Pride Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Pride. Here they are! All 100 of them:

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I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.
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Pablo Neruda (100 Love Sonnets)
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In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.
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Jane Austen (Pride And Prejudice)
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I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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I would always rather be happy than dignified.
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Charlotte BrontΓ« (Jane Eyre)
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Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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Take pride in your pain; you are stronger than those who have none
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Lois Lowry (Gathering Blue (The Giver, #2))
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I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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Angry people are not always wise.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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I am not proud, but I am happy; and happiness blinds, I think, more than pride.
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Alexandre Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo)
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What are men to rocks and mountains?
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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People in their right minds never take pride in their talents.
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Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
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You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.
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C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)
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It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high. Some people, perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore knew - and so do I, thought Harry, with a rush of fierce pride, and so did my parents - that there was all the difference in the world.
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J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6))
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I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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Do you take pride in your hurt? Does it make you seem large and tragic? ...Well, think about it. Maybe you're playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience.
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John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
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Let others pride themselves about how many pages they have written; I'd rather boast about the ones I've read.
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Jorge Luis Borges
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We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of man; but this would be nothing if you really liked him.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.
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Sophocles (Antigone (The Theban Plays, #3))
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Every woman that finally figured out her worth, has picked up her suitcases of pride and boarded a flight to freedom, which landed in the valley of change.
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Shannon L. Alder
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Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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I have not the pleasure of understanding you.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.
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Kahlil Gibran (Sand and Foam)
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To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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I am the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so before, but not one with such justice. I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity.
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Dale Carnegie (How to Win Friends & Influence People)
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Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people that they don't like.
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Will Rogers
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Sonnet XVII I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz, or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that never blooms but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers; thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance, risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body. I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way than this: where I does not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
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Pablo Neruda
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As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on thing and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down you cannot see something that is above you.
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C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)
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I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where, I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I don’t know any other way of loving.
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Pablo Neruda (100 Love Sonnets)
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I haven't any right to criticize books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.
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Mark Twain
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I was a man who thrived on solitude; without it I was like another man without food or water. Each day without solitude weakened me. I took no pride in my solitude; but I was dependent on it. The darkness of the room was like sunlight to me.
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Charles Bukowski (Factotum)
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Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.
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pleasefindthis
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You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you. -Mr. Darcy
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome." "And your defect is a propensity to hate everybody." "And yours," he replied with a smile, "is wilfully to misunderstand them.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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...for love casts out fear, and gratitude can conquer pride.
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Louisa May Alcott (Little Women)
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1492. As children we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America. Actually, people had been living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America for hundreds of years before that. 1492 was simply the year sea pirates began to rob, cheat, and kill them.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
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From the very beginningβ€” from the first moment, I may almost sayβ€” of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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Till this moment I never knew myself.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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My good opinion once lost is lost forever.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me, and I am in no humor at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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He is a gentleman, and I am a gentleman's daughter. So far we are equal.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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I'm so proud of you that it makes me proud of me. I hope you know that.
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John Green (Will Grayson, Will Grayson)
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If wild my breast and sore my pride, I bask in dreams of suicide, If cool my heart and high my head I think 'How lucky are the dead.
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Dorothy Parker (The Complete Poems of Dorothy Parker)
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Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.
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Arthur Schopenhauer (Essays and Aphorisms)
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The Queen's Pride was his ship, and he loved her. (That was the way his sentences always went: It is raining today and I love you. My cold is better and I love you. Say hello to Horse and I love you. Like that.)
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William Goldman (The Princess Bride)
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She didn't care that people called her a bitch. 'It's just another word for feminist,' she told me with pride.
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Gayle Forman (If I Stay (If I Stay, #1))
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Her heart did whisper that he had done it for her.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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A girl likes to be crossed a little in love now and then. It is something to think of
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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A fight is going on inside me," said an old man to his son. "It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf is evil. He is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other wolf is good. he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you." The son thought about it for a minute and then asked, "Which wolf will win?" The old man replied simply, "The one you feed.
