Matisyahu Quotes

I was a philosophy major as an undergraduate, and I'm just an arrogant little thing. It's hard for me to admit that I can't understand something, let alone not be in charge of it.

One sticks to an opinion because he prides himself on having come to it on his own, and another because he has taken great pains to learn it and is proud to have grasped it: and so both do so out of vanity.

No men are oftener wrong than those that can least bear to be so.

The more you think you know, the more closed-minded you'll be.

I think some people, when they get a certain ego, they lose sense of whatever.

I hope you will be yourself, human, even a little sentimental, possessed of a sense of humor and a sense of humility. . . . There are arrogant people in this world and, what is worse, arrogant judges.

If you feel compelled to respond every time you're criticized it reveals just how much you've built your identity on being right.

I doubt about myself. I think doubts are good in life. The people who don't have doubts I think only two things-arrogance or not intelligence.

What can one possibly introduce into a mind that is already full, and full of itself?

People become concerned with being more humble than other people.

You can get into a habit of thought in which you enjoy making fun of all those other people who don't see things as clearly as you do. We have to guard carefully against it.

There is nothing that strengthens the ego more than being right. Being right is identification with a mental position - a perspective, an opinion, a judgement, a story. For you to be right, of course, you need someone else to be wrong, as so the ego loves to make wrong in order to be right.

The desire to be thought clever often prevents a man from becoming so.

A man never reaches that dizzy height of wisdom when he can no longer be led by the nose.

Smart is knowing if you're dumb. Knowing when to shut up and to listen to people that are smarter than you.

We learn nothing by being right.

Every man has just as much vanity as he wants understanding.

The kind of man who always thinks that he is right, that his opinions, his pronouncements, are the final word, when once exposed shows nothing there. But a wise man has much to learn without a loss of dignity.

People say my ego is grand. I think it's in proportion to me.

It's not terrible, people telling you you're great; what's terrible is when you start believing it.

Learn to control ego. Humans hold their dogmas and biases too tightly, and we only think that our opponents are dogmatic! But we all need criticism. Criticism is the only known antidote to error.

There is nothing that strengthens the ego more than being right !

When intelligent people pride themselves on not understanding, it is quite natural they should succeed better than fools.

What is the first business of one who practices philosophy? To get rid of self-conceit. For it is impossible for anyone to begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows.