#pride

When he gets to his pew and looks round him he sees just that selection of his neighbors whom he has hitherto avoided. You want to lean pretty heavily on those neighbors. Make his mind flit to and fro between an expression like 'the body of Christ' and the actual faces in the next pew. It matters very little, of course, what kind of people that next pew really contains. You may know one of them to be a great warrior on the Enemy's side. No matter. Your patient, thanks to Our Father Below, is a fool. Provided that any of those neighbors sing out of tune, or have boots that squeak, or double chins, or odd clothes, the patient will quite easily believe that their religion must therefore be somehow ridiculous." ... "Work hard, then, on the disappointment or anticlimax which is certainly coming to the patient during his first few weeks as a churchman." ... "I have been hitherto writing on the assumption that the people in the next pew afford no rational ground for disappointment. Of course if they do-- if the patient knows that the woman with the absurd hat is a fanatical bridgeplayer or the man with the squeaky boots a miser and an extortioner-- then your task is so much the easier. All you then have to do is to keep out of his mind the question 'If I, being what I am, can consider that I am in some sense a Christian, why should the different vices of those people in the next pew prove that their religion is mere hypocrisy and convention?' You may ask whether it is possible to keep such an obvious thought from occurring even to a human mind. It is Wormwood, it is! ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#church #faith #pride #faith

One question in my mind, which I hardly dare mention in public, is whether patriotism has, overall, been a force for good or evil in the world. Patriotism is rampant in war and there are some good things about it. Just as self-respect and pride bring out the best in an individual, pride in family, pride in teammates, pride in hometown bring out the best in groups of people. War brings out the kind of pride in country that encourages its citizens in the direction of excellence and it encourages them to be ready to die for it. At no time do people work so well together to achieve the same goal as they do in wartime. Maybe that's enough to make patriotism eligible to be considered a virtue. If only I could get out of my mind the most patriotic people who ever lived, the Nazi Germans. ↗

— Andy Rooney

#nazi #patriotism #pride #virtue #war

I'm fully aware that 'Doctor Who' will always, always be part of my life, and that's not something I would run away from in the slightest. I wear it with pride, definitely. ↗

— Freema Agyeman

#aware #away #definitely #doctor #fully

Despite what people think of cowboys, they take pride in how they look, and that look is important to them. ↗

— Steve Kanaly

#despite #how #important #look #people

If one takes pride in one's craft, you won't let a good thing die. Risking it through not pushing hard enough is not a humility. ↗

— Paul Keating

#craft #die #enough #good #good thing

Really, it's only been since the '70s that Canadians have had any pride in their country. ↗

— Dave Foley

#been #canadians #country #had #only

It wasn't a class system where I was the better guy and he was the second-rate guy. That was his role and my role was to play the solos. But he took great pride in his technique as a rhythm guitarist. ↗

— Wayne Kramer

#class #great #great pride #guitarist #guy

And so ended his affection," said Elizabeth impatiently. "There has been many a one, I fancy, overcome in the same way. I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!" "I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love," said Darcy. ↗

— Jane Austen

#pride-and-prejudice #food

Spiritual literature can be a great aid to an aspirant, or it can be a terrible hindrance. If it is used to inspire practice, motivate compassion, ad nourish devotion, it serves a very valuable purpose. If scriptural study is used for mere intellectual understanding, for pride of accomplishment, or as a substitute for actual practice, then one is taking in too much mental food, which is sure to result in intellectual indigestion. (152) ↗

— Prem Prakash

#compassion #devotion #inspiration #intellectual #knowledge

We are fans because the game also appeals to our local pride, our pleasure in thinking of ourselves as, yes, Americans but nonetheless different from residents of other towns, other states, other regions. ↗

— John Thorn

#appeals #because #different #fans #game