Familiarity breeds contempt essay 1500 words

But familiarity does not generally breed contempt. Familiarity actually breeds fondness and affection. We generally fear the unknown and the personally unfamiliar (e.g. unfamiliar foods, unfamiliar ethnicities, unfamiliar cultures) hence we tend to like and stick to what we know i.e. what's personally familiar to us.

Familiarity breeds contempt is an old adage that means the better you know someone or something, the more likely you are to find fault with that person or thing and feel hostility or hatred towards them or it, or to begin devaluing them or it. Although proverbs are common sayings that impart advice and share universal truths, and the wisdom offered about human nature by this particular proverb may often be true, it won't necessarily always be the case that familiarity causes contempt.

In general, the phrase “familiarity breeds contempt” means that the more people know about each other, the more they dislike each other. Basically, the longer people know each other, the longer they will see the flaws in each other; this could lead to resentment.

Familiarity breeds complacency . Don't let your success of today lay you into complacency for tomorrow. For that is the worst form of failure. I hate to see complacency prevail in our lives when it's so directly contrary to the teaching of Christ. It's not a very big step from contentment to complacency.