Conceit Quotes - Page 11

• The first Degree of Folly, is to conceit one's self wise; the second to profess it; the third to despise Counsel.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Wise, Self, Firsts

  Benjamin Franklin (2013). “Poor Richard's Almanack”, p.96, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• Thus when we fondly flatter our desires, Our best conceits do prove the greatest liars.

  Michael Drayton

  Liars, Desire, Prove

  'The Barrons' Wars' (1603) canto 6, st. 94

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• Conceit is a disease That the doctors got no cure They've done a lot of research on it But what it is, they're still not sure.

  Evan Esar

  Doctors, Done, Research

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• A great deal of what passes by the name of patriotism in these days consists of the merest bigotry and narrow-mindedness; exhibiting itself in national prejudice, national conceit, and national hatred. It does not show itself in deeds, but in boastings--in howlings, gesticulations, and shrieking helplessly for help--in flying flags and singing songs--and in perpetual grinding at the hurdy-gurdy of long-dead grievances and long-remedied wrongs. To be infested by such a patriotism as this is perhaps among the greatest curses that can befall any country.

  Samuel Smiles

  Country, Song, Names

  Samuel Smiles (1872). “Character”, p.27

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• Being carefree, you can fit in anywhere. If you’re not carefree you keep on bumping up against things. Your life becomes so narrow, so tight; it gets very claustrophobic. Carefree means being wide open from within, not constricted. Carefree doesn’t mean careless. It is not that you don’t care about others, not that you don’t have compassion or are unfriendly. Carefree is being really simple, from the inside. Dignity is not conceit but rather what shines forth from this carefree confidence.

  Tsoknyi Rinpoche

  Mean, Simple, Compassion

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• From my point of view, a great deal of openly expressed piety is insufferable conceit.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Views, Point Of View, Deals

  "The Past Through Tomorrow" by Robert A. Heinlein, G. P. Putnam Inc., (p. 431), 1967.

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• What mortal is there of us, who would find his satisfaction enhanced by an opportunity of comparing the picture he presents to himself of his doings, with the picture they make on the mental retina of his neighbours? We are poor plants buoyed up by the air-vessels of our own conceit.

  George Eliot

  Opportunity, Air, Satisfaction

  George Eliot (1858). “Scenes of Clerical Life”, p.24

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• As children must have the hooping cough, the college youth must pass through the stage of conceit in which he holds in slight esteem the wisdom of the best.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Children, College, Youth

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• There's a whole lot of people in trouble tonight From the disease of conceit Whole lot of people seeing double tonight From the disease of conceit Give ya delusions of grandeur And a evil eye Give you the idea that You're too good to die Then they bury you from your head to your feet From the disease of conceit

  Bob Dylan

  Eye, Ideas, Feet

  Bob Dylan (2013). “Lyrics:1962-2012”, p.535, Simon and Schuster

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• Mead's anthropology had many other red, white and blue- blooded virtues. One was the common anthropological conceit, out of which she made a career, to the effect that the ultimate value of studying other cultures was the use we could make of them to reconstruct our own - a heady kind of intellectual imperialism, as if the final meaning of others' lives was their significance for us.

  Margaret Mead

  Blue, Other Cultures, Careers

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• Some people', Miss R. said,'run to conceits or wisdom but I hold to the hard, brown, nutlike word. I might point out that there is enough aesthetic excitement here to satisfy anyone but a damned fool.

  Donald Barthelme

  Running, People, Missing

  1968 Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts,'The Indian Uprising'.

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• As when on some secluded branch in forest far and wide sits perched an owl, who, full of self-conceit and self-created wisdom, explains, comments, condemns, ordains and order things not understood, yet full of importance still holds forth to stocks and stones around - so sits and scribbles Mike.

  Michael Faraday

  Self, Order, Owl

  Bence Jones, Michael Faraday (2010). “The Life and Letters of Faraday”, p.68, Cambridge University Press

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• Conceit is an insuperable obstacle to all progress. On the other hand, it is of little use to take criticism in a slavish spirit and to act on it without understanding it.

  Ellen Terry

  Hands, Understanding, Criticism

  Dame Ellen Terry (1908). “The Story of My Life: Recollections and Reflections”

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• Curiously enough, while very small people have a never-failing sense of their own importance, very great ones are often easily disheartened and put out of conceit with themselves.

  Elizabeth Wordsworth

  People, Failing, Enough

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• Oh how swiftly the glory of the world passes away! If only the lives of these men had been as admirable as their learning, their study and reading would have been to good purpose! But how many in this world care little for the service of God, and perish in their vain learning. Because they choose to be great rather than humble, they perish in their own conceit.

  Thomas a Kempis

  Reading, Humble, Men

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• O, when I am safe in my sylvan home,
  I mock at the pride of Greece and Rome;
  And when I am stretch'd beneath the pines
  When the evening star so holy shines,
  I laugh at the lore and pride of man,
  At the Sophist's schools, and the learned clan;
  For what are they all in their high conceit,
  When man in the bush with God may meet?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Country, Stars, Home

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• Some to conceit alone their taste confine,
  And glittering thoughts struck out at ev'ry line;
  Pleas'd with a work where nothing's just or fit;
  One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit.

  Alexander Pope

  Lines, Taste, Chaos

  Alexander Pope (1711). “An Essay on Criticism”, p.18

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• The skeptic, being a lover of his kind, desires to cure by speech, as best he can, the self-conceit and rashness of the dogmatists.

  Sextus Empiricus

  Self, Desire, Speech

  Sextus (Empiricus.) (1933). “Sextus Empiricus”, Loeb Classical Library

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• The generality of friends puts us out of conceit with friendship; just as the generality of religious people puts us out of conceit with religion.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Friends, Religious, People

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• Much of the research on the Nazi era makes a science out of distancing oneself from it or conjuring its demons. The conceit is that people were monsters then - as if they were completely different from people today.

  Gotz Aly

  People, Monsters, Different

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• The best of lessons, for a good many people, would be to listen at a keyhole. It is a pity for such that the practice is dishonorable.

  Sophie Swetchine

  Practice, People, Good Man

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• I am in no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardize of company, yet in one dream I can compose a whole Comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof.

  Thomas Browne

  Dream, Laughing, Way

  Sir Thomas Browne (1844). “Religio Medici. Its sequel, Christian Morals ... With resemblant passages from Cowper's Task, and a verbal index. [Edited by John Peace.]”, p.121

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• Self-love is better than any gilding to make that seem gorgeous wherein ourselves be parties.

  Philip Sidney

  Party, Love Is, Self

  Sir Philip Sidney (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Sir Philip Sidney (Illustrated)”, Delphi Classics

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• The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it... He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that...in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it.

  Adam Smith

  Wise, Men, Hands

  "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" by Adam Smith, (Section II, Chap. II), 1759.

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• There is simple ignorance, which is the source of lighter offenses, and double ignorance, which is accompanied by a conceit of wisdom.

  Aristotle

  Ignorance, Simple, Source

  Socrates, Plato, Aristotle (1967). “Wit and Wisdom of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle: Being a Treasury of Thousands of Glorious, Inspiring and Imperishable Thoughts, Views and Observations of the Three Great Greek Philosophers, Classified Under about Four Hundred Subjects for Comparative Study”

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