"Self-righteous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in a self-righteous spirit, for the thought in his heart was, "It is only the grace of God that maketh us to differ; and with the same heredity, and like surroundings and influences I might have been even a greater criminal than they;" but he found ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley
... her intellect, but rather by the force of her humanity. You take it for granted that she is a scholar; you are aware of her intellectual gifts, I mean, only as you are aware of her breeding. The main impression she makes is one of full humanity, humanity at its best, humanity that is pure but not self-righteous, charitable but not sentimental, just but not hard, true but not mechanical in consistency, frank but not gushing. Out of all this come two things, the sense of two realisms, the realism of her political faith, and the realism of her religious faith. You are aware that she feels the sufferings ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... your last letter, some allusion to religion, I didn't quite like, and at any other time I would have written you a sermon on the subject. In Calcutta (where I felt so self-righteous) nothing would have prevented me—but now I haven't the spirit. Mark, please, how the whirligig of Time brings its revenges! In Calcutta I thought myself a saint, in Takai I am regarded as a Brand Unplucked. It is rather dispiriting. I am beginning to wonder ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... sensations and ideas. However, it was the world surrounding the central motive, the action, that most engaged him; hardly a trait of generosity dignified it; and, exaggeratedly as a universal meanness and self-righteous cruelty was shown, it scarcely departed, he felt, from ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... during her brief visit when her face was very sad, but no doubt her predominant feeling escaped her in regard to the criticism quoted from somebody on Jerry Hollowell's methods and motives. "People are becoming very self-righteous," she said. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... though we do not hear Him, the heaven and the earth hear Him and obey Him. His message is pardon, mercy, deliverance to the sorrowful, and the oppressed, and the neglected; and to the proud, the tyrannical, the self-righteous, the hypocritical, tribulation ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... also a sprinkling of those unfortunate outcasts of society—tramps and destitute, drunken loafers. If the self-righteous hypocrites who despise these poor wretches had been subjected to the same conditions, the majority of them would inevitably have become ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... with such a rebuff, Patty felt very diffident about mentioning the matter to the remaining members of the class. She had no wish to be considered self-righteous and interfering, but, all the same, she thought she was bound to try and use her influence to set straight what was certainly a doubtful practice, and she meant to persist even at the risk of being called hard ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... also remarked in the beginning that there often come to our people arrogant and self-righteous persons, who say "the Lutheran Church has no religion," that it "does not bring its members into the light," and does not "believe in ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... Catherine might rest content with what she had accomplished, but the grim, hard-featured woman still continued to exhibit the same self-righteous disapproval towards her brother's ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... of lawful enjoyments; and you will find them very severe and censorious towards others, for partaking freely and thankfully of the bounties of God's providence. This, however, is but a species of self-righteous mockery, characterized by Paul as a voluntary humility. Instead of being self-denial, it is the gratification of self in maintaining an appearance of external sanctity. It may, however, be not only proper, but ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... and perhaps more the christian to exercise patience, but patience is sometimes tried with the bigotry and nonsense of the self-righteous, self-wise, and self-knowing, who profess the religion of Christ, yet stand tiptoe, like James and John, to call fire from heaven to consume all who do not receive their master. But the true spirit of our religion rebukes such blind zeal and ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... the fact that among the crowds were many of both these parties, the religious aristocrats who represented two tendencies of mind bitterly antagonistic, and each unlikely to be drawn to the prophet. Self-righteous pedants who had turned religion into a jumble of petty precepts, and very superior persons who keenly appreciated the good things of this world, and were too enlightened to have much belief in anything, and too comfortable to be enthusiasts, were not hopeful material. If they were drawn into the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... not tolerated by the refinements of vice than those which are commonly visited with the vengeance of the law? or, exhibiting the doctrines of christianity in their aspect to the penitent, they thundered forth denunciations against the proud and the self-righteous! The champion of this system, Mr. W. C. Wentworth, turned the artillery of his wrath against the exclusionists: "and shall not," he exclaimed, in the ardour of his youth, "shall not the sole efficacious remedy be ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... impressed Rand favorably; it was too reminiscent of a high-school principal under whom he had suffered, years ago, in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Rand began to suspect that Goode might be just another such self-righteous, opinionated, egotistical windbag. Such men could be dangerous, were usually quite unscrupulous, and were almost always unpleasant to ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... irresistible. It was a temple dedicated to the worship of the Gods of the Wilderness. Light, luxury and vice. Such was the summing up of Dr. Bill, and the few who paused in the mad riot for a moment's sober thought. Furthermore Dr. Bill's estimate of the blatant gold city was by no means a self-righteous belief. He had known the place from its birth. He had treated its every ailment at the height of its burning youth. Now, in its maturity, it fell to him to learn much of the inner secrets of its accruing mental disease. He hated it and loved it, almost ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... is interested to see if one of them might be "the seed." He saw Cain bringing an offering of the fruit of the ground (the labor of his hands) unto the Lord.[2] Satan must have been delighted with Cain, as he beheld him, as a self-righteous man, rejecting God's provision for him as a sinner. He knew Cain was his man and belonged to his seed. It was different with Abel. Abel brought of the firstlings of the flock and of the fat thereof. "By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein
... with whom they played in infancy, or a woman whose favours they had shared—the whole body of these sentiments is outraged. To consider it too closely is to understand, if not to excuse, these fervours of self-righteous old ship-captains, who would man their guns, and open fire in passing, on ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... there is no way out; but he never for a moment acquiesces in the justice of his affliction, and his complaints are both specific and protracted. He does not even display any very conspicuous fortitude under his afflictions. He is not indomitable so much as persistent. He is rather stubbornly self-righteous. It could not, of course, be otherwise, for the essence of the situation is that the sufferer should be aware that his deeds do not deserve punishment, and that the sufferings he endures should be permitted in order that his faith in God as well as his faith in his own integrity should ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the same when the Holy Spirit shines into our hearts; it is almost overwhelming; we can only cry, "Woe is me, for I am undone." [Footnote: Isa. vi. 5.] We stand condemned under the searching eye of God. All our self-righteous excuses are swept away. We can no longer take refuge in the fact that we are as good as others and a great deal better than some of our neighbours. The dazzling light of God's Presence has searched us through and through ...
— The One Great Reality • Louisa Clayton
... in the community who are really happy in their life's work, as they fantastically call it, are those commercial ruffians whose brutal, self-righteous, puritanical countenances one is swamped by—as if by a flood of suffocating mediocrity—in the streets of all ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... against the self-righteous abuse of the Sabbath are just and Christian, but do not affect the position of the Platform. The author also intersperses other useful practical remarks, which we have not have room to quote. The simple ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... his manner. My father spoilt them—abominable old limpets. And they're so self-righteous. They think I'm a sort of criminal who has instigated this new devilish system which runs everything so close and cuts it so fine—as if they hadn't made this inevitable by their shameless carelessness ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence
... amateurs, laid the foundation of the greatest navy and mercantile marine of the world. It is to these fascinating adventurers, too, that the generations which followed are indebted for the initiative in human comforts and progress. The superficial self-righteous critic may find it an agreeable pursuit to search out their blemishes; but these men cannot be airily dismissed in that manner. They towered above their fellows, the supreme product of the spirit of their day in ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... and [insolently] conceive the opinion that they observe and can observe the Law by their own powers, as has been said above concerning the scholastic theologians; thence come the hypocrites and [self-righteous or] false saints. ...
— The Smalcald Articles • Martin Luther
... favour with the more sober portion of society whose favour he courted. As his talents and industry gained him grace in the eyes of the dons of his college, so his good life and good understanding made him friends among the more worthy of his companions. He was conceited and self-righteous, but not obviously so. ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... do not make excuses, and, as I have said, I was inclined to be much scandalised, and to feel complacently self-righteous over stories of the Master's "love ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... the orthodox Churchmen, whom their rivals, and not their rivals only,[10] denounced as dry, unspiritual, formal, unevangelical, self-righteous; teachers of mere morality at their best, allies and servants of the world at their worst. In the party which at this time had come to be looked upon popularly as best entitled to be the religious party, whether they were admired as Evangelicals, ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... said Freeborn, "though there be no way. There are many self-deceivers in the world. Some men are self-righteous, trust in their works, and think they are safe when they are in a state of perdition; no formal rules can be given by which their reason might for certain detect their mistake. And so of ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... notorious that five Synods are in organic fellowship, while hardly two of them will hold ministerial or sacramental communion! What a picture does this state of things in the professing church of Christ present to the infidel; how hardening to the self-righteous and the openly profane! And although conventional regulations be lightly looked upon by many, not being based upon express words of scripture; yet when framed and engaged to, according to the general rules of scripture, ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery
... with each other. I can see you turning up your little nose at that. I know you've held a rather biased opinion of your brother and his works since that unfortunate winter. But it doesn't do to be too self-righteous. Charlie, then, was very little different from any rather headlong, self-centered, red-blooded youngster. I'm afraid I'm expressing myself badly. What I mean is that while he was drifting then into a piggy muddle, he had the sense to take a brace ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... card of a strong-willed, self-righteous young Pharisee, who had no use for religion in peace time, but who was driven to God by his awful conflict with sin in this war. Next comes the card of a young man who formerly had lived a proper conventional life without bad habits. The war taught him to drink and he ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... was quite justified. They would "settle the matter once and for all, definitely and right." She would marry Rodney Harrison, and they would live like sane human beings, comfortably, logically, merrily, and there would be no dope fiends with plucking fingers and no Fallen Sisters and self-righteous settlement workers and no drab days and drab ways in their scheme ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... coast, and were already pushing across the mountains to occupy the great interior valleys. And with rapid material development there had come a confident and aggressive spirit, a proud and intractable temper, a certain self-righteous sense of separation from the Old World and its traditions. The very rivalries between colony and colony were the result of close contact and daily intercourse, their very jealousies born of interrelated interests and the ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... Brooks, of South Carolina, had an uncle in the Senate; South Carolina, and this Senator in particular, had been specially favoured with self-righteous insolence in Sumner's speech. A day or so later the Senate had just risen and Sumner sat writing at his desk in the Senate chamber in a position in which he could not quickly rise. Brooks walked in, burning with piety towards his State and his uncle, and in the presence, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... they are but sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. Yet surely, they are the natural external expressions of internal love; and although they be insincerely assumed by Hypocrisy, it is her homage to truth; and although the self-righteous Pharisee may present the semblance of devotion, as a vain and hateful barter for heaven, yet it requires very little spirituality of mind to discern that this arises in a different source and terminates in a different object: the one begins in self ...
— Christian Devotedness • Anthony Norris Groves
... the fairies seldom dance for joy, but for sadness that they have been expelled from the sweet dawn, and therefore their midnight revels are only ceremonies to remind them of their happy state in the morning of the world before thoughtful curiosity and self-righteous moralities drove them from the kind face of the sun to the dark exile of midnight. It is strange that we may not be angry while looking on the moon. Indeed, no mere appetite or passion of any kind dare become imperative in the ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... from which love was absent? Kindness was the test, kindness the aim and soul; and judged by such a standard, the discarded prodigal - now rapidly drowning his sorrows and his reason in successive drams - was a creature of a lovelier morality than his self-righteous father. Yes, he was the better man; he felt it, glowed with the consciousness, and entering a public-house at the corner of Howard Place (whither he had somehow wandered) he pledged his own virtues in a glass - perhaps the fourth since his dismissal. ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the beginning he had felt almost like these creatures' servant—"public servant," he had thought, with self-righteous lukewarm, pleasure. He had seen himself as one who built for others—the more virtuous because those others ...
— The Worshippers • Damon Francis Knight
... not to be interpreted too literally. It does not mean that God finds more satisfaction in a repentant sinner than in a sinless saint. Jesus was here referring definitely to the penitent publicans and to the self-righteous Pharisees. God did not take delight in the sins of the former, nor did he regard the state of the latter as perfect, even taking the Pharisees at their best and regarding them as faithful to the laws of God. Whatever its motive, morality ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... them by encouragement and persuasion to the paths of righteousness and peace. His presence was not needed among those who were whole. He was of course seldom found in their society. He did not desire to rank with the rich, self-righteous pharisee. So ought those, who profess to be the servants of Christ, to go among them, who are most in need of their aid. "The servant is not above his Master." They ought, therefore, to condescend to men of low estate, and visit the abodes of ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... Spirit of a beautiful harmonious world, Beneficent and Kind, Merciful as well as Pure. The same characters generally have no metaphysical tendencies: they do not look back into themselves. Hence they are not distressed by their own imperfections: yet it would be absurd to call them self-righteous; for they hardly think of themselves AT ALL. This childlike quality of their nature makes the opening of religion very happy to them: for they no more shrink from God, than a child from an emperor, before whom the parent trembles: in fact, they have no vivid conception ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... to teaching the few little ones who could be gathered together. Elsie and Jim were among the earliest pupils; Jim was actuated by an almost morbid craving for knowledge, and for Elsie anything novel had sufficient attraction. Mrs. McAravey, notwithstanding her self-righteous indignation when questioned by the clergyman, had in her heart a belief that religious instruction was the proper thing for children. She remembered the stern discipline of her own early years—not, indeed, ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare
... The self-righteous man will never understand these things. Men and women of meagre natures, with whom love is a compact, not a passion, will vehemently disapprove them. People of smooth lives, ignorant of strong temptations, will ...
— The Empire of Love • W. J. Dawson
... passed the interruption by without comment. "The Unknown Woman is brimful of possibilities to a bushman," he went on; "for although she MAY be all womanly strength and tenderness, she may also be anything, from a weak timid fool to a self-righteous shrew, bristling with virtue and indignation. Still," he added earnestly, as the opposition began to murmur, "when a woman does come into our lives, whatever type she may be, she lacks nothing in the way of chivalry, and it rests ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... did: really, you know, sir, it was in his sinking frame. We might have got on tolerably, notwithstanding, but for two people—Miss Cathy, and Joseph, the servant: you saw him, I daresay, up yonder. He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses to his neighbours. By his knack of sermonising and pious discoursing, he contrived to make a great impression on Mr. Earnshaw; and the more feeble the master became, the ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... disturbance and disquiet, for Mr. Earnshaw did not love his daughter Catharine, and his heart was yet further embittered by the grumbling and discontent of old Joseph the servant; the wearisomest "self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to take the promises to himself and fling the curses to his neighbours." But Catharine, though slighted for Heathcliff, and nearly always in trouble on his account, was much too fond of him to be jealous. "The greatest ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... is the worst of Tadpole! he is so self-righteous as to imagine he deserves praise for standing on his rights! He is but a dog, you ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald |
