Conceit Quotes - Page 8

• Failure is really a matter of conceit. People don't work hard because, in their conceit, they imagine they'll succeed without ever making an effort. Most people believe that they'll wake up some day and find themselves rich. Actually, they've got it half right, because eventually they do wake up.

  Thomas A. Edison

  Believe, Hard Work, People

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• Have compassion for everyone you meet, even if they don't want it. What seems conceit, bad manners, or cynicism is a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen. You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone.

  Miller Williams

  War, Eye, Compassion

  Miller Williams (1997). “The Ways We Touch: Poems”, p.55, University of Illinois Press

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• When you go to church you are really listening-in to the secret wireless from out friends: that is why the enemy is so anxious to prevent us from going. He does it by playing on our conceit and laziness and intellectual snobbery.

  C. S. Lewis

  Intellectual, Secret, Listening

  C. S. Lewis (2010). “A Year with C. S. Lewis: 365 Daily Readings from his Classic Works”, HarperCollins UK

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• I was not really angry: I felt for him all the time, and longed to be reconciled; but I determined he should make the first advances, or at least show some signs of an humble and contrite spirit, first; for, if I began, it would only minister to his self-conceit, increase his arrogance, and quite destroy the lesson I wanted to give him.

  Anne Bronte

  Humble, Self, Giving

  Anne Bronte (2006). “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall”, p.270, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• I thought at the time that I couldn't be horrified anymore, or wounded. I suppose that's a common conceit, that you've already been so damaged that damage itself, in its totality, makes you safe.

  Lionel Shriver

  Safe, Damage, Common

  Lionel Shriver (2011). “We Need to Talk about Kevin”, p.7, Counterpoint Press

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• The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility...According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere flea bites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.

  C. S. Lewis

  Christian, Teacher, Inspiration

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• 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.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Atheist, Pride, Secret

  Christopher Hitchens (2009). “Letters to a Young Contrarian”, p.57, Basic Books

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• Neither man nor woman can be worth anything until they have discovered that they are fools. wThis is the first step towards becoming either estimable or agreeable; and until it be taken there is no hope. wThe sooner the discovery is made the better, as there is more time and power for taking advantage of it. Sometimes the great truth is found out too late to apply to it any effectual remedy.w Sometimes it is never found at all; and these form the desperate and inveterate causes of folly, self-conceit, and impertinence.

  William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne

  Time, Truth, Taken

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• The belief that we can manage the Earth and improve on Nature is probably the ultimate expression of human conceit, but it has deep roots in the past and is almost universal.

  Rene Dubos

  Nature, Past, Expression

  "The Wooing of the Earth". Book by René Dubos, 1980.

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• The idea that human kind can shape the world according to wish is what I call the fatal conceit

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Ideas, Wish, Shapes

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• Probably the only people left who think that economics deserves a Nobel Prize are economists. It confirms their conceit that they're doing 'science' rather than the less tidy task of observing the world and trying to make sense of it. This, after all, is done by mere historians, political scientists, anthropologists, sociologists, and (heaven forbid) even journalists. Economists are loath to admit that they belong in such raffish company.

  Robert J. Samuelson

  Thinking, People, Heaven

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• There are two kinds of pride, both good and bad. 'Good pride' represents our dignity and self-respect. 'Bad pride' is the deadly sin of superiority that reeks of conceit and arrogance.

  John C. Maxwell

  Leadership, Self Esteem, Pride

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• Happiness doesn't lie in conspicuous consumption and the relentless amassing of useless crap. Happiness lies in the person sitting beside you and your ability to talk to them. Happiness is clear-headed human interaction and empathy. Happiness is home. And home is not a house-home is a mythological conceit. It is a state of mind. A place of communion and unconditional love. It is where, when you cross its threshold, you finally feel at peace.

  Dennis Lehane

  Lying, Home, Unconditional Love

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• How many thorns of human nature - hard, sharp, lifeless protuberances that tear and wound us, narrow prejudices, bristling conceits that repel and disgust us - are arrested developments, calcified tendencies, buds of promise that should have lifted a branch up into the sunny day with fruit; and flowers to delight the heart of men, but now all grown hard, petrified, for want of culture and a congenial soil and climate.

  John Burroughs

  Flower, Heart, Men

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• One may desire a spurious respect and precedence among one's fellow monks, and the veneration of outsiders. "Both monks and laity should think it was my doing. They should accept my authority in all matters great or small." This is a fool's way of thinking. His self-seeking and conceit just increase.

  Gautama Buddha

  Buddhist, Humility, Pride

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• I cannot avoid condemning all those who, from self-conceit have the pretension to imitate great artists of the past. If their powers of emotion be weak, their powers of expression will be likewise.

  Jean-Georges Noverre

  Artist, Past, Self

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• If you want to conquer lust for wealth, love selflessness and sparing way of life. If you want to conquer anger, develop meekness and generosity. Grieve only if you have committed a sin, but even in this case do not grieve too much, otherwise you may become desperate. If you want to conquer conceit, do not desire praise, laurels, nice garments, respect, favor, but like to be blamed and slandered by people... If you want to conquer pride, do not say that your deed was done by your hands and might; say that with God's help and guidance it was done, not by my power and efforts.

  Vladimir Aleksandrovich Antonov

  Life, Nice, Pride

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• There is perhaps no better a demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.

  Carl Sagan

  Space, Earth Day, Tiny

  Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.29, Ballantine Books

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• Death makes me realize how deeply I have internalized the agnosticism I preach in all my books. I consider dogmatic belief and dogmatic denial very childish forms of conceit in a world of infinitely whirling complexity. None of us can see enough from one corner of space-time to know "all" about the rest of space-time.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Faith, Book, Space

  Robert Anton Wilson (2002). “Tsog: The Thing That Ate the Constitution”

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• The difference between self-confidence and conceit is as simple as love and fear. Jesus was self-confident ... Hitler was afraid.

  Bill Crawford

  Jesus, Self Confidence, Simple

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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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