Superior For Quotes & Sayings

Good manners forced her to say, somewhat grudgingly, "Your boots are very nice."
He grinned and regarded his footwear, which, though old, appeared very well-made. "Yes, they are, aren't they?"
"If a bit scuffed," she added.
"I shall polish them tomorrow," he promised, his somewhat superior look telling her that he refused to rise to her bait.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "That was uncalled for. Compliments should be freely given, without restrictions or qualifications. — Julia Quinn

Just because your electronics are better than ours, you aren't necessarily superior in any way. Look, imagine that you humans are a man in LA with a brand-new Trujillo and we are a nuhp in New York with a beat-up old Ford. The two fellows start driving toward St. Louis. Now, the guy in the Trujillo is doing 120 on the interstates, and the guy in the Ford is putting along at 55; but the human in the Trujillo stops in Vegas and puts all of his gas money down the hole of a blackjack table, and the determined little nuhp cruises along for days until at last he reaches his goal. It's all a matter of superior intellect and the will to succeed.
Your people talk a lot about going to the stars, but you just keep putting your money into other projects, like war and popular music and international athletic events and resurrecting the fashions of previous decades. If you wanted to go into space, you would have. — George Alec Effinger

The fundamentals will cause us all to stand and stare; our want for material possessions, our possession and passing on of heirlooms, our want to leave a legacy; our base sexual drives, our wish to be the superior versions of ourselves; our desire to be happy, as an emotion and an idea, that ultimate phantasm. — Simon Pont

One of the surest signs of the Philistine is his reverence for the superior tastes of those who put him down. — Pauline Kael

The superior man is not seeking fulfillment through work and woman, because he is already full. For him, work and intimacy are opportunities to give his gifts, and to be vanished in the bliss of giving. — David Deida

A superior brain without the saving essence of godliness may turn against the human race and drench the world in blood, or worse, it may loose ideas into the earth which will continue to curse mankind for centuries after it has turned to dust again. — A.W. Tozer

The work of the painter, the poet or the musician, like the myths and symbols of the savage, ought to be seen by us, if not as a superior form of knowledge, at least as the most fundamental and the only one really common to us all; scientific thought is merely the sharp point more penetrating because it has been whetted on the stone of fact, but at the cost of some loss of substance and its effectiveness is to be explained by its power to pierce sufficiently deeply for the main body of the tool to follow the head. — Claude Levi-Strauss

You break free when you feel neither beneath anyone nor superior to anyone, when you shed the need to control other people, when you create space for others to be who they are and for your real self to be what it is. — Deepak Chopra

My boy, you shall be everything in the world, animal, vegetable, mineral, protista, or virus, for all I care-before I have done with you-but you will have to trust my superior backsight. The time is not yet ripe for you to be a hawk ... so you may as well sit down for the moment and learn to be a human being. — T.H. White

To have output you must have input. It helps to go on a period of creative nourishment, or dolce far niente, clearing the brain. Go to bed with the cat, some flouffy pillows, tea and a book which could not in any sense be called improving. Read for fun for a change: superior Chicklit is good, or children's classics. You are not allowed to try and analyse what the author is doing. After a good sleep, go and do something new, or that you haven't done for a while ... — Lucy Sussex

I know of no other way to triumph over sin long-term than to gain a distaste for it because of a superior satisfaction in God. — John Piper

The Armadillo A big fiesta was announced on Lake Titicaca, and the armadillo, who was a very superior creature, wanted to dazzle everybody. Long beforehand, he set to weaving a cloak of such elegance that it would knock all eyes out. The fox noticed him at work. "Are you in a bad mood?" "Don't distract me. I'm busy." "What's that for?" The armadillo explained. "Ah," said the fox, savoring the words, "for the fiesta tonight?" "What do you mean, tonight?" The armadillo's heart sank. He had never been more sure of his time calculations. "And me with my cloak only half finished!" While the fox took off with a smothered laugh, the armadillo finished the cloak in a hurry. As time was flying, he had to use coarser threads, and the weave ended up too big. For this reason the armadillo's shell is tight-warped around the neck and very open at the back. (174) — Eduardo Galeano

For the superior morality, of which we hear so much, we too would desire to be thankful: at the same time, it were but blindness to deny that this superior morality is properly rather an inferior criminality, produced not by greater love of Virtue, but by greater perfection of Police; and of that far subtler and stronger Police, called Public Opinion. — Thomas Carlyle

They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail to punish it with death; for they allege, that care and vigilance, with a very common understanding, may preserve a man's goods from thieves, but honesty has no defence against superior cunning; and, since it is necessary that there should be a perpetual intercourse of buying and selling, and dealing upon credit, where fraud is permitted and connived at, or has no law to punish it, the honest dealer is always undone, and the knave gets the advantage. — Jonathan Swift

Feminine intuition? Is that what you wanted the robot for? You men. Faced with a woman reaching a correct conclusion and unable to accept the fact that she is your equal or superior in intelligence, you invent something called feminine intuition. — Isaac Asimov

The self-deception of slave owners and proponents of slavery is well documented by the historians Eugene Genovese and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese in their book Fatal Self-Deception: Slaveholding Paternalism in the Old South. Slavery was not perceived by most slaveholders in the nineteenth century to be an exploitation of humans by other humans for economic gain; instead, slaveholders painted a portrait of slavery as a paternalistic and benign institution in which the slaves themselves were seen as not so different from all laborers - black and white - who toiled everywhere in both free and slave states; further, the South's "Christian slavery" was claimed to be superior. — Michael Shermer

The best and noblest parts of man depend precious little on culture, education, and whatever else it is called. One can never have enough respect for true humanity as it is visible in the persons of the totally uneducated classes, and never enough humility if one sometimes believes one is superior to them. — Wilhelm Von Humboldt

By both nature and principle, he was superior to the mean gratification of vengeance: he had forgiven me for saying I scorned him and his love, but he had not forgotten the words; and as long as he and I lived he never would forget them. I saw by his look, when he turned to me, that they were always written on the air between me and him; whenever I spoke, they sounded in my voice to his ear, and their echo toned every answer he gave me. — Charlotte Bronte

Leonardo did not pursue science and engineering in order to dominate nature, as Francis Bacon would advocate a century later, but always tried to learn as much as possible from nature. He was in awe of the beauty he saw in the complexity of natural forms, patterns, and processes, and aware that nature's ingenuity was far superior to human design. Accordingly, he often used natural processes and structures as models for his own designs. — Fritjof Capra

I glanced at the contents of what I was photocopying. They were the rules of the golf club of which Mister Saito was a member. I started to laugh.
The next minute I felt more like crying, thinking about all the innocent trees that my superior was wasting to chastise me. I imagined the forests of the Japan of my childhood - maples, cedars, and ginkgoes - felled for the sole purpose of punishing a creature as insignificant as myself. I remembered, again, that Fubuki's family name meant forest. — Amelie Nothomb

The legal system is designed to protect men from the superior power of the state but not to protect women or children from the superior power of men. It therefore provides strong guarantees for the rights of the accused but essentially no guarantees for the rights of the victim. If one set out by design to devise a system for provoking intrusive post-traumatic symptoms, one could not do better than a court of law. — Judith Lewis Herman

In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true ... Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness. — Hannah Arendt

From this point of view, Zafar could certainly be tried as a defeated enemy king; but he had never been a subject, and so could not possibly be called a rebel guilty of treason. Instead, from a legal point of view, a good case could be made that it was the East India Company which was the real rebel, guilty of revolt against a feudal superior to whom it had sworn allegiance for nearly a century. — William Dalrymple

It is tenderness of heart which makes my dear father so generally beloved - which gives Isabella all her popularity. - I have it not - but I know how to prize and respect it. - Harriet is my superior in all the charm and all the felicity it gives. Dear Harriet! - I would not change you for the clearest-headed, longest-sighted, best-judging female breathing. — Jane Austen

I'm always playing characters with intellects profoundly superior to mine. That's great fun, even though it's as much a fantasy for me as for the people watching me. — Benedict Cumberbatch

Most black people are anti-racist (even those who have internalized racial self-hatred) and will not argue that whites are better, superior, and should rule over us. Yet most black people are not anti-sexist (even those whose life circumstance may make it impossible for them to rigidly conform to sexist roles) and will argue the natural superiority of men, supporting their right to dominance in the family and in the world outside the home. — Bell Hooks

How easy it is for generous sentiments, high courtesy, and chivalrous courage to lose their influence beneath the chilling blight of selfishness, and to exhibit to the world a man who was great in all the minor attributes of character, but who was found wanting when it became necessary to prove how much principle is superior to policy. — James F. Cooper

Let us not, in the pride of our superior knowledge, turn with contempt from the follies of our predecessors. The study of the errors into which great minds have fallen in the pursuit of truth can never be uninstructive. As the man looks back to the days of his childhood and his youth, and recalls to his mind the strange notions and false opinions that swayed his actions at the time, that he may wonder at them; so should society, for its edification, look back to the opinions which governed ages that fled. — Charles Mackay

