35 Quotes About Being Condescending

Understanding why someone responds to you a specific way can help you with the way you communicate. For some, they may be belittling, sarcastic, or condescending depending upon the environment. Here is a look at some of the best quotes about being condescending to encourage you to respond specifically to the situation.

“A conventional person can be restrained by the prejudices of its tradition. Convention has too many prejudicial restraints. But unconventional is good, because what happens is the heart is open, it’s free, it’s non-judgmental.”

“But really it’s condescending and patronizing not to make fun of someone because they’re old or stupid or crippled or morbidly obese. Banged up people don’t want your pity.”

“Don’t be condescending to unskilled labor. Try it for a half a day first.”

“For success in training children the first condition is to become as a child oneself, but this means no assumed childishness, no condescending baby-talk that the child immediately sees through and deeply abhors.”

“God makes to us, the more intimate and condescending the communication of his benefits, the more attentively are we called to consider them.”

“Good motives aside, white condescension does more damage than good. White condescension says to a black child, ‘The rules used by other ethnic groups don’t apply to you.”

“His great act of condescension in becoming man and His willingness to be completely humiliated in the death on the cross is set before us here as the supreme example of what our attitude should be.”

“I believe in human liberty as I believe in the wine of life. There is no salvation for men in the pitiful condescension of industrial masters. Guardians have no place in a land of freemen.”

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

“I thought I’d been condescended to as an Indian – that was nothing compared to the condescension for writing young adult literature.”

“If I’m writing a story and you’re reading it, or vice versa, you took time out of your day to pick up my book. I think the one thing that will kill that relationship is if you feel me condescending to you in the process.”

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

“I’m a terrible patient, and I find that doctors can be very condescending.”

“I’m not being condescending, I’m too busy thinking about far more important things you wouldn’t understand.”

“It means eating your words, this thing of refusing to be a fence-sitter, but I’d rather eat my words than get calluses from sitting.”

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

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

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

“Paradoxically, by seeing pain we are made greater, it becomes a need.”

“Rain is grace; rain is the sky descending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life.”

“So how do we solve this ancient problem? How can we not just tolerate someone who believes differently than we do, but actually respect them for those beliefs?”

“The insolent civility of a proud man is, if possible, more shocking than his rudeness could be; because he shows you, by his manner, that he thinks it mere condescension in him; and that his goodness alone bestows upon you what you have no pretense to claim.”

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

“There are no ugly questions except those clothed in condescension.”

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

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

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

“There is almost a touch of condescension in the act of hiring friends that secretly afflicts them. The injury will come out slowly: A little more honesty, flashes of resentment and envy here and there, and before you know it your friendship fades.”

“Tragedy is the greatest art form of all. It gives us the courage to continue with our life by exposing us to the pain of life. It is unsentimental, it takes us seriously as human beings, it is not condescending.”

“We are expected to put the utmost energy, of every power that we have, into the service of our fellow men, never sparing ourselves, not condescending to think of what is going to happen to ourselves, but ready, if need be, to go to the utter length of self-sacrifice.”

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

“We’re understanding what Obama is. He is the great teacher. He is this guy that stands above everybody. There’s some condescension in it, but he stands above everybody and says, ‘Now, listen.”

“What it does mean is to be as entirely and simply taken up with the child as the child himself is absorbed by his life.”

“When people are hurting, what they really need is someone who is fully there for them – not someone who is condescending or officious. The only way for you to be there for them is by facing your fear or anger, whatever feelings cause you to shut down.”

“You have any trouble sounding condescending, find a Unix user to show you how it’s done.”

Having tolerance for some can be considered condescending in itself. There are many ways to be cautious of how you respond to something or someone.