SOUR GRAPES • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Sour grapes

"Sour grapes" Quotes from Famous Books

... gratification, as when the boastful boy, after having his "conceit taken out of him" by his mates, boasts of his school, profession, town or country. This is often called "sublimation". Sometimes, though denied, it remains insistent, and "defense mechanisms" have to be devised to keep it down; the "sour grapes" mechanism is an example, which may be used not only when the "grapes" are physically out of reach but also when for any reason we decide to ...

— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... contemporaries that it is very rarely we can see anything that they do not see. It is not unjust that the sins of the fathers should be visited upon the children, for the children committed the sins when in the persons of their fathers; they ate the sour grapes before they were born: true, they have forgotten the pleasure now, but so has a man with a sick headache forgotten the pleasure of ...

— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler

... it, always having to prove it. The successes came, and always he let Paul know about them, watched Paul's face like a cat. And Paul would squirm, and sneer, and tell Dan that in the end it was brains that would pay off. Sour grapes, of course. If Paul had ever squared off to him again, man to man, they might have had it over with. But Paul just seemed content to sit and quietly ...

— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse

... "Sour grapes," whispered a pretty miss of sixteen to her elder sister, as they stood apart from the others and watched the effect ...

— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour

... Jiddah, which is the port of Mecca, and our nearest point to it," said the commander. "Though thousands of pilgrims are landed there every year on their way to obey the injunction of Mohammed, there is nothing there to see; and it is not a case of sour grapes." ...

— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic

Words linked to "Sour grapes" : derogation, depreciation, disparagement