English

Proverb

familiarity breeds contempt

1. The more acquainted one becomes with a person, the more one knows about his or her shortcomings and, hence, the easier it is to dislike that person.
   • c. 35 - 100 c.e., Quintillian, The Institutes, Book II:

     “May (the teacher) be strict but not austere, genial but not too familiar: for austerity will make him unpopular, while familiarity breeds contempt.”

   • 1673, Richard Baxter, A Christian Directory, Part II, Chapter X:

     “[S]uffer [your children] not to carry themselves unreverently or contemptuously towards you [parents]; but to keep their distance. For too much familiarity breedeth contempt, and imboldeneth to disobedience.”

   • 1822, William Hazlitt, Table-Talk, ch. 1:

     “For a person to read his own works over with any great delight, he ought first to forget that he ever wrote them. Familiarity naturally breeds contempt.”

   • 1894, H. Rider Haggard, The People Of The Mist, ch. 25:

     This was the beginning of evil, for if no man is a hero to his valet de chambre, much less can he remain a god for long in the eyes of a curious woman. Here, as in other matters, familiarity breeds contempt.

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