fevered hand, Who slights the worthiest in the land, Sneers at the just, contemns the brave, And blackens goodness in its grave ... — William Watson

Manners have been somewhat cynically defined to be a contrivance of wise men to keep fools at a distance. Fashion is shrewd to detect those who do not belong to her train, and seldom wastes her attentions. Society is very swift in its instincts, and if you do not belong to it, resists and sneers at you, or quietly drops you. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

But you must not think I have not cultivated courage as well - one needs a deal of it to live in this world - courage to brook the sneers of my own peers, courage to dare to be different from my class, courage to dream...for this new age, to fling beauty toward the stars! — Eloise Lownsbery

And, when i peel away, I find my superficial layers run deep, and the deep layers are just superficial layers in disguise. And, when i seek depth, all I can find is a gaping hole, a certain hollowness, cleverly painted by my superficial selves to appear important. And, my ego sneers at this feeble attempt at self honesty. — Srividya Srinivasan

I am what I am and you can't take it away with all the words and sneers at your command. — Cherrie L. Moraga

Sure there are times when one cries with acidity,
'Where are the limits of human stupidity?'
Here is a critic who says as a platitude
That I am guilty because 'in gratitude
Sherlock, the sleuth-hound, with motives ulterior,
Sneers at Poe's Dupin as "very inferior".'
Have you not learned, my esteemed communicator,
That the created is not the creator?
As the creator I've praised to satiety
Poe's Monsieur Dupin, his skill and variety,
And have admitted that in my detective work
I owe to my model a deal of selective work.
But is it not on the verge of inanity
To put down to me my creation's crude vanity?
He, the created, would scoff and would sneer,
Where I, the creator, would bow and revere.
So please grip this fact with your cerebral tentacle:
The doll and its maker are never identical. — Arthur Conan Doyle

The trouble is ... that everybody sneers at restrictions and demands freedom, till something annoying happens; then they demand angrily what has become of the discipline. — Dorothy L. Sayers

Stay, Sophie. Looking at you makes me feel better." Cody shot a more energetic grin at his employer and friend.

"Why?" she asked.

"You're hot, babe." Cody shot a wicked smirk at his boss.

"Cody, find your own hot woman to drool over." A war of looks began between the two men, half sneers and mockingly threatening scowls.

"Can't. Stuck in this damn bed. So I'll borrow yours. — Lauren Smith

Curse thee, Life, I will live with thee no more! Thou hast mocked me, starved me, beat my body sore! And all for a pledge that was not pledged by me, I have kissed thy crust and eaten sparingly That I might eat again, and met thy sneers With deprecations, and thy blows with tears, ... — Edna St. Vincent Millay

I think I'll always be linked to comedy. There is something about it that's such a beautiful thing. The world of drama sneers at it because people assume that it's easy but it's not at all; it's incredibly difficult. — Doc Brown

In doing your best serving others for free, a lot of eyebrows will raise and sneers will curve many a - faces. But in the end those incredulous to what you put up with to help, no longer matter. It's not between you and those snobs, but with whom you have given your hand to lift, and of course to God who Is watching and noting it in your book. — Mother Teresa

The just man frowns, but never sneers. We understand anger, not malice. — Victor Hugo

There is an honesty which is but decided selfishness in disguise. The person who will not refrain from expressing his or her sentiments and manifesting his or her feelings, however unfit the time, however inappropriate the place, however painful this expression may be, lays claim, forsooth, to our approbation as an honest person, and sneers at those of finer sensibilities as hypocrites. — Arthur Helps

This prayer I make, Knowing that Nature never did betray The heart that loved her; 't is her privilege, Through all the years of this our life, to lead From joy to joy: for she can so inform The mind that is within us, so impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all The dreary intercourse of daily life, Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold Is full of blessings. — William Wordsworth

The sophist sneers: Fool, take Thy pleasure, right or wrong! The pious wail: Forsake A world these sophists throng! Be neither saint nor sophist-led, but be a man. — Matthew Arnold

Through all the ages the mind has been regarded as evil, and every form of insult: from heretic to materialist to exploiter - every form of iniquity: from exile to disfranchisement to expropriation - every form of torture: from sneers to rack to firing squad - have been brought down upon those who assumed the responsibility of looking at the world through the eyes of a living consciousness and performing the crucial act of a rational connection. Yet only to the extent to which - in chains, in dungeons, in hidden corners, in the cells of philosophers, in the shops of traders - some men continued to think, only to that extent was humanity able to survive. — Ayn Rand

Since September,
I sat one seat behind Anna in algebra.
Passed papers to her every day.
Studied for tons of tests together.
Though it often seemed impossible,
Eventually,
We always found the unknown for X.
But not this time.
This equation
Bounces against my brain.
And sneers at all attempted answers.
I know I'll re-examine the variables,
And reanalyze the unknowns, maybe forever.
But
It won't matter.
Because, Anna-
I know I'll never figure out Y.
Y you didn't want to live-
And Y I never noticed. — Terri Fields

Mama sneers at the mention of Brittany's name. "Good luck. You probably won't find anything that'll fit. — Deirdre Riordan Hall

You cannot kill me here. Bring your soldiers, your death, your disease, your collapsed economy because it doesn't matter, I have nothing left to lose and you cannot kill me here. Bring the tears of orphans and the wails of a mother's loss, bring your God damn air force and Jesus on a cross, bring your hate and bitterness and long working hours, bring your empty wallets and love long since gone but you cannot kill me here. Bring your sneers, your snide remarks and friendships never felt, your letters never sent, your kisses never kissed, cigarettes smoked to the bone and cancer killing fears but you cannot kill me here. For I may fall and I may fail but I will stand again each time and you will find no satisfaction. Because you cannot kill me here. — Iain S. Thomas

So often do you see collegians enter life with high resolve and lofty purpose and then watch them shrink and shrink to sordid, selfish, shrewd plodders, full of distrust and sneers. — W.E.B. Du Bois

Neither evil tongues, rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all the dreary intercourse of daily life, shall ever prevail against us. — William Wordsworth

All this is why the usual sneers about whether Aristotle is going to "come in handy on the job" are so utterly misguided. "After college," says a young woman who dropped out after all of a semester - she is quoted in one those books that advise young people to forget about higher education altogether - "no one cares how well you can talk about Hume or Kant." Maybe not, but they care how well you can talk. They care how well you can think. — Anonymous

She snorts. "Yeah, I'll tape my boobs down and wear my Burger King Crown. That'll fool'em. They see five-foot-seven-inch-tall, hippy eleven-year-olds all the time." She sneers at me. "You on the other hand ... "
"Did you just call me short?"
"And, apparently, boobless."
"Sawyer doesn't think so. — Lisa McMann

I Dream I am from a clash of Color, From an idea of love, modeled for others' perception. I see me as I am, but am hidden from others' views. I am who I am, but a living contradiction to my peers. I see life as a blessing, a gift granted to me. Why should my tint describe me? Why should my culture degrade me? Why should the ignorance of another conjure my presence? Too many times I've been disappointed by the looks, By the sneers and misconceptions of the people who don't get me, Who don't understand why it hurts. I dream of a place of glory and freedom, Of losing the weight of oppression on my back. I dream of the enlightenment of people, Of the opening of their eyes. I dream for acceptance, And for the blessing of feeling special just once. One moment of glory . . . for the true virtue in my life. For the glimmer of freedom, and a rise in real pride. — Glenn E. Singleton

If the Negro was to learn, he must teach himself, and the most effective help that could be given him was the establishment of schools to train Negro teachers. This conclusion was slowly but surely reached by every student of the situation until simultaneously, in widely separated regions, without consultation or systematic plan, there arose a series of institutions designed to furnish teachers for the untaught. Above the sneers of critics at the obvious defects of this procedure must ever stand its one crushing rejoinder: in a single generation they put thirty thousand black teachers in the South; they wiped out the illiteracy of the majority of the black people of the land, and they made Tuskegee possible. — W.E.B. Du Bois

If an enthusiastic, ardent, and ambitous man marry a wife on whose name there is a stain, which, though it originate in no fault of hers, may be visited by cold and sordid people upon her, and upon his children also: and, in exact proportion to his success in the world, be cast in his teeth, and made the subject of sneers against him: he may-no matter how generous and good his nature- one day repent of the connection he formed in early life; and she may have the pain and torture of knowing that he does so. — Charles Dickens

The Anarchists' uncompromising rejection of the State, the subject of Marxian sneers for its "absolutist" and "Utopian" character, makes much better sense in the present era than the Marxist relativist and historical approach. The pacifists also seem to be more realistic than the Marxist both in their understanding of modern war and also in their attempts to do something about it ... — Dwight Macdonald

For all his orders and sneers, his commanding presence, and his intimidating always all-black ensemble, Vhalla saw something different. She simply saw someone who was lonely, someone who could likely count their friends on one hand, and perhaps wanted to one day use two hands. He was nothing like the man she first met, the man who wore a mask to meet palace expectations. — Elise Kova

Hypocrite sneers. — Toba Beta

The boys wore black T-shirts, dark hoodies and permanent sneers and their hair was an open rebellion against society and interfering mothers. - Zombiekins — Kevin Bolger

Perhaps the most embarrassing experience is being caught at a lie by a simpleton who sneers at our asinine cleverness. — Franz Grillparzer

I am an absurd idealist. But I believe that all that must come true. For, unless it comes true, the world will be laid desolate. And I believe that it can come true. I believe that, by the grace of God, men will awake presently and be men again, and colour and laughter and splendid living will return to a grey civilisation. But that will only come true because a few men will believe in it, and fight for it, and fight in its name against everything that sneers and snarls at that ideal. — Leslie Charteris

