"Self-righteousness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... descriptions of meals is clearly analogous to the abstinent man's absorption in wanton thoughts and erotic books. Finally, Nadia's conviction that she is a heroine corresponds exactly to the attitude of self-righteousness which often marks ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... 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 ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... Otherwise she would have been at the mercy of the people in the house. She knew that they disliked her, yet now that she was ill, they took it upon themselves to tap at her door, send her messages, books, even a miserable flower or two. Thea knew that their sympathy was an expression of self-righteousness, and she hated them for it. The divinity student, who was always whispering soft things to her, sent her "The ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... tender-hearted nor a humane man; had he been, he would have felt more sympathy than he did with the beginning of the great movement, with the strivings after reform which preceded it; he had, on the contrary, the sort of cold continuous rage, the ruthless self-righteousness and cut-and-dryness which would have made him, had he been a Frenchman, a terrorist of the most dreadful type; a regular routinist in extermination of corrupt people. Hence I cannot believe that, much as he may have been shocked by the news of the ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... his heart, and he may persuade himself that he is godly and righteous when he knows nothing about it.' 'Preaching in a certain place,' says Boston, 'after supper the mistress of the house told me how I had terrified God's people. This was by my doctrine of self-love, self-righteousness, self-ends, and such like. She restricted hypocrites to that sort that do all things to be seen of men, and harped much on this—how can one be a hypocrite who hates hypocrisy in other people? how can one be a hypocrite and not know it? All this led me to see the need of such doctrine.' ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... over all the blame; so, when the enemy signed the receipt of it, the rest were acquitted. And in that solemn farce the Allies found satisfaction! What a picture for posterity! And when they point and laugh, I shall be there with the rest. It's our self-righteousness has undone us, Tumulty; it's that which has made us blind and hard—and dishonest: for there has been dishonesty too. Because we were exacting reparations for a great wrong, we didn't mind being unjust to the wrongdoer. ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... shortcomings carefully and perfectly truthfully, as they appear to her, and with equal accuracy her blessings large and small. She sometimes includes her good deeds in the list, lest, I suppose, they should be forgotten in the record of the day. All the self-righteousness latent in human nature comes out, or used to, in her earlier days, in the evening revelations. Here is a specimen, taken at random from the first month's sheaf. She and the Imp had come to my room for their devotions, preternaturally pious, both of them, though quite unregenerate. ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... the banks of the river Malini, and surrounded it with gardens and groves, where penitential rites were performed, and animals were reared for sacrificial purposes, or for the amusement of the inmates. There is nothing new in asceticism. The craving after self-righteousness, and the desire of acquiring merit by self-mortification, is an innate principle of the human heart, and ineradicable even by Christianity. Witness the monastic institutions of the Romish Church, of which Indian penance-groves ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... we have said is sufficient to disprove the groundless assertion that the Catholic doctrine concerning the meritoriousness of good works derogates from the merits of Christ and fosters "self-righteousness." Would it not be far more derogatory to the honor of our Saviour to assume that He failed to obtain for those for whom He suffered and died, a limited capacity for gaining merits? Does it in any way impair the dignity of God ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... departed, the last carriage rolled away, when the servant ventured to indicate the existence of the despatch to his master, who was standing on the hearth-rug in an attitude of wearied self-righteousness. He took it, opened it, read it, re-read ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the reform element in general and on Curtis in particular, as "man-milliners," "carpet-knights of politics," "grasshoppers in the corner of a fence," and disciples of ladies' magazines with their "rancid, canting self-righteousness." ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... imperious call, to trouble Jimmy to the extent he had anticipated. It had been a bitter struggle during the first few days of his stay, but gradually he had fought the craving down, and now watched them across the dinner table at night with a calm which filled him with self-righteousness. On the other hand, he was uncomfortably alive to the fact that this triumph of his might be merely temporary. There the gems were, winking and beckoning to him across the table. At any moment——. When his thoughts arrived at this point, he would turn them—an effort was sometimes ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse
... pay them enough to live on!" The very fact that the words were spoken without any trace of rancor merely made this statement of indisputable truth obnoxious to the man, who was stung to more savage resentment in asserting his impugned self-righteousness. ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... Trask's self-righteousness was not pierced. "I sentenced her," he replied calmly, "for her soul's welfare. Who said—what right have you to assume—that she would have been left to lie there? Rather, did I not promise you in the market-square that, her chastening over, my cart should fetch her? Did I ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... smattering of things talked about, the tricks and turns of trained motions and emotions; but there was a difference. There was no pretence. There was none of the fire-proof self-complacency—Self-sufficiency, she had, but not self-righteousness. Then, most striking contra-distinction of all to the old-land culture, there was unconsciousness of self—face to sunlight, radiant of the joy of life, not anaemic and putrid of its own egoism. She didn't ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... brothers; but, convinced by them, remained in the colony, where he became a shining light. Thus it happened that both lines of my ancestry became involved in the mystic bonds of a faith which was shut off in a peculiar manner from all around them. The consequent isolation, I fear, made much for self-righteousness. In their eyes it was this observance which maintained continuity between the Christian church and the institutions imposed in Paradise, and therefore made them peculiarly the people of God. This amiable fanaticism, fervent without being uncharitable, interfered in no wise with the ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... than the stainlessness of inactivity; as the poet Spenser puts it, "Entire affection hateth nicer hands." And the emphasis upon freedom from taint of sin tends to produce a scorn of others who do not thus deny themselves, a self-righteousness and Pharisaism, a callousness to others, which distorts the judgment as well as dries ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake |
