Paulo Freire Quotes

A proud person is so busy looking down on others they cannot humble themselves to look up at God.

Perhaps no sin so easily besets us as a sense of self-satisfied superiority to others.

I'm not really a fan of people who think they're better than others. There's no reason to act that way. I couldn't even stand to yell at someone if they bumped right into me.

Unbridled arrogance is worse than pride; for if pride will not break a superior, arrogance will not brook and equal.

Tolerance is love sick with the sickness of haughtiness.

In prosperity let us most carefully avoid pride, disdain, and arrogance.

Whoever thinks that he alone has speech, or possesses speech or mind above others, when unfolded such men are seen to be empty.

None are more unjust in their judgments of others than those who have a high opinion of themselves.

People who look down on other people don't end up being looked up to.

Intolerance is the most socially acceptable form of egotism, for it permits us to assume superiority without personal boasting.

There's nothing I find quite as annoying as the phrase 'I told you so.'

I'm out of here, I'm better than all of you.

The fellow who thinks he knows it all is especially annoying to those of us who do.

We’ve been an arrogant country.

The second you think that all your good fortune is a product of your virtue, you become highly judgmental, lacking empathy, totally without self-awareness, arrogant, stupid - I mean, all the stuff that our ruling class is.

I don't want you to think I'm better than people or that I know better than people.

Arrogance - I have very little tolerance for that.

They trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretense, because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew. Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals going about their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to me like the outrageous flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend. I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces, so full of stupid importance.

Whoever imagines himself a favorite with God holds others in contempt.

... the belief in a superstratum of human beings ... is the most evil of all beliefs. For when you say, 'I am not as other men' -- you have lost the two most valuable qualities we have ever tried to attain: -- humility and brotherhood.

Take away the self-conceited, and there will be elbowroom in the world.

The self-righteous feel no need to be charming, and thus double their offensiveness.

When a youth was giving himself airs in the Theatre and saying, 'I am wise, for I have conversed with many wise men,' Epictetus replied, 'I too have conversed with many rich men, yet I am not rich!’.

And with his arms crossed he looks pityingly down from his spiritual height on everything that anyone says.

It is, indeed, a trial to maintain the virtue of humility when one can't help being right.