#inferiority

We like to stress the commonness of heroes. Essences seem undemocratic. We feel oppressed by the call to greatness. We regard an interest in glory or perfection as a sign of mental unhealthiness, and have decided that high achievers, who are called overachievers, owe their surplus ambition to a defect in mothering (either too little or too much). We want to admire but think we have a right not to be intimidated. We dislike feeling inferior to an ideal. So away with ideals, with essences. The only ideals allowed are healthy ones -- those everyone may aspire to, or comfortably imagine oneself possessing. ↗

— Susan Sontag

#ambition #democracy #egalitarianism #equality #essence

In essence, you are neither inferior nor superior to anyone. True self-esteem and true humility arise out of that realization. In the eyes of the ego, self-esteem and humility are contradictory. In truth, they are one and the same. ↗

— Eckhart Tolle

#inferiority #self-esteem #superiority #truth #truth-telling

There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain. ↗

— Samuel Johnson

#benefits #gratitude #impatient #inferiority #minds

A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority. ↗

— Samuel Johnson

#been #conscious #inferiority #italy #man

The supposed inferiority of a constructed language to a national one on the score of richness of connotation is, of course, no criticism of the idea of a constructed language. ↗

— Edward Sapir

#constructed #course #criticism #idea #inferiority

I can think of no one that my grandparents knew, that told me stories and that I experienced myself, had any sense of social inferiority growing up in segregated Washington. None whatsoever. ↗

— Ed Smith

#experienced #grandparents #growing #growing up #had

The barrier during self-improvement is not so much that we hate learning, rather we hate being taught. To learn entails that the knowledge was achieved on one's own accord - it feels great - but to be taught often leaves a feeling of inferiority. Thus it takes a bit of determination and a lot of humility in order for one to fully develop. ↗

— Criss Jami

#barrier #determination #development #feelings #help

The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creatures that cannot. ↗

— Mark Twain

#man #recovery #right #wisdom #wrong

The question of whether one alleges the Superiority or Inferiority of any given race is irrelevant; racism has only one psychological root: the racist's sense of his own Inferiority. ↗

— Ayn Rand

#psychological #racism #racism

Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance. ↗

— Sun Tzu

#encourage #his #inferiority #pretend