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Wendy Mass (Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life)
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An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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The distance is nothing when one has a motive.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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It is better to lose your pride with someone you love rather than to lose that someone you love with your useless pride.
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John Ruskin
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I do not care so much what I am to others as I care what I am to myself.
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Michel de Montaigne
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Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune.
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C.G. Jung
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Because God is never cruel, there is a reason for all things. We must know the pain of loss; because if we never knew it, we would have no compassion for others, and we would become monsters of self-regard, creatures of unalloyed self-interest. The terrible pain of loss teaches humility to our prideful kind, has the power to soften uncaring hearts, to make a better person of a good one.
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Dean Koontz (The Darkest Evening of the Year)
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Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let the pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place
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Iain S. Thomas (I Wrote This For You (I Wrote This For You #4))
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Push yourself. Don’t settle. Wear those stripy legs with pride. And if you insist on settling down with some ridiculous bloke, make sure some of this is squirreled away somewhere. Knowing you still have possibilities is a luxury. Knowing I might have given them to you has alleviated something for me.
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Jojo Moyes (Me Before You (Me Before You, #1))
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Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than marry without affection.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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Nobody can tell what I suffer! But it is always so. Those who do not complain are never pitied.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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Yet, I didn't understand that she was intentionally disguising her feelings with sarcasm; that was usually the last resort of people who are timid and chaste of heart, whose souls have been coarsely and impudently invaded; and who, until the last moment, refuse to yield out of pride and are afraid to express their own feelings to you.
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Fyodor Dostoevsky (Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead)
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Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man... It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition is gone, pride is gone.
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C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)
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Aphros nodded, a glint of pride in his eyes. β€œWe have trained all the famous mer-heroes! Name a famous mer-hero, and we have trained him or her!” β€œOh, sure,” Leo said. β€œLike…um, the Little Mermaid?” Aphros frowned. β€œWho? No! Like Triton, Glaucus, Weissmuller, and Bill!” β€œOh. ”Leo had no idea who any of those people were. β€œYou trained Bill? Impressive.
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Rick Riordan (The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, #3))
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It's okay to disagree with the thoughts or opinions expressed by other people. That doesn't give you the right to deny any sense they might make. Nor does it give you a right to accuse someone of poorly expressing their beliefs just because you don't like what they are saying. Learn to recognize good writing when you read it, even if it means overcoming your pride and opening your mind beyond what is comfortable.
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Ashly Lorenzana
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Man is not, by nature, deserving of all that he wants. When we think that we are automatically entitled to something, that is when we start walking all over others to get it.
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Criss Jami (Diotima, Battery, Electric Personality)
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You have bewitched me body and soul, and I love, I love, I love you. And wish from this day forth never to be parted from you.
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Deborah Moggach (Pride & Prejudice screenplay)
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Through the blur, I wondered if I was alone or if other parents felt the same way I did - that everything involving our children was painful in some way. The emotions, whether they were joy, sorrow, love or pride, were so deep and sharp that in the end they left you raw, exposed and yes, in pain. The human heart was not designed to beat outside the human body and yet, each child represented just that - a parent's heart bared, beating forever outside its chest.
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Debra Ginsberg
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It's been many years since I had such an exemplary vegetable.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, "Oh, nothing!" Pride helps; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our hurtsβ€” not to hurt others.
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George Eliot (Middlemarch)
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I certainly have not the talent which some people possess," said Darcy, "of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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I have faults enough, but they are not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch for. It is, I believe, too little yieldingβ€” certainly too little for the convenience of the world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of other so soon as I ought, nor their offenses against myself. My feelings are not puffed about with every attempt to move them. My temper would perhaps be called resentful. My good opinion once lost, is lost forever.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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But people themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be observed in them for ever.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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English did not just borrow words from other languages; it was stuffed to the brim with foreign influences, a Frankenstein vernacular. And Robin found it incredible, how this country, whose citizens prided themselves so much on being better than the rest of the world, could not make it through an afternoon tea without borrowed goods.