We see now a complex web of historical threads to ensnare blacks for slavery in America: the desperation of starving settlers, the special helplessness of the displaced African, the powerful incentive of profit for slave trader and planter, the temptation of superior status for poor whites, the elaborate controls against escape and rebellion, the legal and social punishment of black and white collaboration. The point is that the elements of this web are historical, not "natural." This does not mean that they are easily disentangled, dismantled. It means only that there is a possibility for something else, under historical conditions not yet realized. And one of these conditions would be the elimination of that class exploitation which has made poor whites desperate for small gifts of status, and has prevented that unity of black and white necessary for joint rebellion and reconstruction. — Howard Zinn

So long has the myth of feminine inferiority prevailed that women themselves find it hard to believe that their own sex was once and for a very long time the superior and dominant sex. — Elizabeth Gould Davis

People who think of themselves as tough-minded and realistic, among them influential political leaders and businessmen as well as go-getters and hustlers of smaller caliber, tend to take it for granted that human nature is selfish and that life is a struggle in which only the fittest may survive. According to this philosophy, the basic law by which man must live, in spite of his surface veneer of civilization, is the law of the jungle. The "fittest" are those who can bring to the struggle superior force, superior cunning, and superior ruthlessness. — S.I. Hayakawa

It's always been a great survival value for people to believe they belong to a superior tribe. That's just in human relationships. — E. O. Wilson

The
historical mission and the justification of capitalism are, in his eyes, to prepare the conditions for a
superior mode of production. This mode of production is not in itself revolutionary; it will only be the
consummation of the revolution. Only the fundamental principles of bourgeois production are
revolutionary. When Marx affirms that humanity only sets itself problems it can solve, he is
simultaneously demonstrating that the germ of the solution of the revolutionary problem is to be found in
the capitalist system itself. Therefore he recommends tolerating the bourgeois State, and even helping to
build it, rather than returning to a less industrialized form of production. The proletariat can and must
accept the bourgeois revolution as a condition of the working-class revolution. — Albert Camus

There is nothing you can do that profit does not enter into, and fear of loss, and wish for power. You cannot say good morning without knowing which of you is 'superior' to the other, or trying to prove it. You cannot act like a brother to other people, you must manipulate them, or command them, or obey them, or trick them. You cannot touch another person, yet they will not leave you alone. There is no freedom. — Ursula K. Le Guin

For this was the age of The Girl. We had come out of the back parlor, out of the kitchen and nursery, we turned our backs upon the blackboards, shed aprons and paper cuffs. A war had freed us and given women a new kind of self-respect.
The adjective poor no longer preceded the once disreputable "working girl". It was honorable, it was jolly, it was even superior to be a "career girl". — Vera Caspary

He could now see his life opening before him, uncomplex and inescapable as a barren corridor, completely freed now of ever again having to think or decide, the burden which he now assumed and carried as bright and weightless and martial as his insignatory brass: a sublime and implicit faith in physical courage and blind obedience, and a belief that the white race is superior to any and all other races and that the American is superior to all other white races and that the American uniform is superior to all men, and that all that would ever be required of him in payment for this belief, this privilege, would be his own life. — William Faulkner

1. I am superior to others.
Circle one: Doesn't apply to me. Partially applies to me. Fully applies to me.
And:
I would not feel sorry if someone were blamed for something I did.
Circle one: Doesn't apply to me. Partially applies to me. Fully applies to me. — Lisa Scottoline

Top performers understand their field at a higher level than average performers do, and thus have a superior structure for remembering information about it. — Geoff Colvin

Every superior personality, and every superior performance, has, for the average of mankind, something mysterious. — Georg Simmel

If science can eliminate sleep, we will have more time to live and no time for the dreams. But living is superior to the dream because it is real! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

As a rule those who were least remarkable for intelligence showed the greater powers of survival. Such people recognized their own deficiencies and the superior intelligence of their opponnents; fearing that they might lose a debate or find themselves out-manoeuvred in intrigue by their quick-witted enemies, they boldly launched straight into action; while their opponents, overconfident in the belief that they would see what was happening in advance, and not thinking it necessary to seize by force what they could secure by policy, were the more easily destroyed because they were off their guard. 84 Certainly it was in Corcyra that — Thucydides

For by superior energies; more strict affiance in each other; faith more firm in their unhallowed principles, the bad have fairly earned a victory over the weak, the vacillating, inconsistent good. — William Wordsworth

We want America in the twenty-first century to be the launching pad where everyone in the world comes to launch his or her moon shot. We want it to be the place where innovators and entrepreneurs the world over come to locate all or part of their operations because our workforce is so productive; our infrastructure and Internet bandwidth are so advanced; our openness to talent from anywhere is second to none; our funding for basic research is so generous; our rule of law, patent protection, and investment- and manufacturing-friendly tax code is superior to what can be found in any other country; and our openness to collaboration is unparalleled - all because we have updated and expanded our formula for success. — Thomas L. Friedman

