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Quotations about hubris
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
The arrogance of some Christians would close heaven to them if, to their misfortune, it existed.
Talent is God-given; be humble. Fame is man-given; be thankful. Conceit is self-given; be careful.
Everybody thought, “this time is different.” In my view, those are the most frightening words in the English language. If you look at the crises that have infected the world, the term, “this time, it’s different” has almost always been the hubris that comes before nemesis.
Andrew Crockett (1943-2012) British banker, economist, author, public servant
Speech, Pomona College, Claremont, Calif. (Apr 2009)
(Source)
Referring to the period leading up to the 2008 financial crisis.
Ambition is only vanity ennobled.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget — lest we forget!
We are the highest achievement reached so far by the great constructors of evolution. We are their “latest” but certainly not their last word. The scientist must not regard anything as absolute, not even the laws of pure reason. He must remain aware of the great fact, discovered by Heraclitus, that nothing whatever really remains the same even for one moment, but that everything is perpetually changing. To regard man, the most ephemeral and rapidly evolving of all species, as the final and unsurpassable achievement of creation, especially at his present-day particularly dangerous and disagreeable stage of development, is certainly the most arrogant and dangerous of all untenable doctrines.
Konrad Lorenz (1903-1989) Austrian zoologist, ethologist, ornithologist
On Aggression, ch. 12 “On the Virtue of Scientific Humility” (1963)
(Source)
It’s said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That’s false, tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance, it was done by dogma, it was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.
Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves.
Emily Brontë (1818-1848) British novelist, poet [pseud. Ellis Bell]
Wuthering Heights, ch. 7 (1847) [Nelly Dean]
(Source)
At its core, therefore, science is a form of arrogance control.
There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves.
Back then I wanted to be right about my estimate of my abilities. Now I want to be wrong.
BADGER: You think you’re better than other people!
MAL: Just the ones I’m better than.
The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they’ve found it.
When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting, too ….
We have two classes of forecasters: those who don’t know and those who know they don’t know.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
(Attributed)
Variants:
- There are two classes of people who tell what is going to happen in the future: Those who don't know, and those who don't know they don't know.
- You can divide the world into those who don't know and those who don't know they don't know.
- There are those who don't know, and there are those who don't know they don't know.
- We have two kinds of forecasters: Those who don't know ... and those who don't know they don't know.
- There are two kinds of economists: those who don't know the future, and those who don't know they don't know.
BENDIS: We’re gonna die.
MAL: We’re not gonna die. We can’t die, Bendis. You know why? Because we are so — very — pretty. We are just too pretty for God to let us die.
Righteousness cannot be born until self-righteousness is dead.
There is no great invention, from fire to flying, which has not been hailed as an insult to some god.
J.B.S. Haldane (1892-1964) English geneticist [John Burden Sanderson Haldane]
“Daedalus, or Science and the Future,” speech, Cambridge (24 Feb 1923)
(Source)
I regret nothing, says arrogance; I will regret nothing, says inexperience.
Only bad writers think that their work is really good.
Anne Enright (b. 1962) Irish writer
In “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian (20 Feb 2010)
(Source)
Self-love is often rather arrogant than blind; it does not hide our faults from ourselves, but persuades us that they escape the notice of others.
Every nation, like every individual, walks in a vain show — else it could not live with itself — but I never got over the wonder of a people who, having extirpated the aboriginals of their continent more completely than any modern race had ever done, honestly believed that they were a godly little New England community, setting examples to brutal mankind.
Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.
The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us.
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.
[Wer es unternimmt, auf dem Gebiet der Wahrheit und der Erkenntnis als Autoritat aufzutreten, scheitert am Gelachter der Gotter.]
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-American physicist
“Neun Aphorismen” (23 May 1953)
(Source)
In Essays Presented to Leo Baeck on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday (publ. 1954). Also quoted from the 1977 ed. of Mein Weltbild (1949). Essays also sometimes cited 1952.Alternate translation: "He who endeavors to present himself as an authority in matters of truth and cognition, will be wrecked by the laughter of the gods."
ALBANY: Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well.