James Branch Cabell Quotes

All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes.

Moliere exaggerates common vices of mankind: lust, greed, misanthropy, hypocrisy. We all have a touch of these.

The folly of others is ever most ridiculous to those who are themselves most foolish.

... it's always determined characters who make the greatest fools.

Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly.

The true way to be deceived is to think oneself more knowing than others.

When men are most sure and arrogant, they are commonly the most mistaken.

The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.

Sometimes circumstance blinds us at first from seeing people for who they really are.

The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance.

We think we know what's right. With excessive pride comes blindness.

To be proud of knowledge is to be blind with light.

People are never so near playing the fool as when they think themselves wise.

If we humans are good at anything, it’s thinking we’ve got a terrific idea and going for it without acknowledging the potential consequences or our own ignorance.

The fool,fixed in his folly,may think He can turn the wheel on which he turns.

So foolish is the heart of man that he ever puts his hope in the future, learning nothing from his past errors and fancying that tomorrow must be better than today.

This insinuation of the interests of the self into even the most ideal enterprises and most universal objectives, envisaged in moments of highest rationality, makes hypocrisy an inevitable by product of all virtuous endeavor.

To think to be wise alone is a very great folly.

When calling for authenticity, we need to take seriously the brokenness and sinfulness of the human heart. If to be authentic means to be who we really are or to express what we really feel, then in most cases I’m going to vote for hypocrisy. Our prisons are filled with men and women who acted on their feelings and impulses. If authenticity is about being true to yourself, these individuals should be our models of inspiration.

The first Degree of Folly, is to conceit one's self wise; the second to profess it; the third to despise Counsel.

The pride of men will not often suffer reason to have scope until it can be no longer of service.

So from then on, he looked at all his choices and said, What would a good person do, and then did it. But he has now learned something very important about human nature. If you spend your whole life pretending to be good, then you are indistinguishable from a good person. Relentless hypocrisy eventually becomes the truth.

He flattered himself on being a man without any prejudices; and this pretension itself is a very great prejudice.

Unless you see your nature, you shouldn't go around criticizing the goodness of others. There's no advantage in deceiving yourself. Good and bad are distinct. Cause and effect are clear. But fools don't believe and fall straight into a hell of endless darkness without even knowing it. What keeps them from believing is the heaviness of their karma. They're like blind people who don't believe there's such a thing as light. Even if you explain it to them, they still don't believe, because they're blind. How can they possibly distinguish light?