arrogance

Their arrogance protected them against any liking for their fellow-man, against the slightest interest in the strangers sitting all about them, amidst whom M. de Stermaria adopted the manner one has in the buffet-car of a train, grim, hurried, stand-offish, brusque, fastidious and spiteful, surrounded by other passengers whom one has never seen before, whom one will never see again and towards whom the only conceivable way of behaving is to make sure that they keep away from one's cold chicken and stay out of one's chosen corner-seat.

No civilization, no matter how mighty it may appear to itself, is indestructible.

Since children from dysfunctional families are so good at judging others, they also judge themselves finding themselves unacceptable when compared to others, always assuming they are second best, not enough. This is a painful realization so often they hide behind righteous arrogance.

Coarseness occurs in a land where platitude inflames this sense of entitlement to more of almost everything, but less of manners and taste, with their irritating intimations of authority and hierarchy.

Feelings of superiority always stem from an illusion.

Arrogance is an illusion of superiority one perpetrates upon their self. Some may ultimately find their way through the illusion, but only after many losses.

A solid answer to everything is not necessary. Blurry concepts influence one to focus, but postulated clarity influences arrogance.

Why is it that crisis pushes me to my own devices when those devices are frequently the very things that produced my crisis in the first place?

Stupidity alone can sometimes be tolerable, but when you add arrogance to the mix, you then become a stupid bitch.

Nixon didn't mellow with his success, he became embittered by it.

Boys, tell your mother to shut her lying whore mouth before I shove the nearest apple down her throat.

...a great man who is vicious will only be a great doer of evil, and a rich man who is not liberal will be only a miserly beggar; for the possessor of wealth is not made happy by possessing it, but by spending it - and not by spending as he please but by knowing how to spend it well. To the poor gentleman there is no other way of showing that he is a gentleman than by virtue, by being affable, well-bred, courteous, gentle-mannered and helpful; not haughty, arrogant or censorious, but above all by being charitable...and no one who sees him adorned with the virtues I have mentioned, will fail to recognize and judge him, though he know him not, to be of good stock.

Arrogance makes you stronger from outside, but even more weaker from inside.

Evangelicals have squandered their cultural capital because they have tried to reclaim a standing in American culture that they never had. The American Founding was a mix of fragmented religious (and not-so-religious) voices.

Don't you know about the praying mantis that waved its arms angrily in front of an approaching carriage, unaware that they were incapable of stopping it? Such was the high opinion it had of its talents.

God's will can go fuck itself. And so can you.

People who use snark attacks confuse cleverness with cruelty.

Education makes your maths better, not necessarily your manners.