quotations about conceit
Those who are talentless themselves are the first to talk about the conceit of others; for mediocrity bears but one flower--ENVY.
CHARLES WILLIAM DAY
The Maxims
Conceited people tend to display all kinds of prejudices, which are again their way of pointing out how superior they are. However, the showdown comes when a conceited person meets with a serious setback. That is when he is apt to have a nervous breakdown, because it seems his whole world is crushing down on him. He has built such a narrow structure for his own personality that he has no broad base of inner security to fall back on.
FRANK SAMUEL CAPRIO & FRANCES SPATZ LEIGHTON
How to Avoid a Nervous Breakdown
Conceit is lovable and unconcealed ; vanity is supreme selfishness, usually hidden.
MYRTLE REED
The Spinster Book
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Hamlet
Talk about conceit as much as you like, it is to human character what salt is to the ocean; it keeps it sweet and renders it endurable. Say rather it is like the natural unguent of the sea-fowl's plumage, which enables him to shed the rain that falls on him and the waves in which he dips. When one has had all his conceit taken out of him, when he has lost all his illusions, his feathers will soon soak through, and he will fly no more.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes and His Works
No matter the self-conceited importance of our labors we are all compost for worlds we cannot yet imagine.
DAVID WHYTE
Consolations
Just because you're beautiful and perfect, it's made you conceited.
WILLIAM GOLDMAN
The Princess Bride
Humility does not mean that conceit doesn't arise in the mind; it means that conceit is met with the wisdom of not taking the inflation personally. Usually when we are feeling inflated and conceited, we believe the ego's insistence that we are better or worse than others. Humility is a practice that allows us to override that insistence and arrive at a wise relationship to the ego. It takes constant vigilance, because the mind is constantly creating (and attempting to give permanence to) a self out of that aspect of our experience that we call ego, constantly creating conceit.
NOAH LEVINE
The Heart of the Revolution
Conceit is just as natural a thing to human minds as a center is to a circle.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
From Day to Day with Holmes
Conceit is an insuperable obstacle to all progress. On the other hand, it is of little use to take criticism in a slavish spirit and to act on it without understanding it.
ELLEN TERRY
The Story of My Life
I've seen many conceited people in my time, and I've always believed that the more someone thinks of himself on the outside, the less that he actually thinks of himself on the inside.
DAN BAEL
Common Sense for the Common Man
We measure everything by ourselves with almost a necessary conceit.
DEJAN STOJANOVIC
The Sun Watches the Sun
Conceit is a disease
That the doctors got no cure
They’ve done a lot of research on it
But what it is, they’re still not sure.
BOB DYLAN
Disease of Conceit
Be not wise in your own conceits.
BIBLE
Romans 12:16
By focusing on the trivial or superficial, conceited people do not distinguish between features for which they have responsibility and those with which they merely happened to be born. They base much of their self-esteem on characteristics that are beyond their control rather than on the results of their own efforts.
GROLIER EDUCATIONAL CORPORATION
Ethics and Values: Volume 2
Conceit grows as naturally as the hair on one's head, but it takes longer to come out.
THOMAS C. HALIBURTON
attributed, 20,000 Quips & Quotes
There are some who conceit themselves very learned whilst they know nothing, or very wise and clever while they are exposing themselves to perpetual ridicule for their folly, or very handsome while the world calls them plain, or very peaceable while they are always quarrelling with their neighbors, or very humble whilst they are tenaciously stickling for their own; it would be well if such conceits afforded a harmless pleasure to their authors, but unfortunately they only render them more offensive and disgusting than they would otherwise be.
G. CRABB
attributed, Day's Collacon
He was so conceited that he wore his mirrored sunglasses backwards.
MARY ANN MADDEN
New York Magazine, February 16, 1981
Self-conceit is a most dangerous shelf
Where many have made shipwreck unawares;
He who doth trust too much unto himself
Can never fail to fall in many snares.
EARL OF STIRLING
attributed, Treasury of Wisdom
Conceited people are never without a certain degree of harmless satisfaction, wherewith to flavor the waters of life.
MME. DELUZY
attributed, Day's Collacon