A leader is best when people barely know he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worst when they despise him. But of a good leader, who talks little, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say, 'We did this ourselves.'
Laozi

All strange and terrible events are welcome, but comforts we despise.
Cleopatra

But I think I can sincerely declare that I cheerfully submit myself to every odious name for conscience' sake; and from my soul I despise all those whose guilt, malice, or folly has made them my foes.
James Otis

Can't really despise people you don't know.
Richard D. James

Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else.
Marcus Aurelius

Despise the enemy strategically, but take him seriously tactically.
Mao Tse-Tung

Do not despise the bottom rungs in the ascent to greatness.
Publilius Syrus

Do you know what a soldier is, young man? He's the chap who makes it possible for civilised folk to despise war.
Allan Massie

Don't despise empiric truth. Lots of things work in practice for which the laboratory has never found proof.
Martin H. Fischer

For centuries the leaders of Christian thought spoke of women as a necessary evil, and the greatest saints of the Church are those who despise women the most.
Annie Besant

For generations, even many otherwise decent white Southerners learned to despise black people.
Linda Chavez

From my example learn to be just, and not to despise the gods.
Virgil

Great is the power of habit. It teaches us to bear fatigue and to despise wounds and pain.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

I am content with nothing, restless and ambitious... and I despise myself for the vanity, which formed half the stimulus to my exertions. Oh would that I were one of those plodding wise fools who having once set their hand to the plough go on nothing doubting.
Thomas Huxley

I despise making the most of one's time. Half of the pleasures of life consist of the opportunities one has neglected.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

I despise people who go to the gutter on either the right or the left and hurl rocks at those in the center.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

I despise simplicity. It is the negation of all that is beautiful.
Norman Hartnell

I despise the Lottery. There's less chance of you becoming a millionaire than there is of getting hit on the head by a passing asteroid.
Brian May

I have never been afraid of making patriots; but I disdain and despise all their efforts.
Robert Walpole

I know not what record of sin awaits me in the other world, but this I know, that I was never mean enough to despise any man because he was black.
John Albion Andrew