#Arrogance

"I have been called arrogant myself in my time, and hope to earn the title again, but to claim that I am privy to the secrets of the universe and its creator - that's beyond my conceit."

"You never really learn much from hearing yourself speak."

"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."

"Those who travel to mountain-tops are half in love with themselves, and half in love with oblivion."

"The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is the pretense of intelligent ignorance. The former is teachable; the latter is not."

"It is the certainty that they possess the truth that makes men cruel."

"Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose the former and have seen no reason to change."

"There were long stretches of DNA in between genes that didn't seem to be doing very much; some even referred to these as "junk DNA,"though a certain amount of hubris was required for anyone to call any part of the genome "junk,"given our level of ignorance."

"Ah! how little knowledge does a man acquire in his life. He gathers it up like water, but like water it runs between his fingers, and yet, if his hands be but wet as though with dew, behold a generation of fools call out, 'See, he is a wise man!' Is it not so?"

"I have met some highly intelligent believers, but history has no record to say that [s]he knew or understood the mind of god. Yet this is precisely the qualification which the godly must claim—so modestly and so humbly—to possess. It is time to withdraw our 'respect' from such fantastic claims, all of them aimed at the exertion of power over other humans in the real and material world."

"I suppose that one reason I have always detested religion is its sly tendency to insinuate the idea that the universe is designed with 'you' in mind or, even worse, that there is a divine plan into which one fits whether one knows it or not. This kind of modesty is too arrogant for me."

"I don't know how many of you have ever met Dijkstra, but you probably know that arrogance in computer science is measured in nano-Dijkstras."

"It's much easier on the emotions when one sees life as an experiment rather than a struggle for popularity."

"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."

"The biggest challenge after success is shutting up about it."

"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."[Preface to Brissot's Address to His Constituents (1794)]"

"When we look for success, it should be for the sole purpose of boasting sincerely in Christ. There's no other reason for it. Success is only worth it when the more intense it gets for you, the more you find yourself bragging for his glory rather than your own."

"He was one of those young men who possess an impressive store of facts, but no truths."

"You can't let the truth bring out the worst and let it get the best of you."

"Knowledge is as infinite as the universe. The man who claims to know all only reveals to all that he really knows nothing."