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R.F. Kuang (Babel)
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When God Created Mothers" When the Good Lord was creating mothers, He was into His sixth day of "overtime" when the angel appeared and said. "You're doing a lot of fiddling around on this one." And God said, "Have you read the specs on this order?" She has to be completely washable, but not plastic. Have 180 moveable parts...all replaceable. Run on black coffee and leftovers. Have a lap that disappears when she stands up. A kiss that can cure anything from a broken leg to a disappointed love affair. And six pairs of hands." The angel shook her head slowly and said. "Six pairs of hands.... no way." It's not the hands that are causing me problems," God remarked, "it's the three pairs of eyes that mothers have to have." That's on the standard model?" asked the angel. God nodded. One pair that sees through closed doors when she asks, 'What are you kids doing in there?' when she already knows. Another here in the back of her head that sees what she shouldn't but what she has to know, and of course the ones here in front that can look at a child when he goofs up and say. 'I understand and I love you' without so much as uttering a word." God," said the angel touching his sleeve gently, "Get some rest tomorrow...." I can't," said God, "I'm so close to creating something so close to myself. Already I have one who heals herself when she is sick...can feed a family of six on one pound of hamburger...and can get a nine year old to stand under a shower." The angel circled the model of a mother very slowly. "It's too soft," she sighed. But tough!" said God excitedly. "You can imagine what this mother can do or endure." Can it think?" Not only can it think, but it can reason and compromise," said the Creator. Finally, the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek. There's a leak," she pronounced. "I told You that You were trying to put too much into this model." It's not a leak," said the Lord, "It's a tear." What's it for?" It's for joy, sadness, disappointment, pain, loneliness, and pride." You are a genius, " said the angel. Somberly, God said, "I didn't put it there.
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Erma Bombeck (When God Created Mothers)
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I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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I was like, Am I gay? Am I straight? And I realized...I'm just slutty. Where's my parade?
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Margaret Cho
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I am determined that only the deepest love will induce me into matrimony. So, I shall end an old maid, and teach your ten children to embroider cushions and play their instruments very ill.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it, and that is how it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.
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Steve Jobs
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What is the point of worrying oneself too much about what one could or could not have done to control the course one's life took? Surely it is enough that the likes of you and I at least try to make our small contribution count for something true and worthy. And if some of us are prepared to sacrifice much in life in order to pursue such aspirations, surely that in itself, whatever the outcome, cause for pride and contentment.
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Kazuo Ishiguro (The Remains of the Day)
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Love is a commitment that will be tested in the most vulnerable areas of spirituality, a commitment that will force you to make some very difficult choices. It is a commitment that demands that you deal with your lust, your greed, your pride, your power, your desire to control, your temper, your patience, and every area of temptation that the Bible clearly talks about. It demands the quality of commitment that Jesus demonstrates in His relationship to us.
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Ravi Zacharias (I, Isaac, Take Thee, Rebekah)
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I'm not telling you to make the world better, because I don't think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I'm just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave's a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that's what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it.
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Joan Didion
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He had a word, too. Love, he called it. But I had been used to words for a long time. I knew that that word was like the others: just a shape to fill a lack; that when the right time came, you wouldn't need a word for that any more than for pride or fear....One day I was talking to Cora. She prayed for me because she believed I was blind to sin, wanting me to kneel and pray too, because people to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too.
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William Faulkner (As I Lay Dying)
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You Chose You chose. You chose. You chose. You chose to give away your love. You chose to have a broken heart. You chose to give up. You chose to hang on. You chose to react. You chose to feel insecure. You chose to feel anger. You chose to fight back. You chose to have hope. You chose to be naΓ―ve. You chose to ignore your intuition. You chose to ignore advice. You chose to look the other way. You chose to not listen. You chose to be stuck in the past. You chose your perspective. You chose to blame. You chose to be right. You chose your pride. You chose your games. You chose your ego. You chose your paranoia. You chose to compete. You chose your enemies. You chose your consequences. You chose. You chose. You chose. You chose. However, you are not alone. Generations of women in your family have chosen. Women around the world have chosen. We all have chosen at one time in our lives. We stand behind you now screaming: Choose to let go. Choose dignity. Choose to forgive yourself. Choose to forgive others. Choose to see your value. Choose to show the world you’re not a victim. Choose to make us proud.
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Shannon L. Alder
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I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. As a child I was taught what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit. Unfortunately an only son (for many years an only child), I was spoilt by my parents, who, though good themselves (my father, particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable), allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing; to care for none beyond my own family circle; to think meanly of all the rest of the world; to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own. Such I was, from eight to eight and twenty; and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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Never assume that the person you are dealing with is weaker or less important than you are. Some people are slow to take offense, which may make you misjudge the thickness of their skin, and fail to worry about insulting them. But should you offend their honor and their pride, they will overwhelm you with a violence that seems sudden and extreme given their slowness to anger. If you want to turn people down, it is best to do so politely and respectfully, even if you feel their request is impudent or their offer ridiculous.
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Robert Greene (The 48 Laws of Power)
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She loved the guy. She did it for him. She would’ve done anything for him. Some people are like that. Some loves are like that. Most loves are like that, from what I can see. Your heart starts to feel like an overcrowded lifeboat. You throw your pride out to keep it afloat, and your self-respect and your independence. After a while you start throwing people outβ€”your friends, everyone you used to know. And it’s still not enough. The lifeboat is still sinking, and you know it’s going to take you down with it. I’ve seen that happen to a lot of people here. I think that’s why I’m sick of love.
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Gregory David Roberts (Shantaram)
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That is why it is so important to let certain things go. To release them. To cut loose. People need to understand that no one is playing with marked cards; sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Don't expect to get anything back, don't expect recognition for your efforts, don't expect your genius to be discovered or your love to be understood. Complete the circle. Not out of pride, inability or arrogance, but simply because whatever it is no longer fits in your life. Close the door, change the record, clean the house, get rid of the dust. Stop being who you were and become who you are.
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Paulo Coelho (The Zahir)
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For everything in this journey of life we are on, there is a right wing and a left wing: for the wing of love there is anger; for the wing of destiny there is fear; for the wing of pain there is healing; for the wing of hurt there is forgiveness; for the wing of pride there is humility; for the wing of giving there is taking; for the wing of tears there is joy; for the wing of rejection there is acceptance; for the wing of judgment there is grace; for the wing of honor there is shame; for the wing of letting go there is the wing of keeping. We can only fly with two wings and two wings can only stay in the air if there is a balance. Two beautiful wings is perfection. There is a generation of people who idealize perfection as the existence of only one of these wings every time. But I see that a bird with one wing is imperfect. An angel with one wing is imperfect. A butterfly with one wing is dead. So this generation of people strive to always cut off the other wing in the hopes of embodying their ideal of perfection, and in doing so, have created a crippled race.
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C. JoyBell C.
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The pessimist resembles a man who observes with fear and sadness that his wall calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. On the other hand, the person who attacks the problems of life actively is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the fullest. What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees, or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for him? No, thank you,' he will think. 'Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, although these are things which cannot inspire envy.
