familiarity breeds contempt

Cf. [St. Augustine Scala Paradisi 8 (Migne 40, col. 1001)] vulgare proverbium est, quod nimia familiaritas parit contemptum, it is a common proverb, that too much familiarity breeds contempt.

Men seyn that ‘over-greet hoomlynesse [familiarity] engendreth dispreisynge’.
[c 1386 Chaucer Tale of Melibee l. 1685]

Hys specyall frendes counsailled him to beware, least his ouermuche familiaritie myght breade him contempte.
[1539 R. Taverner Garden of Wisdom ii. 4^V]

With base and sordid natures familiarity breeds contempt.
[1654 T. Fuller Comment on Ruth 176]

Perhaps, if I heard Tennyson talking every day, I shouldn't read Tennyson. Familiarity does breed contempt.
[1869 Trollope He knew He was Right ii. lvi.]

We say‥Familiarity breeds contempt. ‥That is only partly true. It has taken some races of men thousands of years to become contemptuous of the moon.
[1928 D. H. Lawrence Phoenix II (1968) 598]

What's that saying about familiarity breeding contempt? By now, [Daniel] Snyder doesn't seem to think much of any of them.
[2002 Washington Times 12 Jan. A11]

Related to: familiarity

Bibliography of major proverb collections and works cited from modern editions is available here.

Long experience of someone or something can make one so aware of the faults as to be scornful. For example, Ten years at the same job and now he hates it--familiarity breeds contempt. The idea is much older, but the first recorded use of this expression was in Chaucer's Tale of Melibee (c. 1386).