Self-importance Quotes - Page 2

• Glory consists of two parts: the one in setting too great a value upon ourselves, and the other in setting too little a value upon others.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Two, Littles, Glory

  Michel de Montaigne (2015). “Montaigne's Essays: Top Essays”, p.668, 谷月社

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• Man desires to be free and he desires to feel important. This places him in a dilemma, for the more he emancipates himself from necessity the less important he feels.

  W. H. Auden

  Men, Important, Desire

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• We all wish to be of importance in one way or another. The child coughs with might and main, since it has no other claim on the company.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Children, Wish, Might

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1969). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VII: 1838-1842”, p.171, Harvard University Press

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• One of the things that characterizes good intellectual work is a certain self-importance

  Whitfield Diffie

  Self, Intellectual, Certain

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• Man errs not that he deems His welfare his true aim, He errs because he dreams The world does but exist that welfare to bestow.

  Matthew Arnold

  Dream, Men, Doe

  Matthew Arnold (2013). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold (Illustrated)”, p.97, Delphi Classics

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• Sigmund Freud often remarked that great revolutions in the history of science have but one common, and ironic, feature: they knock human arrogance off one pedestal after another of our previous conviction about our own self-importance.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Self, Arrogance, Ironic

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• I must play my role, great or small - that is humility, without self-importance, without self-indulgence.

  Frederick Lenz

  Humility, Buddhism, Self

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• It is the common failing of an ambitious mind to over-rate itself.

  Lady Caroline Lamb

  Mind, Ambitious, Common

  Lady Caroline Lamb (1972). “Glenarvon (1816).”, Scholars Facsimilies & Reprint

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• Humility does not mean believing oneself to be inferior, but to be freed from self-importance. It is a state of natural simplicity which is in harmony with our true nature and allows us to taste the freshness of the present moment.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Wisdom, Believe, Mean

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• I can maintain my sense of the sacredness of existence only by understanding my own limitations and losing my self-importance.

  Jim Harrison

  Self, Understanding, Losing

  Jim Harrison (2007). “Off to the Side: A Memoir”, p.127, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• It is possible to move through the drama of our lives without believing so earnestly in the character that we play. That we take ourselves so seriously, that we are so absurdly important in our own minds, is a problem for us. We feel justified in being annoyed with everything. We feel justified in denigrating ourselves or in feeling that we are more clever than other people. Self-importance hurts us, limiting us to the narrow world of our likes and dislikes. We end up bored to death with ourselves and our world. We end up never satisfied.

  Pema Chodron

  Hurt, Clever, Drama

  Pema Chodron (2002). “The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times”, p.25, Shambhala Publications

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• I just think it's good to be confident. If I'm not on my team why should anybody else be?

  Robert Downey, Jr.

  Confidence, Self Esteem, Team

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• Truth, acceptance of the truth, is a shattering experience. It shatters the binding shroud of culture trance. It rips apart smugness, arrogance, superiority, and self-importance. It requires acknowledgment of responsibility for the nature and quality of each of our own lives, our own inner lives as well as the life of the world. Truth, inwardly accepted, humbling truth, makes one vulnerable. You can't be right, self-righteous, and truthful at the same time.

  Paula Gunn Allen

  Truth, Rip, Responsibility

  Paula Gunn Allen (1998). “Off the Reservation: Reflections on Boundary-busting Border-crossing Loose Canons”, Boston, Mass. : Beacon Press

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• Oh Lord, give us a sense of humor with courage to manifest it forth, so that we may laugh to shame the pomps, the vanities, the sense of self-importance of the Big Fellows that the world sometimes sends among us, and who try to take our peace away.

  Sean O'Casey

  Humor, Vanity, Self

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• The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.

  Richard Francis Burton

  Death, Religious, Atheist

  "The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night". Book by John Payne, Terminal Essay: Social Conditions, fn. 13., 1885.

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• If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments.

  Earl Wilson

  Inspirational, Funny, Motivational

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• The first person I ever cared deeply and sincerely about was - myself.

  Louella Parsons

  Firsts, Sincerely, Persons

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• Rare indeed is the nature that does not become a little more intense when its own affairs come under discussion.

  Alice Duer Miller

  Doe, Littles, Affair

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• It is the cult of self that is killing the United States. This cult has within it the classic traits of psychopaths: superficial charm, grandiosity and self-importance ; a need for constant stimulation; a penchant for lying, deception and manipulation; and the incapacity for remorse or guilt.

  Chris Hedges

  Lying, Self, Deception

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• Humour breaks down boundaries, it topples our self-importance, it connects people, and because it engages and entertains, it ultimately enlightens.

  John Agard

  Self, People, Enlightening

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• The power of mistakes enables us to reframe creative blocks and turn them around...The troublesome parts of our work, the parts that are most baffling and frustrating, are in fact the growing edges. We see these opportunities the instant we drop our preconceptions and our self-importance.

  Stephen Nachmanovitch

  Block, Mistake, Creativity

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• Good leadership is pervasive, persuasive, and persistent. Bad leadership is poisoned with pedanticism, posturing, self-importance.

  Marcia Whicker

  Leadership, Self, Good Leader

  Marcia Lynn Whicker (1996). “Toxic leaders: when organizations go bad”, Praeger Publishers

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• Enveloped in a common mist, we seem to walk in clearness ourselves, and behold only the mist that enshrouds others.

  George Eliot

  Common, Mist, Walks

  George Eliot (189?). “The Spanish gypsy”

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• There are some films that arrive here from the international festival circuit almost incandescent with self-importance. They hover into the cinema in a kind of floating trance at how challenging and moving they are. They are films with a profound reluctance to get over themselves. They look up at the sceptical observer with the saucer-eyed saintliness of a baby seal in culling season, or a charity mugger smilingly wishing a nice day on the retreating back of a passer-by. One such is Babel.

  Peter Bradshaw

  Baby, Nice, Moving

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• Too much self-regard has never struck me as dignified: trying to twist over my shoulder to view my own behind.

  Marge Piercy

  Self, Views, Trying

  Marge Piercy (2013). “Braided Lives”, p.6, PM Press

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