Quotes About Arrogance

A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don't have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.

In the sane world, criminals could be negotiated with, threatened, bought off. For the most part they were rational folks just suffering from poor impulse control, arrogance or lack of moral rectitude. In an insane world, what was negotiable, threatening, legal tender? Where monsters be, monsters' rules are law and only the monster knows what they are.

From long experience she knew that she wore her loneliness like armor. Very few people ever recognized it for what it was. To the casual observer it looked very much like arrogance. Sometimes it was.

This was what Napoleon had never understood

The more overtly unshakeable someone's beliefs are, the more diminished they seem to become, because they have stopped questioning, and the not-questioning can sometimes be accompanied by an attitude of moral superiority. The belligerent dogmatism of the current cultural moment is a case in point. A bit of humility wouldn't go astray.

Most people who are inexplicably confident despite being talentless and more than a little stupid have warm, affectionate parents.

I believe in the power of origins, a belief that, as Ecclesiastes put it, 'that wich is done is that wich shall be done: and there is no new thing under de sun'; that we claim as originality and discovery are nothing but the airs and delusios of our innocence, ignorance, and arrogance: that whatever is said was said better - more powerfully, beautifully, and purely, long ago

Modern history is the dialogue between two men: one who believes in God, another who believes he is a god.

The so highly acclaimed "dominion of man over nature" turned out to be merely an enormous capability to kill.

There is something definitively vile about the man who only admits equals, who does not tirelessly seek out his betters.

Das widerlichste und groteskeste der Schauspiele ist das der Überlegenheit des lebenden Professors über das tote Genie.

In general, "historical necessity" turns out to be merely a name for human stupidity.

The intellectual irritates the civilized man, just as the adolescent irritates the adult, not because of the audacity of his bright ideas but because of the triviality of his arrogance.

The American is not intolerable because he believes he is important individually, but because he possesses, insofar as he is an American, the solution to every problem.

Toda sociedade que se crê senhora de sua história, que se sente segura de seus propósitos, convicta da excelência de seus princípios e persuadida de possuir a verdade, tiraniza e oprime.

Not intelligence but vanity reproaches "intellectual isolation".

Humanity is the only totally false god.

Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l'admire. (A fool always finds a greater fool to admire him.)

Greatest fools are oft most satisfied.

A fool always finds one still more foolish to admire him.

Einstein, stop telling God what to do!

show me someone not full of herself and i'll show you a hungry person

When it comes to curbing speech, experience thus confirms the general rule in human affairs: humility is to be preferred over arrogance.

Los Pilotos tienen un concepto muy exagerado de su propia importancia, pensó D'mahl. ¿Y en qué los convierte eso? - Tres... dos... uno... En seres humanos.