J. William Fulbright Quotes

Two sentiments inherent in power never fail to produce this moral corruption; they are: contempt for the masses and the overestimation of one's own merits.

Besotted with ambition, empires in our age have betrayed an astonishing propensity for self-inflicted wounds…. Of the dangers that threaten a Great Power, the most insidious come from within.

The events of 11 September will be remembered as the end of the US empire. This is because all empires collapse when they pursue the arrogance of power.

The American conception that liberty’s task was to oppose concentrated power, produced a sense that the country had a mission to reshape the world in form much like its own, and enlarged a conviction that America was God’s country, with an exceptional and newly chosen people.

Power confuses itself with virtue and tends also to take itself for omnipotence

Power always sincerely, conscientiously, de très bon foi, believes itself right. Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak.

Anyone who claims to have an entirely clear conscience is almost certainly a bore.

One thing I hope I'll never be is drunk with my own power. And anybody who says I am will never work in this town again.

Being virtuous is wonderful thing, but feeling virtuous is a shortcut to vice.

Do you know, I have often thought that I am the cleverest woman who ever lived and that others cannot compare with me. Although I have heard much about Queen Victoria ... still I don't think her life is half as interesting and eventful as mine. Now look at me, I have 400 million people all dependent on my judgment.

Human history is full of predators known as conquerors, who carried out murder, persecution and abduction of women to satisfy their lust for power, plunder and prestige. They knew that their misdeeds were sheer acts of barbarity dictated by personal ambitions but Jehad, the behest of Allah to destroy non-Muslims, not only sanctified these atrocities, but also raised them to the apex of piety, purity and probity.

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.

Tolerance is love sick with the sickness of haughtiness.

We cannot bring ourselves to believe it possible that a foreigner should in any respect be wiser than ourselves. If any such point out to us our follies, we at once claim those follies as the special evidence of our wisdom.

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

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

All empires become arrogant. It is their nature.

Whatever makes us feel superior to other people, whatever tempts us to convey a sense of superiority, that is the gravity of our sinful nature, not grace.

There is always the fear of self-righteousness possessing us, the fear of arrogating to ourselves a superiority that we do not possess.

Give a man religion without reminding him of his filth, and the result will be arrogance in a three- piece suit.

Beware of the virtue which a man boasts is his.

Guilt is petty; I am above guilt.

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

Let us watch against PRIDE in every shapepride of intellect, pride of wealth, pride in our own goodness.

One is not superior merely because one sees the world as odious.