"Self-righteousness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... surface-scratchings of the heart soil there had sprung up a mixed growth in which the tares of self-righteousness began presently to overtop the good grain of humility. One must not be too exacting. If the world were not all good, neither was it all bad; at all events, it was the part of wisdom to make the magnanimous best of it, and to ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... the unlovely character of those who profess to be inside? Analyze, as a study in temper, the thunder-cloud itself as it gathers upon the Elder Brother's brow. What is it made of? Jealousy, anger, pride, uncharity, cruelty, self-righteousness, touchiness, doggedness, sullenness—these are the ingredients of this dark and loveless soul. In varying proportions, also, these are the ingredients of all ill temper. Judge if such sins of the disposition are not worse to live ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various
... most infatuated idiot cannot spend his life admiring himself, the less innocent excitement of punishing other people for not admiring him, and the nosing out of the sins of the people who, being intelligent enough to be incapable of mere dull self-righteousness, and highly susceptible to the beauty and interest of the real workings of the Holy Ghost, try to live more rational and abundant lives. The abominable amusement of terrifying children with threats of hell is another of these diversions, and perhaps the vilest and most mischievous of them. The ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... over defenceless weakness; in which they could not hate and persecute, and torture, and exterminate; in which they could not trade, and speculate, and over-reach, and entrap the unwary and cheat the confiding and gamble and thrive, and sniff with self-righteousness at the short-comings of others, and thank God that they were not like other men? What, to immense numbers of men, would be the value of a Heaven where they could not lie and libel, and ply base ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... essential fact from the broadly social point of view. We should recognize it only to the extent that is necessary to give us control over it—not allow it to hold us helplessly in its grip because we cannot separate it from the idea of sexual indiscretion. There is a form of narrow-minded self-righteousness about these things that sets the stamp of vice on innocent and guilty alike simply on the strength of the sexual transmission of syphilis. In the effort to avoid so mistaken and heartless a view, we cannot remind ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... company once more at the Globe, we turn a new page in Jonson's career. Despite his many real virtues, if there is one feature more than any other that distinguishes Jonson, it is his arrogance; and to this may be added his self-righteousness, especially under criticism or satire. "Every Man Out of His Humour" is the first of three "comical satires" which Jonson contributed to what Dekker called the 'poetomachia' or war of the theatres as recent ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... from the use of a symbol that prejudice has led us to think peculiarly unsuited to our faith, have been unconsciously living with it constantly before our eyes. But the days of puritan folly and puritan vice (there is nothing more vicious than self-righteousness, and the want of charity it engenders) are numbered, and men are beginning to distinguish between the exaggerations of fanaticism and the meek toleration of pure Christianity. I can safely say that the lowest, the most degraded, ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... sort of people, nor a saint like my noble mother and my friend Mrs. Willoughby") that he staggered as he thought of what he was now by the part he was acting. Dishonest, cruel, unjust—he, Reginald Gower; was it possible? Ah! his self-righteousness, his boasted uprightness, had both been put to the test and ...
— Little Frida - A Tale of the Black Forest • Anonymous
... made Mr. Britling a perplexity to many who judged only by the old personal standards. At times he seemed a monster of cantankerous self-righteousness, whom nobody could please or satisfy, but indeed when he was most pitiless about the faults of his race or nation he was really reproaching himself, and when he seemed more egotistical and introspective and self-centred he was really ransacking himself for a clue to that same confusion ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... What right then have we to condemn any fellow-creature for his sins, when we break just as important laws in some other direction? It's common hypocrisy to say, 'We never could have done this terrible thing!' and draw our mantle of self-righteousness closely about us lest it become contaminated. Perhaps we couldn't! Why? Because our temptations do not happen to lie in that particular direction, that's all! But we are all law-breakers; not one keeps the Ten Commandments to the letter—not one! Attack us on ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... brethren, is this the fact? Think you that the Christian goes home at night counting up the noble deeds done during the day, saying to himself, "Well done, good and faithful servant?" Brethren, that habit of looking forwards to the future prevents all pride and self-righteousness, and makes our best and only rest and satisfaction to consist in contemplating the future which is bringing us nearer and nearer home. Our motto, therefore, must be that striking one of the Apostle ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... eastern city of forty thousand inhabitants; and a lady came and asked us to pray for her husband, whom she purposed bringing into the after meeting. I have traveled a good deal and met many pharisaical men; but this man was so clad in self-righteousness that you could not get the point of the needle of conviction in anywhere. I said to his wife: "I am glad to see your faith; but we cannot get near him; he is the most self-righteous man I ever saw." She said: "You must! ...
— The Way to God and How to Find It • Dwight Moody
... broken, and turkeys will be eaten on Christmas Day. Men will die of disease, violence, famine and old age, and others will be born to take their place. Intellectuals will be pretentious—mules solemnly trying to look like Derby winners. There will be a considerable amount of lying, injustice, and self-righteousness. Dogs will be fairly decent, but some of them will bite. Above all, the human conscience will survive. It will survive. It will continue to be the old still, small voice we know—as still and as small as it is possible to be without ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... proclaimed the rights of the people. The prevalence of mobs; the entrance of the unfranchised populace, by means of "body" meetings and mass meetings, into the political arena; the leveling principles and the smug self-righteousness of the patriot politicians;—all this led many a conservative to consider whether his interest were not more threatened by the insurgence of radicalism in America than by the alleged oppression of British legislation. Boston is indeed ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... Satan-ruled man and God is one of method; whether it shall be one of self-righteousness and character building: or one of bestowed righteousness and character by the fruit of the Spirit. Will man try to save himself: or humbly submit to being saved by Another? Will he try to conform himself to what little he knows to ...
— Satan • Lewis Sperry Chafer
... unintentionally, the short story is a great factor for good. The world is weary of the bald sermons of the Puritans, and of their endeavor to "point a tale" by every ordinary occurrence; it is rather inclined to a Pharisaical self-righteousness; and needs to have its sins, and the practical benefits of goodness, cunningly insinuated; but it can never fail to admire and strive to emulate the noble deeds of noble men, whether creatures of flesh or phantoms of the brain. To be sure, many of our best short stories ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... 30th. I believe I sincerely desire that no spurious self-satisfaction may be mistaken for the peace of God, that no activity in works of self-righteousness may be mistaken for doing the day's work in the day. Oh, who can tell the snares that surround me? Yet I have been comforted this morning, in thinking of the declaration, "His mercies are over-all his works;" which I believe may be very especially applied to the work of His Spirit in the ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... general and ordinary method of entering the kingdom. Hereupon, when the disciples asked: "Lo! we have forsaken all, and followed thee: what shall we have therefore?" Jesus, instead of rebuking their self-righteousness, promised them as a reward, that they should sit upon twelve[5] thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. A precept thus systematically enforced, is illustrated by the practice, not only of the twelve, but apparently of the seventy, and what ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... another powerful blow to the self-righteousness of the Pharisaical "good" people of the sects, creeds and cults of all lands, time and religions. He warns against that "Thank God! I am holier than thou" attitude that so many vain formalists affect in their dealings with other men. In these immortal words Jesus has sent ringing ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka |
