arrogance

Only God is in a position to look down upon someone.

Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose honest arrogance and have seen no occasion to change.

The author describes megalomania as seen in Chairman Mao by saying that what he was familiar with, he was really familiar with. This zeal moved the megalomaniac with a complete lack of appreciation for what he DID NOT know.

Sometimes the best virtue learned on the battlefield is modesty.

I should wish to see them very good friends, and would, on no account, authorize in my girls the smallest degree of arrogance towards their relations; but still they cannot be equals._ (10)

I overreacted to praise, signing an autograph. I'd write a check to buy it back.

All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance.

The peacock's plumage is its enemy: O many the king who hath been slain by his magnificence!

Deeply convinced of the reality of the divine will, he (Lincoln) had no patience at all with any who were perfectly sure they knew the details of the divine will.

Pride makes easy decisions hard. Humility makes hard decisions easy.

The greatest danger, of course, was to believe that I was equal to them, because assurance can morph into arrogance that Death loves to prove unfounded.

He was the sort of man who only wanted to be told what he already assumed was true.

His knowledge was deep, but his pride has grown with it.

Those that are too refined to be simple need to be refined again.

As with many tragedies, our story opens in a moment of triumph.

Richard Nixon's conversation was "loaded with so many stories of all the foreign dignitaries he'd called upon in his career that he sounded like a guy who had pinioned his neighbors into watching his vacation slides.

I like to introduce myself, because THEN I can get in all the facts." The usually self-deprecating John Hay on the ironic formality of signing his own commission as Secretary of State.

Folly is a child of power.