Self Righteousness Quotes

Don't allow the opinions of other people to shape your concept of him. Get to know him yourself, and let the goodness of God change you from the inside out. ~ Judah Smith

A northerner, insensitive in some ways and full of self-righteousness could gravely offend a southerner in a second. The northerner would be giving his general opinion, more than likely unasked for, and all unknowing challenging the southerner's every deeply held belief, not to mention, with sundry looks and expressions, suggesting that the southerner was possessed of numerous flaws of character and person. The southerner was bound to see offense in every suggestion, insult in every difference of opinion, and to act upon his stung pride. ~ Jane Smiley

A community is a butcher and a doctor, a minister, a town troublemaker. A "community" is not a bunch of people united by some grievance. That's just self-righteousness
incredibly dangerous and antidemocratic. ~ Fran Lebowitz

Does it really take any considerable time or effort just to understand that you depend on enemies and outsiders to define yourself, and that without some opposition you would be lost? To see this is to acquire, almost instantly, the virtue of humor, and humor and self-righteousness are mutually exclusive. Humor is the twinkle in the eye of a just judge, who knows that he is also the felon in the dock. How could he be sitting there in stately judgment, being addressed as "Your Honor" or "Mi Lud," without those poor bastards being dragged before him day after day? It does not undermine his work and his function to recognize this. ~ Alan W. Watts

That thought, I can't find the right words, is based not on something negative but on something positive. On the positive awareness that art is something great and higher than our own skill or knowledge or learning. That art is something which though produced by human hands, is not wrought by hands alone, but wells up from a deeper source, from man's soul, while much of the proficiency and technical expertise associated with art reminds me of what would be called self-righteousness in religion. ~ Vincent Van Gogh

The fatuous idea that a person can be holy by himself denies God the pleasure of saving sinners. God must therefore first take the sledge-hammer of the Law in His fists and smash the beast of self-righteousness and its brood of self-confidence, self wisdom, and self-help. When the conscience has been thoroughly frightened by the Law it welcomes the Gospel of grace with its message of a Savior Who came-not to break the bruised reed nor to quench the smoking flax-but to preach glad tidings to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, and to grant forgiveness of sins to all the captives. ~ Martin Luther

I suspect Dr. Robert L. Webb may be theologically a 'hyper-Calvinist' of the Jesse Mercer persuasion."


~R. Alan Woods [2013] ~ R. Alan Woods

I'm glad your self-righteousness has given you some exercise, but you forget: we are not such a tidy, reasonable, and humane race. Our thoughts don't stand in grammatical rows, our hearts don't draw equations, our consciences don't have the benefit of historians whispering the answers to us. ~ Josiah Bancroft

But the greatest menace to our civilization today is the conflict between giant organized systems of self-righteousness - each system only too delighted to find that the other is wicked - each only too glad that the sins give it the pretext for still deeper hatred and animosity. ~ Herbert Butterfield

Just as some people may conceal their own sinfulness thus seeming better than the norm, others expose their own sinfulness thus seeming worse than the norm. ~ Criss Jami

But what gave rise to the swaggering self-righteousness I so often encountered among these students? How could one feel guilt and shame, and at the same time parade one's self-righteousness? ~ Bernhard Schlink

It was a particular sort of Turner weakness: self-sabotaging self-righteousness masked as self-reliance. ~ Angela Flournoy

I count the need to be right among the major illnesses. ~ Marty Rubin

Yet what moved Our Blessed Lord to invective was not badness but just such self-righteousness as this…He said that the harlots and the Quislings would enter the Kingdom of Heaven before the self-righteous and the smug. Concerning all those who endowed hospitals and libraries and public works, in order to have their names graven in stone before their fellow men, He said, "Amen I say to you, they have received their reward" (Matt. 6:2). They wanted no more than human glory, and they got it. Never once is Our Blessed Lord indignant against those who are already, in the eyes of society, below the level of law and respectability. He attacked only the sham indignation of those who dwelt more on the sin than the sinner and who felt pleasantly virtuous, because they had found someone more vicious than they. He would not condemn those whom society condemned; his severe words were for those who had sinned and had not been found out…He would not add His burden of accusation to those that had already been hurled against the winebibbers and the thieves, the cheap revolutionists, the streetwalkers, and the traitors. They were everybody's target, and everybody knew that they were wrong…And the people who chose to make war against Our Lord were never those whom society had labeled as sinners. Of those who sentenced Him to death, none had ever had a record in the police court, had ever been arrested, was ever commonly known to be fallen or weak. But among his friends, who sorrowed at His deat ~ Fulton J. Sheen

And then this whole deal of new gods, old gods," said his friend. "You ask me, I welcome new gods. Bring them on. The god of the guns. The god of bombs. All the gods of ignorance and intolerance, of self-righteousness, idiocy and blame. All the stuff they try and land me with. Take a lot of the weight off my shoulders." He sighed. ~ Neil Gaiman

―Self-righteousness,- Victor said. But when Sydney looked confused, he added, ―He heals. It's a reflexive ability. In his eyes, I think that makes it somehow pure. Divine. He can't technically use his power to hurt others.
―No,- said Sydney, ―he uses guns for that.
Victor chuckled. ~ Victoria Schwab

Despite all claims to the contrary, we have not been called by God to be inspectors of others production or quality of 'fruit'. ~ R. Alan Woods

There is a guilty conscience behind every brazen word and act and behind every manifestation of self-righteousness. ~ Eric Hoffer

The true cure for self-righteousness is self-knowledge. ~ J.C. Ryle

Perhaps we still have a basically superstitious tendency to associate failure with dishonesty and guilt - failure being interpreted as "punishment." Even if a man starts out with good intentions, if he fails we tend to think he was somehow "at fault." If he was not guilty, he was at least "wrong." And "being wrong" is something we have not yet learned to face with equanimity and understanding. We either condemn it with god-like disdain or forgive it with god-like condescension. We do not manage to accept it with human compassion, humility and identification. Thus we never see the one truth that would help us begin to solve our ethical and political problems: that we are all more or less wrong, that we are all at fault, all limited and obstructed by our mixed motives, our self-deception, our greed, our self-righteousness and our tendency to aggressivity and hypocrisy. ~ Thomas Merton

Self-righteousness and presumptive moral judgments pose a great danger in the political arena. To become convinced of the divine infallibility of one's personal predilections on a secular political issue is to play God, to assume to oneself the attributes of deity. It cultivates an arrogant intolerance of dissenting viewpoints and relegates one's political adversaries to the category of evil per se. ~ Jim Wright

Nothing clears out self-righteousness better than serving someone who is critical of you. ~ Paul E. Miller

The Bible makes it clear that self-righteousness is the premier enemy of the Gospel. ~ Tullian Tchividjian

Those who deny guilt and sin are like the Pharisees of old who thought our Saviour had a "guilt complex" because He accused them of being whited sepulchers - outside clean, inside full of dead men's bones. Those who admit that they are guilty are like the public sinners and the publicans of whom Our Lord said, "Amen, I say to you, that the publicans and the harlots shall go into the Kingdom of God before you" (Matt. 21:31). Those who think they are healthy but have a hidden moral cancer are incurable; the sick who want to be healed have a chance. All denial of guilt keeps people out of the area of love and, by inducing self-righteousness, prevents a cure. The two facts of healing in the physical order are these: A physician cannot heal us unless we put ourselves into his hands, and we will not put ourselves into his hands unless we know that we are sick. In like manner, a sinner's awareness of sin is one requisite for his recovery; the other is his longing for God. When we long for God, we do so not as sinners, but as lovers. ~ Fulton J. Sheen

But today, our self-righteousness, our fear, and our anger have caused even the Christians to hurl stones at the people who fall down, even when we know we should forgive or show compassion. I told the congregation that we simply can't watch that happen. I told them we have to be stonecatchers. ~ Bryan Stevenson

Develop a little self-righteousness. A lot of that is an ugly thing, God knows, but a little applied over all your scruples is an absolute necessity! It is to the soul what a good sun-block is to the skin during the heat of summer. ~ Stephen King

There was one thing unforgivable, like things in the schoolroom so bad that only Mommy could deal with, to set up a rival good to God's. ~ Evelyn Waugh

Rather than experiencing the richness of a dynamic, intimate relationship with the righteous One, you put God in a little box that you can check off your to-do list each week. By settling for rules and religion and feeling pretty good about how much you're doing for the church and those less fortunate, you become blinded to legalism and self-righteousness. ~ Craig Groeschel

Confession is the giving up of ALL self-righteousness. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Legalism is when we try to obtain the result of obedience by our own means and strength. It is self-righteousness, as opposed to God's righteousness covering us, and the two are as different as spirit and flesh. ~ Kelly Minter

Hidden, unfelt, unconfessed iniquity is the true leprosy; but when sin is seen and felt, it has received its deathblow, and the Lord looks with eyes of mercy upon the soul afflicted with it. Nothing is more deadly than self-righteousness, or more hopeful than contrition. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Self-righteousness exclaims, "I will not be saved in God's way; I will make a new road to heaven; I will not bow before God's grace; I will not accept the atonement which God has wrought out in the person of Jesus; I will be my own redeemer; I will enter heaven by my own strength, and glorify my own merits." The Lord is very wroth against self-righteousness. I do not know of anything against which His fury burneth more than against this, because this touches Him in a very tender point, it insults the glory and honor of His Son Jesus Christ. ~ Charles Spurgeon

Self-righteousness can feed upon doctrines - as well as upon works! ~ John Newton

Self-righteous people can talk themselves into forgetting they are part of a civilization. They can then feed on that culture, bringing it down. It's happened many times in the past. It could happen to us. ~ David Brin

These humans are only of flesh, of mud, and I suggest there is one force stronger than their zeal for God: their own self-righteousness! We will make them proud, pure in their own eyes, vindictive, unjust judges over each other, and stir up such a noise among them that the simplest prayer will not be uttered! ~ Frank Peretti

Self-righteousness means you don't see yourself or the other person with accuracy. It means you see his or her speck as a log and your log as a speck. So you are condemning of him or her and excusing of yourself. You treat the other person with judgment while you respond to yourself with patience. ~ Paul David Tripp

Human self-righteousness denies the need for the saving, enabling grace of Christ. Human righteousness embraces the cruelest of Satan's lies, that a person can be righteous by keeping the law. If that were true, there would have been no need for the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Christ. ~ Paul David Tripp

In their best moments they understood that they would become guilty of self-righteousness because their cause was just; they would become guilty of smugness as their cause moved successfully forward; they would become vicious and tribal as group confronted group; they would become more dogmatic and simplistic as they used propaganda to mobilize their followers; they would become more vain as their audiences enlarged; ~ David Brooks

Ten years I'd simmered in my own self-righteousness, holding my grudge against her as if the only way to win was to stay mad the longest. ~ Katherine Center

The essential insight and consistent point of view of Islam is tawhid: the fundamental Oneness underlying all of existence. From the perspective of tawhid, everything is emerging from God, being sustained by God, and ultimately returning to God. This has profound significance for all of our experience within this existence. All areas of human knowledge are related to this fundamental, unifying Truth. Sufism is the science, the objective knowledge, of the souls relationship to God. This science describes an Origin, a downward arc of manifestation, and an upward arc of return. In the arc of manifestation, everything is coming down from God into successive levels of ever denser realities. In the arc of return, we recognize our Origin and begin the journey back toward its light. This essentially means that we ourselves must become more conscious of the light within ourselves.

[...]

The arc of return calls us to make a journey from darkness and toward the light. The immediate darkness we face around us is the imaginary world created by human ignorance, fear, self-righteousness, and hatred. We must not succumb to the mass heedlessness and self-hypnotism which presents itself to us, mostly through the mass media, as the so-called real world.
It is our responsibility to find and act upon the knowledge that can guide us in that journey. This means establishing the truth of tawhid within our own minds and hearts.

~ Essays and talks by Kabir Helmins ~ Kabir Edmund Helminski

Before 9/11, I thought that tragedy had the potential to connect us with humanity in ways that prosperity does not. I thought that if prosperity tends to isolate, tragedy must connect. Now I realize that this is not always the case. One unfortunate response to tragedy is a self-righteousness about one's own condition, a seeking proof of one's special place in the world, even in victimhood. One afternoon, I shared these thoughts with a new colleague, the Israeli vice chancellor of the Budapest-based Central European University. When he told me that he was a survivor of Auschwitz, I asked him what lesson he had drawn from this great crime. He explained that, like all victims of Auschwitz, he, too, had said, "Never again." In time, though, he had come to realize that this phrase lent itself to two markedly different conclusions: one was that never again should this happen to my people; the other that it should never again happen to any people. Between these two interpretations, I suggest nothing less than our common survival is at stake. ~ Mahmood Mamdani

Self-righteousness is the fruit of a low view of God's law and a lite view of your own sin. ~ Tullian Tchividjian

Righteousness cannot be born until self-righteousness is dead. ~ Bertrand Russell

The emphasis and the reason for a pure humility is to result in love for others; not always necessarily the belittlement of self. When there is pride and self-righteousness and being pretentiously too far above, generally, one has a difficult time reaching the compassionate side of love for others, the side that understands (or at least attempts to understand): 'I am aware that I am not so far from falling in the same way.' Humility seeks to understand, and sometimes even relate; and in result, the love lovingly, properly, effectively wills the removal of the destructive sins of another as from oneself. ~ Criss Jami

His self-righteousness has prevented him from enjoying the grace all around him. ~ Justin Buzzard

The worst possible thing you can do when you're down in the dumps, tweaking, vaporous with victimized self-righteousness, or bored, is to take a walk with dying friends. They will ruin everything for you. First of all, friends like this may not even think of themselves as dying, although they clearly are, according to recent scans and gentle doctors' reports. But no, they see themselves as fully alive. They are living and doing as much as they can, as well as they can, for as long as they can. They ruin your multitasking high, the bath of agitation, rumination, and judgment you wallow in, without the decency to come out and just say anything. They bust you by being grateful for the day, while you are obsessed with how thin your lashes have become and how wide your bottom. ~ Anne Lamott

Son, never trust a man who doesn't drink because he's probably a self-righteous sort, a man who thinks he knows right from wrong all the time. Some of them are good men, but in the name of goodness, they cause most of the suffering in the world. They're the judges, the meddlers. And, son, never trust a man who drinks but refuses to get drunk. They're usually afraid of something deep down inside, either that they're a coward or a fool or mean and violent. You can't trust a man who's afraid of himself. But sometimes, son, you can trust a man who occasionally kneels before a toilet. The chances are that he is learning something about humility and his natural human foolishness, about how to survive himself. It's damned hard for a man to take himself too seriously when he's heaving his guts into a dirty toilet bowl. ~ James Crumley

Pfaff: The riposte of a civilized nation: one that believes in good, in human society and does oppose evil, has to be narrowly focused and, above all, intelligent. Missiles are blunt weapons. Those terrorists are smart enough to make others bear the price for what they have done, and to exploit the results. A maddened U.S. response that hurts still others is what they want: It will fuel the hatred that already fires the self-righteousness about their criminal acts against the innocent. What the United States needs is cold reconsideration of how it has arrived at this pass. It needs, even more, to foresee disasters that might lie in the future. ~ Gore Vidal

Those who condemn the self-righteous for the sake of self-discovery do so with ironic self-righteousness. ~ Timothy Keller

Self-righteousness is always self-condemnatory. And self-righteousness is the preserve of the moralist. ~ Timothy Keller

The self-righteousness and other ego-puffery that makes missionaries and evangelists out of Christians is in truth a measure of how far they are from even the one thing they think is most certainly true, i.e. the confidence that they are truly Christians. ~ Kenny Smith

We can not, therefore, reserve as sacred anything that is not truth and yet we cannot turn from things of truth have inspired us in our everyday lives. We must merely embrace both hard and soft truths that must not be avoided. This does not mean we can reserve for ourselves the right to be self-righteous nor call others self-righteous simply because they disagree with us. ~ Leviak B. Kelly

Author compares the impact of biases to his experience as an average swimmer who overcame a considerable fear of water. While the swimming was easy in one particular experience, he was internally congratulating himself on his acquired skill. But when he realized he was swimming with a current he would now have to fight against, he realized just how definite his limits were. ~ Shankar Vedantam

Only God is in a position to look down upon someone. ~ Habeeb Akande

Was I the rebel kid? The lost college student who just wanted to be accepted? The legalistic man who battled self-righteousness? Was I a husband or a father or a hip-hop artist? Like a tree trunk, all those people were a part of me. They are a part of me. But more than anything, Lecrae is a child who is unconditionally loved by God. I'm a sinner who has been rescued by God from my brokenness and called to glorify the One who has never left my side. That's who Lecrae is, and that's who I'll always be. ~ Lecrae Moore

Second, we will not shake our heads and roll our eyes self-righteously at what 'they' are like. Paul has referred to 'they' throughout these verses[...] The function of these verses is to draw out any self-righteous pride in us; any feeling of satisfaction that: 'They are wicked; and I am not like them.' As we will see, Paul will next turn to confront that religious, moral man: 'You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgement on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself' (2:1). Self-righteousness is always self-condemnatory. ~ Timothy J. Keller

Try to remember. Have you ever felt mercy in your heart where there was once hatred? Peace where there was once turmoil? Love where there was once greed and lust? Humiliation where there was once self-righteousness? ~ Vincent Cheung

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. ~ Charlotte Bronte

Oh, that we fully understood how very opposite our self-righteousness is to the designs of God! ~ Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

Keep strong, if possible. In any case, keep cool. Have unlimited patience. Never corner an opponent, and always assist him to save his face. Put yourself in his shoes - so as to see things through his eyes. Avoid self-righteousness like the devil - nothing is so self-blinding. ~ B.H. Liddell Hart

Thankfully, while our self-righteousness reaches far, God's grace reaches farther. ~ Tullian Tchividjian

For the Supernatural, entering a human soul, opens to it new possibilities both of good and evil. From that point the road branches: one way to sanctity, love humility, the other to spiritual pride, self-righteousness, persecuting zeal. And no way back to the mere humdrum virtues and vices of the unawakened soul. ~ C.S. Lewis

Our manic accumulation of wealth,' Kuru Qan went on. 'Our headlong progress, as if motion was purpose and purpose inherently virtuous. Our lack of compassion, which we called being realistic. The extremity of our judgements, our self-righteousness - all a flight from death, Brys. All a vast denial smothered in semantics and euphemisms. Bravery and sacrifice, pathos and failure, as if life is a contest to be won or lost. As if death is the arbiter of meaning, the moment of final judgement, and above all else judgement is a thing to be delivered, not delivered unto. ~ Steven Erikson

The Nazis were tedious in their self-righteousness and triumphalism. They were like a winning soccer team at the after-match party, getting drunker and more boring and refusing to go home. He was sick of them. Some people might say that the USSR was similar, with its secret police, its rigid orthodoxy, and its puritan attitudes to such pleasures as abstract painting and fashion. They were wrong. Communism was a work in progress, with mistakes being made on the road to a fair society. The NKVD with its torture chambers was an aberration, a cancer in the body of Communism. One day it would be surgically removed. But probably not in wartime. ~ Ken Follett

We sometimes hurt those we love because they need to be "taught a lesson," when we really want to punish. We were depressed and complained we felt bad, when in fact we were mainly asking for sympathy and attention. This odd trait of mind and emotion, this perverse wish to hide a bad motive underneath a good one, permeates human affairs from top to bottom. This subtle and elusive kind of self-righteousness can underlie the smallest act or thought. Learning daily to spot, admit, and correct these flaws is the essence of character-building and good living. An honest regret for harms done, a genuine gratitude for blessings received, and a willingness to try for better things tomorrow will be the permanent assets we shall seek. ~ Alcoholics Anonymous

You don't read Gatsby, I said, to learn whether adultery is good or bad but to learn about how complicated issues such as adultery and fidelity and marriage are. A great novel heightens your senses and sensitivity to the complexities of life and of individuals, and prevents you from the self-righteousness that sees morality in fixed formulas about good and evil. ~ Azar Nafisi

Analyze, as a study in Temper, the thunder-cloud itself as it gathers upon the Elder Brother's brow. What is it made of? Jealousy, anger, pride, uncharity, cruelty, self-righteousness, touchiness, doggedness, sullenness - these are the ingredients of this dark and loveless soul. In varying proportions, also, these are the ingredients of all ill temper. Judge if such sins of the disposition are not worse to live in, and for others to live with, than the sins of the body. Did Christ indeed not answer the question Himself when He said, "I say unto you that the publicans and the harlots go into the Kingdom of Heaven before you"? There is really no place in heaven for a disposition like this. A man with such a mood could only make heaven miserable for all the people in it. Except, therefore, such a man be BORN AGAIN, ~ Henry Drummond

The minute we put aside our self-righteousness and move away from being the aggrieved, then we are on a healing process. ~ Stephen Richards

The religious climate of Jesus's day was evidence of what happens when no one stops the counterfeit. The Spirit of God had gone silent after Malachi, but that did not stop the spiritual authorities from trying to keep the whole mechanism turning under the power of their own self-righteousness. Can you imagine what it might be like to have been faking spiritual power for hundreds of years when suddenly the real thing shows up? ~ Jared C. Wilson

We are all members of the same flawed species. Putting our moral vision into practice means imposing our will on others. The human lust for power and esteem, coupled with its vulnerability to self-deception and self-righteousness, makes that an invitation to a calamity, all the worse when the power is directed at a goal as quixotic as eradicating human self-interest. ~ Steven Pinker

Anger and self-righteousness combined with cynicism about the world as he or she sees it are the marks of the ideologue. There is always an element of nostalgia, too, because the ideologue is confident that he or she is moved by a special loyalty to a natural order, or to a good and normative past, which others defy or betray. ~ Marilynne Robinson

The causes of this mournful state of things are manifold. It may arise through a comparative neglect of prayer, for a neglected closet is the beginning of all spiritual decline. Or it may be the result of idolatry. The heart has been occupied with something else, more than with God; the affections have been set on the things of earth, instead of the things of heaven. A jealous God will not be content with a divided heart; he must be loved first and best. He will withdraw the sunshine of his presence from a cold, wandering heart. Or the cause may be found in self-confidence and self-righteousness. Pride is busy in the heart, and self is exalted instead of lying low at the foot of the cross. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

The self-assertive shrillness of protest arises because the facts of incommensurability ensure that protestors can never win an argument; the indignant self-righteousness of protest arises because the facts of incommensurability ensure equally that the protestors can never lose an argument either. Hence the utterance of protest is characteristically addressed to those who already share the protestors' premises. The effects of incommensurability ensure that protestors rarely have anyone else to talk to but themselves. This is not to say that protest cannot be effective; it is to say that it cannot be rationally effective and that its dominant modes of expression give evidence of a certain perhaps unconscious awareness of this. The ~ Alasdair MacIntyre

The main difference is that the enlightened believe that the poor criminal should be rehabilitated while the righteous believe that the immoral criminal should be locked up in jail. Since almost the only available system of rehabilitation in America is to be locked up in jail, the difference remains highly abstract. ~ William Ryan

What's his power?'
'Self-righteousness,' Victor said. ~ V.E. Schwab

Bradish had never had any occasion to experience self-righteousness other than the self-righteousness of the sinner. ~ John Cheever

Complacency traps people and besiege them until longer period. The biggest challenge is to become aware of its existence and stepping out of it quickly. ~ Ashish Patel

Our obedience has its origin in God's prior action, and forgetting that truth results in self-righteousness, pride, and despair. ~ Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

Scientists are dedicated to asking questions in the search for truth. But they too are human, and like all humans, they would like their answers to be clean and clear and easy. In their desire for simple solutions, scientists are prone to fall into two traps as they question the reality of God. The first is to throw the baby out with the bath water. And the second is tunnel vision. There is clearly a lot of dirty bath water surrounding the reality of God. Holy wars. Inquisitions. Animal sacrifice. Human sacrifice. Superstition. Stultification. Dogmatism. Ignorance. Hypocrisy. Self-righteousness. Rigidity. Cruelty. Book-burning. Witch-burning. Inhibition. Fear. Conformity. Morbid guilt. Insanity. The list is almost endless. But is all this what God has done to humans or what humans have done to God? It is abundantly evident that belief in God is often destructively dogmatic. Is the problem, then, that humans tend to believe in God, or is the problem that humans tend to be dogmatic? ~ M. Scott Peck

Knowing about the neurobiological and evolutionary basis for social behavior can soften the arrogance and self-righteousness that often attends discussions of morality. It may help us all to think a little more carefully and rationally. ~ Patricia Churchland

Some people think they are always right; they are always ready to judge those who they see as wrong! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

A trustworthy marriage has weathered temptation and anger and jealousy, resentment, self-righteousness and a little bit of selfishness. When you get over and get through that, then maybe you can see the light to love. ~ Ruby Dee

I have spoken to many parents who feared they were producing little hypocrites who were proud and self-righteous. Hypocrisy and self-righteousness is the result of giving children a keepable law and telling them to be good. To the extent they are successful, they become like the Pharisees ... The genius of Phariseeism was that it reduced the law to a keepable standard of externals that any self-disciplined person could do. In their pride and self-righteousness, they rejected Christ. ~ Tedd Tripp

No one is more religious than the Christian who gives grace to everyone except the religious older-brother types. God gives grace to the younger and the older. No one is past redemption. No one is past grace. All God wants is for both the religious and the rebellious to come into the party. We can wallow in self-righteousness, or we can enjoy all that is our Father's. ~ Jefferson Bethke

I can honestly say that there are many forms of atheism that I find far more admirable than many forms of Christianity or of religion in general. But atheism that consists entirely in vacuous arguments afloat on oceans of historical ignorance, made turbulent by storms of strident self-righteousness, is as contemptible as any other form of dreary fundamentalism. And it is sometimes difficult, frankly, to be perfectly generous in one's response to the sort of invective currently fashionable among the devoutly undevout, or to the sort of historical misrepresentations it typically involves. ~ David Bentley Hart

Sophie Kruger had worked in a house herself, up in Middle Swan. But now she pretended she was quality. There were none so self-righteous as those who rewrote their past. ~ Sandra Dallas

We want the Church to be small not only that fewer men may know the Enemy but also that those who do may acquire the uneasy intensity and the defensive self-righteousness of a secret society or a clique. ~ C.S. Lewis

The sober guy is always going to have this air of arrogance or self-righteousness, but it's not my intention. I just knew that if I drank, I'd have a drinking problem. ~ Bradford Cox

Mortification from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of a self-righteousness, is the soul and substance of all false religion in the world. ~ John Owen

Ideals without power are simply words - they can come alive only when reinforced by the capacity to act. Reality is understanding how to wield power, but by itself it doesn't guide you toward the ends to which your power should be put. Realism devoid of an understanding of the ends of power is frequently another word for thugishness, which is ultimately unrealistic. Similarly, idealism is frequently another word for self-righteousness, a disease that can be corrected only by a profound understanding of power in its complete sense, while realism uncoupled from principle is frequently incompetence masquerading as tough-mindedness. Realism and idealism are not alternatives but necessary complements. Neither can serve as a principle for foreign policy by itself. ~ George Friedman

If each side had been frankly contending for its own real wish, they would all have kept within the bounds of reason and courtesy; but just because the contention is reversed and each side is fighting the other side's battle, all the bitterness which really flows from thwarted self-righteousness and obstinacy and from the accumulated grudges of the last ten years is concealed from them by the nominal or official "Unselfishness" of what they are doing or, at least, held to be excused by it. ~ C.S. Lewis

Vegetarianism is harmless enough, though it is apt to fill a man with wind and self-righteousness. ~ Robert Hutchison

Jesus is not your accuser. He's not your prosecutor. He's not your judge. He's your friend and your rescuer. Like Zacchaeus, just spend time with Jesus. Don't hide from him in shame or reject him in self-righteousness. ~ Judah Smith

The feeling of righteousness is the core mood alteration among religious addicts. Religious addiction is a massive problem in our society. It may be the most pernicious of all addictions because it's so hard for a person to break his delusion and denial. How can anything be wrong with loving God and giving your life for good works and service to mankind? ~ John Bradshaw

It is far better to be seen by others as a sinner and plead fervently to Christ for salvation than to be regarded as a pious one and miss salvation! It is far better to be seen by others as wrong and seek to do what is right, than to be regarded as right when in reality, you might be heading towards a ditch! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

For individuals to feel justified in doing horrible things to other people, they must feel an unwavering certainty in their own righteousness, in their own beliefs and deservedness. ...Evil people never believe that they are evil, rather, they believe that everyone else is evil. ~ Mark Manson

Let a prejudice be bequeathed, carried in the air, adopted by hearsay, caught in through the eye,–however it may come, these minds will give it a habitation; it is something to assert strongly and bravely, something to fill up the void of spontaneous ideas, something to impose on others with the authority of conscious right; it is at once a staff and a baton. ~ George Eliot

Though there is no evil in righteousness, there is in self-righteousness, ~ David Pietrusza

Whosoever sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. Genesis, 9:6 Verily, great self-righteousness and great blindness are needed to call the gore pouring from the scaffold justice. Vysogota of Corvo CHAPTER FIVE 'What seeks the Witcher on my territory? ~ Andrzej Sapkowski

She, if anyone, was on a hell-bound train. I mean, if you're masquerading as a do-gooder, why not go all the way? ~ Michael Lee West