Quotes About Self-righteousness

When I began to talk with him, I could not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was thought wise by many, and still wiser by himself; and thereupon I tried to explain to him that he thought himself wise, but was not really wise; and the consequence was that he hated me, and his enmity was shared by several who were present and heard me.

Throughout history, whole societies that seemed stable have imploded when self-righteous narcissists, enflamed by insane ideologies, so threatened the larger population of the sane that soon everyone feared to stand against the violence, whereupon madness accelerated. No one seemed to remember the lessons of history—or cared to learn them.

No one's more dangerous than a man who's convinced of his own moral superiority.

I fear Monica's steeped in the juices of her own self-righteousness. She struggles to be good under her own power and ignores all the help made available to her through faith.

Evil people do tend to think they're the heroes of their own stories,

She threw great logs of 'I'm right, you're an unfeeling bastard' on to the fire and felt secure and comforted.

There's no one more obnoxious and self-righteous than the self-made man. And no one more admirable.

Now I was, as they said, become godly; now I was become a right honest man.  But oh! when I understood these were their words and opinions of me, it pleased me mighty well.  For, though as yet I was nothing but a poor painted hypocrite, yet, I loved to be talked of as one that was truly godly. 

The doctor's wife wasn't a bad woman. She was sufficiently convinced of her own importance to believe that God actually did watch everything she did and listen to everything she said, and she was too taken up with rooting out the pride she was prone to feeling in her own holiness to notice any other failings she might have had. She was a do-gooder, which means that all the ill she did, she did without realizing it.

Helmut thought himself above common morality. Or perhaps he thought he'd managed to create his own, different from ours, better.

Time are vulgar, I told myself in the prudish and bombastic tone of those who believe themselves to be exempt from the criticisms they throw at others.

Since [narcissists] deep down, feel themselves to be faultless, it is inevitable that when they are in conflict with the world they will invariably perceive the conflict as the world's fault. Since they must deny their own badness, they must perceive others as bad. They project their own evil onto the world. They never think of themselves as evil, on the other hand, they consequently see much evil in others.

It was madness that had killed Jenny Fields, his mother. It was extremism. It was self-righteous, fanatical, and monstrous self-pity. Kenny Truckenmiller was only a special kind of moron: a true believer who was also a thug. He was a man who pitied himself so blindly that he could make absolute enemies out of people who contributed only the ideas to his undoing. And how was an Ellen Jamesian any different? Was not her gesture as desperate, and as empty of an understanding of human complexity?

The defense mechanisms of The Imposter are: sarcasm, name-dropping, self-righteousness, the need to impress others and the need for others' approval.

Self-righteousness can feed upon doctrines—as well as upon works!

Mortification from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of a self-righteousness, is the soul and substance of all false religion in the world.

Mortification from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of a self-righteousness, is the soul and substance of all false religion in the world. And this is a second principle of my ensuing discourse.

She was the most interesting of the staffers he'd spoken to, because of the underlying self-righteousness, anger, spite . . . whatever. She wore it like a gown. He'd seen it often enough in government work, people who felt that they were better than their job, and better than those around them; a princess kidnapped by gypsies, and raised below her station.

We are all naturally self-righteous. It is the family disease of all the children of Adam.

Self-righteousness and self-pity both lead to self-destruction.

Why do we act as though our sin disqualifies us from the grace of God? That is the only thing that qualifies us! Anything else is a self-righteous attempt to earn God's grace. You cannot trust God's grace 99 percent. It's all or nothing. The problem, as I pointed out earlier, is that we want partial credit for our salvation. We want to be 1 percent of the equation. But if we try to save ourselves, we forfeit the salvation that comes from Jesus Christ alone, by grace through faith.

I have been the Pharisee tsk-tsking those who don't do things my/God's way. Not serving Jesus, but rather standing on His back to reach the high cookie jar so that I can serve myself.

A Pharisee is one who wants to get the right formula and do it right and fix everything and feel very wonderful.

Sinful attempts to control may come from a lust for power or from unsuccessful attempts to correct problem situations. Underneath sinful attempts to control or manipulate is the deadliest sin of all: pride. It is pride that puts self, self's interests, desires, plans, and ideas first. It is often the self-righteous pride of thinking that self knows what is best.