Quotes about pride

This laudable quality is commonly known by the name of Manners and Good-breeding, and consists in a Fashionable Habit, acquir'd by Precept and Example, of flattering the Pride and Selfishness of others, and concealing our own with Judgment and Dexterity.

It is visible then that it was not any Heathen Religion or other Idolatrous Superstition, that first put Man upon crossing his Appetites and subduing his dearest Inclinations, but the skilful Management of wary Politicians; and the nearer we search into human Nature, the more we shall be convinced, that the Moral Virtues are the Political Offspring which Flattery begot upon Pride.

He had only imagined a slower fighting style from an unconscious assumption that man in the past were weaker or slower or less imaginative than he was, as a modern man.

Marek knew this assumption of superiority was a difficulty faced by every historian. He just hadn’t thought he was guilty of it.

But clearly, he was.

Weeds sprouted in spaces where once-important people had proclaimed that their presumptions were imperishable.

Seeker laughed. “You are so—well, human. You always think you are the ultimate.”

“And…we’re not.”

Seeker inspected the ceiling. “It seems unlikely.”

Hubris. They disliked questions unless there were clear answers. They believed so much in their method that they conjured up certainty out of undeniable risk.

The prospect of outsized profits leads people to exaggerate their own capabilities. In their minds. They pretend to themselves that they are in control of events where perhaps they are not. And it is always one's stance upon uncertain ground that invites the attentions of one's enemies. Or discourages it.

Remark of Dr. Baldwin's, concerning upstarts: We don't care to eat toadstools that think they are truffles.

Behind the confident ego's feeling of and continuing need for superiority is the unconscious fear of inferiority.

If you, dear reader, are looking a this across some great gulf of time and increase of knowledge, spare me your condescension. You too were young once, and ignorant once, and from a future standpoint—perhaps your own—you are young and ignorant still.

I could have kicked myself for the snob and the cad that my thoughts had proven me—me, who had always prided myself that I was neither the one nor the other!

All the human beings I met were either sure that there would be no afterlife or else that they would get preferential treatment in the hereafter.