Superiority Quotes - Page 10

• The classical scholars have kept alive the tradition of the superiority of the ancient languages -- a kaleidoscopic mass of suffixes and prefixes, supposed to represent an infinite shading of meaning. It is a character they share with the Ojibway and the Zulu.

  Stephen Leacock

  Character, Alive, Language

  Stephen Leacock, Gerald Lynch (2002). “Leacock on Life”, p.49, University of Toronto Press

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• Whoever gives advice to the sick gains a sense of superiority over them, no matter whether his advice is accepted or rejected. That is why sick people who are sensitive and proud hate their advisors even more than their illnesses.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Hate, People, Giving

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• Never yield to that temptation, which, to most young men, is very strong, of exposing other people's weaknesses and infirmities, for the sake either of diverting the company, or of showing your own superiority. You may get the laugh on your side by it for the present; but you will make enemies by it for ever; and even those who laugh with you then, will, upon reflection, fear, and consequently hate you.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Strong, Hate, Reflection

  Lord Chesterfield, David Roberts (2008). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.93, Oxford University Press

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• We like to know the weakness of eminent persons; it consoles us for our inferiority.

  Anne-Therese de Marguenat de Courcelles

  Weakness, Inferiority, Persons

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• There is no such thing as human superiority.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Humans

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• A dog can bite you but you must not bite the dog! Your every movement in life must be peaceful; otherwise you lose your ethical superiority! Nonviolent civil disobedience is a genius; no power can beat it; use it when necessary!

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Life, Dog, Peaceful

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• Such a superiority do the pursuits of literature possess above every other occupation, that even he who attains but a mediocrity in them, merits the pre-eminence above those that excel the most in the common and vulgar professions.

  David Hume

  Mediocrity, Literature, Occupation

  David Hume (1782). “The History of England, from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution of 1688”, p.197

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• There is a kind of grandeur and respect which the meanest and most insignificant part of mankind endeavor to procure in the little circle of their friends and acquaintance. The poorest mechanic, nay, the man who lives upon common alms, gets him his set of admirers, and delights in that superiority which he enjoys over those who are in some respects beneath him. This ambition, which is natural to the soul of man, might, methinks, receive a very happy turn; and, if it were rightly directed, contribute as much to a person's advantage, as it generally does to his uneasiness and disquiet.

  Joseph Addison

  Ambition, Men, Circles

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1819). “The Spectator”, p.20

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• When a man loses superiority, he loses potency. That's what all this talk about castrating women is about. Castrating women are those who refuse to pretend men are better than they are and better than women are. The simple truth - that men are only equal - can undermine a culture more devastatingly than any bomb. Subversion is telling the truth.

  Marilyn French

  Simple, Men, Culture

  Marilyn French (2011). “The Women's Room”, p.267, Hachette UK

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• every generation has a conceit of itself which elevates it, in its own opinion, above that which comes after it.

  Margaret Oliphant

  Generations, Opinion, Conceit

  Margaret Oliphant (2015). “Delphi Works of Margaret Oliphant with Complete Stories of the Seen and Unseen”, p.7470, Delphi Classics

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• As one might expect in a society with mass communications and mass markets, the pseudo-ethic says that whatever is popular, is right. Where the traditional ethic derives its sanction from the superiority of a few, the pseudo-ethic derives its sanction from the inferiority of a great many. The pseudo-ethic is keyed, not to the spiritually gifted, but to the spiritually ungifted.

  Margaret Halsey

  Communication, Culture, Inferiority

  Margaret Halsey (1964). “The Corrupted Giant: A Speculation on American Politics and Morals”

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• It is commonly a dangerous thing for a man to have more sense than his neighbors. Socrates paid for his superiority with his life; and if Aristotle saved his skin, it was by taking to his heels in time.

  Christoph Martin Wieland

  Men, Skins, Neighbor

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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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• Talents give a man a superiority far more agreeable than that which proceeds from riches, birth, or employments, which are all external. Talents constitute our very essence.

  Charles Rollin

  Men, Essence, Giving

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• Apollo 11 will probably go down in history as one of the major responses of two nations facing each other with threatening technologies - sometimes called mutually assured destruction. It was also the America's response to the apparent superiority of the Russians in putting objects into space before USA could.

  Buzz Aldrin

  Technology, Two Nations, Usa

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• It's remarkable - most remarkable, the way these people manage, from time to time, a tragedy or a near-tragedy to break the even tenor of their ways,' said Mr. Tingley, in a tone of half-humorous superiority, by which he considered that he distinguished himself, subtly and inoffensively, from 'these people.

  Martha Ostenso

  Humorous, People, Tragedy

  Martha Ostenso (1926). “The Dark Dawn”, New York : Dodd, Mead

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• It goes without saying that only inner greatness possess a true value ("une valeur véritable,", Fr.) . Any attempt to rise up (or at rising up, - "s'élever", Fr.) outwardly above others, or to want (or wish) to impose one's superiority, denote a lack of moral greatness, since we do not try to replace ("suppléer", Fr.) in that way (.... in French "par là", Fr.) to what, if we did really possess it, would have no need whatsoever to flaunt itself.

  African Spir

  Greatness, Rising Up, What If

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• We who are placed above the crowd are not climbing ... so we are never out of breath.

  Marie of Romania

  Climbing, Crowds, Breaths

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• The man has a curious inborn conviction of his own superiority which is quite unshakeable. All his life he has bullied and browbeaten those around him by his high-and-mightiness and his atrocious temper. As a boy he terrorized his entire family by his tantrums, when, if thwarted, he would throw himself on the floor and yell till he went blue in the face. It has been much the same ever since. Everyone's terrified of his rages. He has only to start grinding his teeth, and people fall flat before him.

  Anna Kavan

  Fall, Boys, Men

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• It is incumbent on us diligently to remember that the kingdom of heaven was promised to the poor in spirit, and that minds afflicted by calamity and the contempt of mankind cheerfully listen to the divine promise of future happiness; while, on the contrary, the fortunate are satisfied with the possession of this world; and the wise abuse in doubt and dispute their vain superiority of reason and knowledge.

  Edward Gibbon

  Wise, History, Heaven

  Edward Gibbon (1854). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.217

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• The most successful of the Tartar princes assumed the military command, to which he was entitled by the superiority either of merit or of power. He was raised to the throne by the acclamations of his equals; and the title of Khan expresses, in the language of the North of Asia, the full extent of the regal dignity. The right of hereditary succession was long confined to the blood of the founder of the monarchy; and at this moment all the Khans, who reign from Crimea to the wall of China, are the lineal descendants of the renowned Zingis.

  Edward Gibbon

  Wall, Military, Successful

  Edward Gibbon (2015). “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire V2: the History Focus”, p.354, 谷月社

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• The superiority...enjoyed by nations that have...perfected a branch of industry, constitutes a...formidable obstacle.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Branches, Obstacles, Formidable

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• In spite of Death, the mark and seal of the parental control, Man is yet free, during his brief years, to examine, to criticise, to know, and in imagination to create. To him alone, in the world with which he is acquainted, this freedom belongs; and in this lies his superiority to the resistless forces that control his outward life.

  Bertrand Russell

  Lying, Men, Years

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “Mysticism and Logic”, p.75, Bertrand Russell

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• As for borrowing Mr. Whistler's ideas about art, the only thoroughly original ideas I have heard him express have had reference to his own superiority as a painter over painters greater than himself.

  Oscar Wilde

  Art, Ideas, Entertainment

  Quoted in Truth, Jan. 1890

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• Spike Lee made such a difference in terms of black filmmakers, the subtleties - those authors, those writers who write from love, and those who write from that lofty position of superiority.I felt he took aspects of the black experience in America and held it up for us to see. He tried to put it in perspective. He did put it in perspective in his unique way.

  Ruby Dee

  Writing, Unique, Differences

  Source: www.npr.org

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