"Self-righteous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... granted that she is a scholar; you are aware of her intellectual gifts, I mean, only as you are aware of her breeding. The main impression she makes is one of full humanity, humanity at its best, humanity that is pure but not self-righteous, charitable but not sentimental, just but not hard, true but not mechanical in consistency, frank but not gushing. Out of all this come two things, the sense of two realisms, the realism of her political faith, and the realism of her religious faith. You are aware that she ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... then exposed them—an achievement in confused morals that has not been permitted to go unapplauded. There are those, of course, in every city who could think fondly and smugly of themselves as doing, in this way, preeminently the will of God; and such deeds not infrequently make men self-righteous. ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... the matter once and for all, definitely and right." She would marry Rodney Harrison, and they would live like sane human beings, comfortably, logically, merrily, and there would be no dope fiends with plucking fingers and no Fallen Sisters and self-righteous settlement workers and no drab days and drab ways in their ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... conspicuous in their clean-cut fairness among the younger instructors in the choir-seats behind the trustees on the platform. Bea had never liked Miss Whiton. It seemed to her now, as she studied the immobile face, that she had always recognized there a suggestion of the self-righteous Pharisee. There could be nothing but misunderstanding and antagonism between the possessor of such a countenance and Miss More with those eyes of hers, that nose and that mouth. Bea's labors over the classes in ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... can quote Scripture for his purpose; and the text of Scripture which he now most commonly quotes is, 'The kingdom of heaven is within you.' That text has been the stay and support of more Pharisees and prigs and self-righteous spiritual bullies than all the dogmas in creation; it has served to identify self-satisfaction with the peace that passes all understanding. And the text to be quoted in answer to it is that which declares that no man can ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... of society whose favour he courted. As his talents and industry gained him grace in the eyes of the dons of his college, so his good life and good understanding made him friends among the more worthy of his companions. He was conceited and self-righteous, but not ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... Master, their true forms concealed— For who so gross that such coarse hags could tempt?— But clothed instead in youthful beauty's grace. And now he saw him pass unmoved by lust, Nor yet with cold, self-righteous pride puffed up, But breathing pity from his inmost soul E'en for the ministers of ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... a plot against Valjean, appeals to the civil arm to protect the victim, but, for reasons which seem good to him, turns tail, breaks his arranged part, and is very nearly accessory to a murder. At the other end of the story, carrying out his general character of prig-pedant, as selfish as self-righteous, he meets Valjean's rather foolish and fantastic self-sacrifice with illiberal suspicion, and practically kills the poor old creature by separating him from Cosette. When the eclaircissement comes, it appears to me—as Mr. Carlyle said of Loyola that he ought to have consented to be damned—that ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... looked up as though from painful and puzzling reflection. "My dear Imogen," she said, "I think that you and Jack are rather self-righteous young people, far too prone to discussing yourselves. I think that you were a little inconsiderate; but Jack has no call to take up my defense or to express any opinion as to our relations. Of course you will do the Antigone, and of course, when he recovers his temper,—and I believe he has ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... passive dissatisfaction which attempts nothing of its own, and only finds fault with what is done by others, grows very fast if it is allowed to take hold, and produces a mental habit of merely destructive criticism or perpetual scolding. Safe in attempting nothing itself, unassailable and self-righteous as a Pharisee, this spirit can only pull down but not build up again. In children it is often the outcome of a little jealousy and want of personal courage; they can be helped to overcome it, but if it ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... Saratoga. All the public men ill. I hear that Toombs is indisposed. Sumner is in poor health. Douglas, the little giant, is losing strength. What a curious people, aged and young, corrupt and idealistic, candid and hypocritical, religious and materialistic, hoarders and spenders, self-righteous, licentious, Puritanical." "Like all ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... letter-obedience, a formal obedience to the vision you have. In one's own estimation, there may seem to be a knowledge of what is right, and a self-satisfied doing of it. There may be a painstaking attention to the forms of obedience, and a self-righteous content in doing the required things. Is this the underlying thought in Peter's self-complacent remark, "Lo, we have left all and followed Thee.[102] We're so much better than this rich young ruler who couldn't stand the test you put to him. ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... approaching nearly to black, and some have the broad distended nostrils of the negro. The Shereef said to me this afternoon, "I'm going to pray at the Marabout shrine; I go happily, I return happily." Our Shereef is a little self-righteous. ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... for the self-righteous moralists who puff themselves into a state of Jingo complacency over the failings of foreign nations, to declare with considerable unction that the domestic hearth, which every Frenchman habitually tramples upon, is maintained in unviolated ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 14, 1891. • Various
... years I had been a follower of strange gods, and a lover of this world and its vanities. I was self-righteous, and thought I had religion of my own which was better than that of the Bible. I did not know God, and did not serve him. Prayer was forgotten, public worship neglected; and worldly morality was the tree which brought forth its own ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... would not accept the truth he told them. They were a very proud and self-righteous people, and were not willing to be instructed in things they vainly believed they understood better than Jesus did. He called on them to repent of their sins. They denied their being sinners. He told them he was the Son of God, and that he came down from heaven. ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... cross, the grave. And believe me, such are His words now; though we do not hear Him, the heaven and the earth hear Him and obey Him. His message is pardon, mercy, deliverance to the sorrowful, and the oppressed, and the neglected; and to the proud, the tyrannical, the self-righteous, the hypocritical, tribulation ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... mistake the real nature of that very inability to believe of which you complain so sadly. For that inability does not lie, as you fancy it does, in the impossibility of your performing aright the great act of faith, but of ceasing from all such self-righteous attempts to perform any act, or do any work whatsoever in order to your being saved. So that the real truth is, that you have not yet seen such a sufficiency in the one great work of the Son of God upon the cross, as to lead you utterly to discontinue your mistaken ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... rehearsing all this and feeling very self-righteous while he drove down West Washington Street. True, he was doing twenty-five where he shouldn't, but so far no officer had yelled at him and he hadn't so much as barked a fender. Down across Grand Avenue he larruped, never noticing the terrific bounce when he crossed the ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... with such a rebuff, Patty felt very diffident about mentioning the matter to the remaining members of the class. She had no wish to be considered self-righteous and interfering, but, all the same, she thought she was bound to try and use her influence to set straight what was certainly a doubtful practice, and she meant to persist even at the risk of being called hard names. She found ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... The selfish and self-righteous texts come principally from the three first gospels, and are greatly counteracted by the deeper spirituality of the apostolic epistles. I therefore by no means charge this tendency ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... were to insult God. I could tell thee of that I have seen, where I do verily believe that pride, and naught else—that abominable sin that God hateth—kept His afflicted child up, and smirking with a false smile over the breaking heart; and no sooner was that self-righteous pride subdued, and the child brake forth into open sobbing,—crying, 'Father, Thy rod doth hurt, and I have been a fool!'—no sooner, I say, was this confession made, than God threw away His rod, and took His humbled child to His heart. ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... had the effect of taking the sails out of Ben West's self-righteous spirit, and he ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... The self-righteous man will never understand these things. Men and women of meagre natures, with whom love is a compact, not a passion, will vehemently disapprove them. People of smooth lives, ignorant of strong temptations, will refuse even to discuss them. Jesus was well aware ...
