Leo Tolstoy
Novelist, Philosopher
"An arrogant person considers himself perfect. This is the chief harm of arrogance. It interferes with a person's main task in life—becoming a better person."
Arrogance quotes
Arrogance
367 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Simone de Beauvoir
Philosopher, Writer
"No one is more arrogant toward women, more aggressive or scornful, than the man who is anxious about his virility."
Sun Tzu
Military Strategist
"All warfare is based on deception. Therefore, when capable, feign incapacity; when active, inactivity. When near, make it appear that you are far away; when far away, that you are to lure him; feign disorder and strike him. When he concentrates, prepare against him; where he is strong, avoid him. Anger his general and confuse him. Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance."
Bob Herbert
Journalist, Author
"There are few things more dangerous than a mixture of power, arrogance and incompetence."
Stephen Jay Gould
Paleontologist, Evolutionary Biologist
"The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos."
Explore further
Topics related to Arrogance
Browse quotes that often appear alongside arrogance — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Arrogance quotes (page 1 of 19)
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"Arrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to us than the arrogance of those without merit: for merit itself is offensive."
Read quote
51 likes
"Confidence is believing in yourself. Arrogance is telling others youre better than they are. Confidence inspires. Arrogance destroys."
Read quote
39 likes
"The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false."
Read quote
38 likes
"The worst kind of arrogance is arrogance from ignorance."
Read quote
38 likes
"When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken."
Read quote
34 likes
"The place where God has supremely destroyed all human arrogance and pretension is the cross."
Read quote
29 likes
"Manga is virtual. Manga is sentiment. Manga is resistance. Manga is bizarre. Manga is pathos. Manga is destruction. Manga is arrogance. Manga is love. Manga is kitsch. Manga is sense of wonder. Manga is … there is no conclusion yet."
Read quote
29 likes
"Love created this world, & the lack of it can kill it. Selfishness, self-absorption , arrogance & indifference never built anything."
Read quote
27 likes
"In life, as on the stage, it's not who I am but what I do that's the measure of my worth and the secret of my success. All the rest is showiness, arrogance and conceit."
Read quote
25 likes
"The offspring of riches: Pride, vanity, ostentation, arrogance, tyranny"
Read quote
24 likes
"Trouble arises when either science or religion claims universal jurisdiction, when either religious dogma or scientific dogma claims to be infallible. Religious creationists and scientific materialists are equally dogmatic and insensitive. By their arrogance they bring both science and religion into disrepute."
Read quote
23 likes
"The dull, purblind folly of the very rich men, their greed and arrogance, and the corruption in business and politics, have tended to produce a very unhealthy condition."
Read quote
20 likes
"Arrogance is, as it were, a solicitation on the part of one seeking honor for followers, whom he thinks he is entitled to treat with contempt."
Read quote
19 likes
"Arrogance really comes from insecurity, and in the end our feeling that we are bigger than others is really the flip side of our feeling that we are smaller than others."
Read quote
18 likes
"Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance."
Read quote
17 likes
"Arrogance is one of the flaws in the Erudite heart -- I know. It is often in mine."
Read quote
16 likes
"It's only arrogance if you're wrong."
Read quote
16 likes
"Conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of patriotism."
Read quote
15 likes
"Accomplish but do not boast, accomplish without show, accomplish without arrogance, accomplish without grabbing, accomplish without forcing."
Read quote
15 likes
"I say half jokingly that photography is the most difficult of the arts. It does require a certain arrogance to see and to choose. I feel myself walking on a tightrope instead of on the ground."
Read quote
14 likes