Jesus expected the most of every man and woman; and behind their grumpiest poses, their most puzzling defense mechanisms, their coarseness, their arrogance, their dignified airs, their silence, and their sneers and curses, Jesus sees a little child who wasn't loved enough - a least of these who had ceased growing because someone had ceased believing in them. — Brennan Manning

He saw the article ... which was not an expression of ideas, but a bucket of slime emptied in public - an article that did not contain a single fact, not even an invented one, but poured a stream of sneers and adjectives in which nothing was clear except the filthy malice of denouncing without considering proof necessary. — Ayn Rand

Could beauty be caught and hurt
they had done her to death with their sneers
in ages and ages past,
could beauty be sacrificed
for a thrust of a sword,
for a piece of thin money
tossed up to fall half alloy
then beauty were dead
long, long before we saw her face. — H.D.

At first, Maisie had been glad to work with a female crewmember. So much the better to fend off the sneers, leers, and veiled derision of her male majority shipmates. But now she knew better. Karen was here to make neither friends nor feminist stands. She was here to ruin Maisie's career! — Mads Sukalikar

She resembled the swallow in the fable who once every thousand years transferred a grain of wheat, in the hope of rearing a mountain to reach the moon. Such persons are raised up in every age; they obstinately insist on transporting their grains of wheat and they derive a certain exhilaration from the sneers of the bystanders. "How queerly they dress!" we cry. "How queerly they dress! — Thornton Wilder

I love my job. I love the pay!
~I love it more and more each day.
~I love my boss, he is the best!
~I love his boss and all the rest.

~I love my office and its location. I hate to have to go on vacation.
~I love my furniture, drab and grey, and piles of paper that grow each day!
~I think my job is swell, there's nothing else I love so well.
~I love to work among my peers, I love their leers, and jeers, and sneers.
~I love my computer and its software; I hug it often though it won't care.
~I love each program and every file, I'd love them more if they worked a while.

~I'm happy to be here. I am. I am.
~I'm the happiest slave of the Firm, I am.
~I love this work. I love these chores.
~I love the meetings with deadly bores.
~I love my job - I'll say it again - I even love those friendly men.
~Those friendly men who've come today, in clean white coats to take me away!!!!! — Dr. Seuss

It obeys none of the natural laws of hereditary and environmental change, pays no attention to the survival of the fittest, positively sneers at any attempt on the part of man to work out a rational life cycle, is possibly immortal, unquestionably immoral, evidences anabolism but not katabolism, ruts, spawns, and breeds but does not reproduce, lays no eggs, builds no nests, seeks but does not find, wanders but does not rest. — Charles Grandison Finney

Anger he smiles, towering in shiny metallic purple armor. Queen Jealousy, envy waits behind him, her fiery green gown sneers at the grassy ground. — Jimi Hendrix

It is a fallacy to think that carping is the strongest form of criticism: the important work begins after the artist's mistakes have been pointed out, and the reviewer can't put it off indefinitely with sneers, although some neophytes might be tempted to try: "When in doubt, stick out your tongue" is a safe rule that never cost one any readers. But there's nothing strong about it, and it has nothing to do with the real business of criticism, which is to do justice to the best work of one's time, so that nothing gets lost. — Wilfrid Sheed

Then I flip Kate the finger. Immature, I know, but apparently we're now both functioning at the preschool level, so I'm guessing it's okay. Kate sneers at me. Then she mouths, You wish. Well - she's got me there, now doesn't she? — Emma Chase

He who sneers at love will be left howling by love. — Ai Yazawa

I don't know what he means, but there's something not clean about a man who sneers at everything. — Ethel Lilian Voynich

Please, please, you have to, I never ask you for anything, please just do it."
"What are you talking about? You always ask me for everything."
"Okay, then, but you always do it, so don't change the rules now."
He knows its true. That's just the way they work. As much as he grouses and sneers and makes a big show of authority, he can't deny the kid a thing. If he wants a vintage Aston Martin so he can play at being James Bond, he gets one. If he wants to go one top, he can. He says he's never been to Africa and Lindsay goes online and books flights that same day to Morocco because he wants to see the smile when he presents Valentine with tickets. When the kid suggests setting a camcorder up in the bedroom so they can watch the tape back later and laugh at their stupid sex-faces, Lindsay goes along with it, wincing all the way, because he always says no and he never really means it in the end.
This is love, he supposes, and it's mental. — Richard Rider

Anti-religious sneers are a hallmark of perpetual adolescents. — Camille Paglia

Plundering and stealing, cheating and lying, laboring, fighting and loving; taking all we could and returning little, we went our careless and irresponsible ways, with laughter in our hearts and sneers on our lips - as anti-social as hyenas who howled at the changes in the weather. — Jim Tully

I looked into his sandy brown eyes, at one with the hair. At the business- like outward presentation of the man who daily printed sneers, innuendo, distrust and spite and spoke without showing a trace of them. 'Off the record,' I said,'bash his face in'. — Dick Francis