Can anyone help me understand what this quotation means?
’‘You should never assume contempt for that which it is not very manifest that you have it in your power to possess, nor does a wit ever make a more contemptible figure than when, in attempting satire, he shows that he does not understand that which he would make the subject of his ridicule.”
By Lord Melbourne
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Don’t be such a possessive know-it-all.
If you don’t have knowledge or understanding of something, you make yourself contemptible by trying to make fun of it.
it means you wanna have sex with your mother.
You should not hate and ridicule things that you will (probably) never be able to have or experience. It makes you look like a jerk when you mock things you don’t understand.
The first part seems to be similar to Aesop’s fable about the fox and the grapes. The second about not criticizing things you don’t understand.
“You should never assume contempt for that which it is not very manifest that you have it in your power to possess”
Translated into modern english this would be: “You shouldn’t hate on stuff you’re not very sure you could do yourself.”
“nor does a wit ever make a more contemptible figure than when, in attempting satire, he shows that he does not understand that which he would make the subject of his ridicule.”
Anywho: “The trash that bluntly ridicules something it doesn’t understand, is no better than you would be in that case.”
Thanks all! It was certainly the first part of the sentence that I was struggling with. Think I have a much better idea now…
I heard Kris Kristofferson say that a person’s only as smart as the ground they stand on. I think that’s a short way of saying what Melbourne belabored.
The second part has been well explained by @janbb and @escapedone7. I’d like to restate the first part: ’‘You should never assume contempt for that which it is not very manifest that you have it in your power to possess”
Don’t sneer at things you yourself don’t have or couldn’t get.
This means not just someone else’s qualities (beauty, brains, strength) but their belongings (house, car, pool). As @stranger_in_a_strange_land notes, this is similar to the idea of “sour grapes.”
Don’t be hatin’.
Shut your pie hole if you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Before passing judgement, first walk a mile in the others shoes. The high heels make you look stupid and clumsy, jerk.
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