#arrogance

I have been called arrogant myself in my time, and hope to earn the title again, but to claim that I am privy to the secrets of the universe and its creator — that's beyond my conceit. I therefore have no choice but to find something suspect even in the humblest believer. Even the most humane and compassionate of the monotheisms and polytheisms are complicit in this quiet and irrational authoritarianism: they proclaim us, in Fulke Greville's unforgettable line, "Created sick — Commanded to be well." And there are totalitarian insinuations to back this up if its appeal should fail. Christians, for example, declare me redeemed by a human sacrifice that occurred thousands of years before I was born. I didn't ask for it, and would willingly have foregone it, but there it is: I'm claimed and saved whether I wish it or not. And if I refuse the unsolicited gift? Well, there are still some vague mutterings about an eternity of torment for my ingratitude. That is somewhat worse than a Big Brother state, because there could be no hope of its eventually passing away. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#authoritarianism #religion #religion

People who worship only themselves get a slick, polished look -- like monuments. Too bad they had to go so soon. ↗

— Vanna Bonta

#celebrity #hubris #quote #self-importance #vanity

Arrogance and ignorance go hand in hand. ↗

— Metallica

#arrogance

He realized...that the loudest are the least sincere, that arrogance is a quality of the ignorant, and that flatterers tend to be vicious. ↗

— Isabel Allende

#arrogance

If arrogance were shoes, he'd never go barefoot. ↗

— Tamora Pierce

#raoul-of-goldenlake #squire #tamora-pierce #arrogance

That is not my car!” “Correction. You used to drive a falling apart Toyota. B.A.” Had his lips just brushed her hair? She shivered. And though she knew better than to ask, she did it anyway. “Okay. You got me. What’s B.A.?” “Before. Adam. After Adam, you drive a BMW. I take care of what is mine. That Toyota wasn’t safe.” Figured that arrogant beast would define himself as the dawning of an epoch. “I’m not yours. It was too, and you can’t just go around stealing.” “I didn’t, and I filled out the paperwork myself. ↗

— Karen Marie Moning

#arrogance

You touch me again, you arrogant Ardenine swine, and I swear on the blood of Hanalea the warrior, I will geld you. Do you understand? ↗

— Cinda Williams Chima

#raisa #strength #arrogance

Put that in your self-righteous pipe and smoke it!!!. ↗

— R. Alan Woods

#presumptousness #r-alan-woods #self-righteousness #r-alan-woods

Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance. ↗

— Sun Tzu

#encourage #his #inferiority #pretend

A medical man likes to make psychological observations, and sometimes in the pursuit of such studies is too easily tempted into momentous prophecy which life and death easily set at nought. ↗

— George Eliot

#humility #physician #psychology #death