Oh, no...Vanity too?

Pride is excessive belief in one's own abilities, that interferes with the individual's recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity

Where Arrogance Hides

Hubris. It's an anchor around the necks of lots of Americans.

From "East Coker"

A man of great wisdom reminded me of T.S.Eliot's words to confuse the arrogantt: "The only wisdom we can hope to acquire / is the wisdom of humility".

Look out for those CEOs

Is your CEO a jerk? Here's why.

Exhilarating Me to Warp Nine

As I look back into the past five or ten years, I see why you’d say I appear to be crazy. I thoughtlessly express my ideas in prose painted a color symbolic of my state of mind. Let’s say its blue...sky, Mediterranean, bruised, aqua, azure, robin’s egg, bluegrass, navy, metallic, satin, transparent. Or, it’s the textured gray of wishing, searching, complaining, holding my breath, addling, fiddling, cleaning, or pretending. Or, maybe, it’s splotchy sand and terra cotta on khaki that wishes for conflict resolution everywhere.

I’ll argue a pointless point. My summary inevitably veers off into a smelly swamp, where I wait for the gators like an orphan waiting for his supper. I invite the gnash of snapping jaws, and when they don’t come, I say “oh, well”. I usually just give up, and I think about what the verbal venom would have been like. I remember the imagined high points and the disingenuous personal attacks. Those go into the “examples of sanity for future reference” file. I add to my list of court arguments in case I’m called as a character witness again.

I probably just talk to hear myself…kind of a way of listening for a heartbeat. I can start a sentence and then try to think up an ending that will make me feel like a genius. That’s been going on for a long time, and I’m not particularly anxious to fix it. I enjoy a comfortable state of pretense occasionally. I think of how I’d handle the office of President. I know this: lots of insecure, anti-authoritarian, left leaning slackers would think I’m crazy. On a national level, cable commentary would blossom, and TV producers would dig around in that swamp for evidence I may have dropped. There’s no doubt they could find little pretend thirty-eight caliber slugs from a nonexistent smoking gun. The conspiracy hunter in me almost guarantees this little confession itself could become a great expose…the handy bombshell that might rocket a yellow thesaurus-wielding cub onto page one.

A tip from David Foster Wallace (RIP)

A SNOOTcan be defined as somebody who knows what dysphemism means and doesn't mind letting you know it. A fellow SNOOT I know likes to say that listening to most people's English feels like watching somebody use a Stradivarius to pound nails.

From the Al Gore family diary?

Arrogance
Some of my relatives are extremely arrogant. They think they have all the answers about life and business and religion. The problem is they are all really unhappy. I strongly believe that if they just took a few minutes to get out of their own way they could begin to discover a lot more in life.

Never assume that you have all the answers. Always ask questions and keep a sense of curiosity. Even the most learned people like Albert Einstein and the Dalai Lama keep a sense of humility because they realize that there is still so much to be learned and discovered.

www.thedailymind.com/success/5-things-that-are-holding-you-back-in-life/

Ah Louie. Fourteen might be the perfect integer.

Thanks, Ted. You da Arrogant Man for 2010

If I only had a little humility, I’d be perfect.

Sometimes, you find something accidentally

http://commentcc.blogspot.com/2010/01/searching-for-some-conservative.html

It's not worth it

Don't be humble. You're not that great.

— Golda Meir

Arrogant... or self-absorbed?

Are introverts arrogant? Hardly. I suppose this common misconception has to do with our being more intelligent, more reflective, more independent, more level-headed, more refined, and more sensitive than extroverts. Also, it is probably due to our lack of small talk, a lack that extroverts often mistake for disdain. We tend to think before talking, whereas extroverts tend to think by talking, which is why their meetings never last less than six hours. (Thanks, Jonathan Rauch)

Introverted Intuitive Thinkers

Introverted intuitive thinkers project an aura of "definiteness", of self-confidence. This self-confidence, sometimes mistaken for simple arrogance, is actually due to a very specific characteristic, whose source lies in specialized knowledge that’s built starting at an early age.

When it comes to their own areas of expertise, “I.I.” thinkers will be able to tell you almost immediately whether or not they can help you, and if so, how. They know what they know, and they know what they don't know.

“I.I.” thinkers are perfectionists with a seemingly endless capacity for improving upon anything that takes their interest.

Well known Introverted Intuitive thinkers: Lance Armstrong, Augustus Caesar, Dan Aykroyd, William J. Bennett, William F. Buckley, Jr., Chevy Chase, Katie Couric, Rudy Giuliani, Peter Jennings, Martina Navratilova, Michelle Obama, General Colin Powell, Hillary Clinton, Charles Rangel, Donald Rumsfeld, Hillary Clinton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chester A. Arthur, Calvin Coolidge, Thomas Jefferson, John F. Kennedy, James K. Polk, Woodrow Wilson

And bullet resistant

Me, I'm Teflon and Kevlar. Just another one of the DuPont-bred abrasion-resistant, hard to snag tough guys.

It's an Elitist Thing you wouldn't understand