— The Empire of Love • W. J. Dawson
... devoted to teaching the few little ones who could be gathered together. Elsie and Jim were among the earliest pupils; Jim was actuated by an almost morbid craving for knowledge, and for Elsie anything novel had sufficient attraction. Mrs. McAravey, notwithstanding her self-righteous indignation when questioned by the clergyman, had in her heart a belief that religious instruction was the proper thing for children. She remembered the stern discipline of her own early years—not, indeed, ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare
... understand the difficult position of the orthodox Democrats, who two years before had voted against restricting the extension of slavery, and were now asked for the sake of the Union to support a Government which was actually abolishing slavery by martial law. Also the attitude of the thoroughly self-righteous partisan is perfectly usual. Many of Governor Seymour's utterances were fair enough, and much of his conduct was patriotic enough. His main proceedings can be briefly summarised. His election as Governor in the end of 1862 was regarded as an important event, the appearance of a new leader ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... be used to continue to them the enjoyment of those civil and religious Rights which were secured to them by the Capitulation or which have since been granted by the liberal and enlightened spirit of the British Government.' Except for its rather too self-righteous conclusion this confidential announcement really is an admirable statement of the 'liberal and enlightened' ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... of the Plea against the self-righteous abuse of the Sabbath are just and Christian, but do not affect the position of the Platform. The author also intersperses other useful practical remarks, which we have not have room to quote. The simple point of difference, of any moment, is that relating to the question whether ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... the worst of Tadpole! he is so self-righteous as to imagine he deserves praise for standing on his rights! He is but a dog, you ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... with sensations and ideas. However, it was the world surrounding the central motive, the action, that most engaged him; hardly a trait of generosity dignified it; and, exaggeratedly as a universal meanness and self-righteous cruelty was shown, it scarcely departed, he felt, from ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... since joined colony to colony all along the coast, and were already pushing across the mountains to occupy the great interior valleys. And with rapid material development there had come a confident and aggressive spirit, a proud and intractable temper, a certain self-righteous sense of separation from the Old World and its traditions. The very rivalries between colony and colony were the result of close contact and daily intercourse, their very jealousies born of interrelated interests and the ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... lip and brow of scorn, The worshiper of reason and of self, The atheist, wanton, and the giddy maid, The faith-betrayer and the love-betrayed; Self-righteous pharisees, who would adorn Or hide with pious ...
— Across the Sea and Other Poems. • Thomas S. Chard
... quite out of the question. I told you I was here for absolute rest. I couldn't think of preaching. Besides, it's against my principles to preach without remuneration. It's a wrong idea. The workman is worthy of his hire, you know, Mrs. Tanner, the Good Book says." Mr. West's tone took on a self-righteous inflection. ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... more fully to that of the fire and Holy Ghost, which was his baptism, who came with a fan in his hand, that he might thoroughly, and not in part only, purge his floor, and take away the dross and the tin of his people, and make a man finer than gold. Withal, they grew high, rough, and self-righteous; opposing further attainment; too much forgetting the day of their infancy and littleness, which gave them something of a real beauty; insomuch that many left them, and all visible churches and societies, and wandered up and down as sheep without a ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn
... is the equivalent of "Yahveh," or "Jahveh," now rendered "Jehovah," and signifies "The Self-existent One," "The Eternal," "The First and the Last."[865] Jewish traditionalism forbade the utterance of the sacred Name; yet Jesus claimed it as His own. In an orgy of self-righteous indignation, the Jews seized upon the stones that lay in the unfinished courts, and would have crushed their Lord, but the hour of His death had not yet come, and unseen of them He passed through the crowd and departed ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... quickly complimented Mr. World, "you must be a champion in the use of Bible truth. How can these bigots expect to stand when such Scripture condemns them? It will be a joyful time for all of us when these self-righteous critics shall have pulled the beams out of their eyes and be able to see us in our ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... whatever Lord Grey's mistakes in colonial policy, his long career shows him personally incorruptible, and in some ways almost pedantically high-minded. The charge must be put in another way. Grey was irritable, strong-willed, and inclined to self-righteousness. Nothing is easier than for a self-righteous man to confuse his wishes and his principles. It is probable that he came to feel that Mr Hawes's letter went further than was desirable. To the hot fit induced by Howe's eloquence succeeded cold shivers, which the great ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant |