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Viktor E. Frankl (Man’s Search for Meaning)
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Certainly the most destructive vice if you like, that a person can have. More than pride, which is supposedly the number one of the cardinal sins - is self pity. Self pity is the worst possible emotion anyone can have. And the most destructive. It is, to slightly paraphrase what Wilde said about hatred, and I think actually hatred's a subset of self pity and not the other way around - ' It destroys everything around it, except itself '. Self pity will destroy relationships, it'll destroy anything that's good, it will fulfill all the prophecies it makes and leave only itself. And it's so simple to imagine that one is hard done by, and that things are unfair, and that one is underappreciated, and that if only one had had a chance at this, only one had had a chance at that, things would have gone better, you would be happier if only this, that one is unlucky. All those things. And some of them may well even be true. But, to pity oneself as a result of them is to do oneself an enormous disservice. I think it's one of things we find unattractive about the american culture, a culture which I find mostly, extremely attractive, and I like americans and I love being in america. But, just occasionally there will be some example of the absolutely ravening self pity that they are capable of, and you see it in their talk shows. It's an appalling spectacle, and it's so self destructive. I almost once wanted to publish a self help book saying 'How To Be Happy by Stephen Fry : Guaranteed success'. And people buy this huge book and it's all blank pages, and the first page would just say - ' Stop Feeling Sorry For Yourself - And you will be happy '. Use the rest of the book to write down your interesting thoughts and drawings, and that's what the book would be, and it would be true. And it sounds like 'Oh that's so simple', because it's not simple to stop feeling sorry for yourself, it's bloody hard. Because we do feel sorry for ourselves, it's what Genesis is all about.
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Stephen Fry
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Snake Street is an area I should avoid. Yet that night I was drawn there as surely as if I had an appointment.Β  The Snake House is shabby on the outside to hide the wealth within. Everyone knows of the wealth, but facades, like the park’s wall, must be maintained. A lantern hung from the porch eaves. A sign, written in Utte, read β€˜Kinship of the Serpent’. I stared at that sign, at that porch, at the door with its twisted handle, and wondered what the people inside would do if I entered. Would they remember me? Greet me as Kin? Or drive me out and curse me for faking my death?Β  Worse, would they expect me to redon the life I’ve shed? Staring at that sign, I pissed in the street like the Mearan savage I’ve become. As I started to leave, I saw a woman sitting in the gutter. Her lamp attracted me. A memsa’s lamp, three tiny flames to signify the Holy Trinity of Faith, Purity, and Knowledge.Β  The woman wasn’t a memsa. Her young face was bruised and a gash on her throat had bloodied her clothing. Had she not been calmly assessing me, I would have believed the wound to be mortal. I offered her a copper.Β  She refused, β€œI take naught for naught,” and began to remove trinkets from a cloth bag, displaying them for sale. Her Utte accent had been enough to earn my coin. But to assuage her pride I commented on each of her worthless treasures, fighting the urge to speak Utte. (I spoke Universal with the accent of an upper class Mearan though I wondered if she had seen me wetting the cobblestones like a shameless commoner.) After she had arranged her wares, she looked up at me. β€œWhat do you desire, O Noble Born?” I laughed, certain now that she had seen my act in front of the Snake House and, letting my accent match the coarseness of my dress, I again offered the copper. Β β€œNay, Noble One. You must choose.” She lifted a strand of red beads. β€œThese to adorn your lady’s bosom?” Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β  I shook my head. I wanted her lamp. But to steal the light from this woman ... I couldn’t ask for it. She reached into her bag once more and withdrew a book, leather-bound, the pages gilded on the edges. β€œBe this worthy of desire, Noble Born?” Β I stood stunned a moment, then touched the crescent stamped into the leather and asked if she’d stolen the book. She denied it. I’ve had the Training; she spoke truth. Yet how could she have come by a book bearing the Royal Seal of the Haesyl Line? I opened it. The pages were blank. β€œTake it,” she urged. β€œRecord your deeds for study. Lo, the steps of your life mark the journey of your soul.” Β  I told her I couldn’t afford the book, but she smiled as if poverty were a blessing and said, β€œThe price be one copper. Tis a wee price for salvation, Noble One.” Β  So I bought this journal. I hide it under my mattress. When I lie awake at night, I feel the journal beneath my back and think of the woman who sold it to me. Damn her. She plagues my soul. I promised to return the next night, but I didn’t. I promised to record my deeds. But I can’t. The price is too high.
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K. Ritz (Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master)