be disagreeable

Picking up a feminist text or reading the history of how the vaccine was developed means giving your brain lots of exercise, some which can be disagreeable as previous assumptions get questioned and cognitive dissonance is suffered.

“Being an art critic is one of the few professions in which one is actually paid for one’s eccentricity, and paid to be disagreeable,” he once told the New York Times.

Goldsmith tells us, that when lovely woman stoops to folly, she has nothing to do but to die; and when she stoops to be disagreeable, it is equally to be recommended as a clearer of ill-fame.

“Nothing very bad.—The fate of thousands. She will be disagreeable in infancy, and correct herself as she grows older. I am losing all my bitterness against spoilt children, my dearest Emma. I, who am owing all my happiness to you, would not it be horrible ingratitude in me to be severe on them?”

“Now, Handel, I am quite free from the flavour of sour grapes, upon my soul and honour! Not being bound to her, can you not detach yourself from her?—I told you I should be disagreeable.”