Many people lost their lives fighting for these rights - to vote, to be free, to work, to be able to get on the same bus as someone considered their superior. And it was the next generations who embedded these changes, who came to view women as equals to men, who came to understand that skin colour is of no relevance. Young people are the future. Without them, the world stands still. — Gemma Malley

...to experience a furious disillusionment with 'conventional' politics, a bit young to be so cynical and so superior, you may think. My reply is that you should fucking well have been there, and felt it for yourself. — Christopher Hitchens

The problem is that you are too much in love. You are here because your parents mentioned your name to someone who mentioned your parents' name to someone who mentioned your name to my superior who suggested that I might find a position for you. And so here you sit blocking my light and dripping on my floor, eager to tell me that you love the paintings in my museum. That you have known them, admired them, dreamt of them since you were a little girl. I wish it were otherwise but all this means nothing to me. Everyone who has sat on that stool has claimed your devotion. — C.S. Richardson

As an empiricist I continue to think of the conceptual scheme of science as a tool, ultimately, for predicting future experience in the light of past experience. Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries-not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer. For my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conception only as cultural posits. The myth of physical objects is epistemologically superior to most in that it has proved more efficacious than other myths as a device for working a manageable structure into the flux of experience. — Willard Van Orman Quine

To sing of Wars, of Captains, and of Kings/Of Cities founded, Common-wealths begun/For my mean Pen are too superior things, — Anne Bradstreet

When the glory of God is the treasure of our lives, we will not lay up treasures on earth, but spend them for the spread of his glory. We will not covet, but overflow with liberality. We will not crave the praise of men, but forget ourselves in praising God. We will not be mastered by sinful, sensual pleasures, but sever their root by the power of a superior promise. We will not will nurse a wounded ego or cherish a grudge or nurture a vengeful spirit, but will hand over our cause to God and bless those who hate us. Every sin flows from the failure to treasure the glory of God above all things. — John Piper

All but a few of the organizations do not specifically promise to deliver superior investment performance although it is perhaps not unreasonable for the public to draw such an inference from their advertised emphasis on professional management. — Warren Buffett

The remediableness criterion is an effort to deal symmetrically with real world institutions, both public and private, warts and all. The criterion is this: an extant mode of organization for which no superior feasible form of organization can be described and implemented with expected net gains is presumed to be efficient. — Oliver E. Williamson

I hope you were going to come pry your sister off my back," Paca clips as Rayna swims up. "She's quite rude."
Galen throws Rayna a look, to which she lifts her chin. "Paca and her pudgy father over there are full of whale dung," Rayna informs her brothers.
"Rayna," Grom barks. "Mind your manners."
Rayna lifts her chin even higher. Here we go. "Paca is a fraud, Grom," she says. "You can't mate with her. Sorry to ruin your ceremony. Let's go, Galen."
Paca gasps as Jagen swims up to the party, almost stuttering in his fury. "You little ... little stonefish! How dare you insult my daughter?"
Galen grabs Rayna's arm. "What did you do?" he hisses.
She jerks her arm away and gives him a superior look. "If Paca has the Gift of Poseidon, I have the Gift of Triton. Don't ask me what it is though, because I don't have a clue."
"Rayna, enough!" Grom says, grabbing her other arm. "Apologize. Right now."
"Apologize for what? Telling the truth? Sorry, not feeling it. — Anna Banks

James and the other eight children of 'Superior Dosset,' of whom there are still five alive, may be said to have represented Victorian England, with its principles of trade and individualism at five per cent, and your money back - if you know what that means. At all events they've turned thirty thousand pounds into a cool million between them in the course of their long lives. ( ... ) Their day is passing, and their type, not altogether for the advantage of the country. They were pedestrian, but they too were sound. — John Galsworthy

...the word "fine". As in "I'm fine", "it's fine", "that looks fine", etc. For a man the word fine has, tops, three or four meanings and that's only because of the fairly recent edition of "Dang, girl! You look fine!" Otherwise "fine" would range somewhere between satisfactory and of superior quality. For a woman the word "fine" has like seventy meanings and depending on voice inflexion can actually mean 'If I'm questioned again I'll stab you in your sleep'. — Aaron Blaylock

The rational scientists - and "new atheists" - believe the "sensitive, caring" postmodern Pluralists are loopy and "woo-woo," and that the traditional religious fundamentalists are archaic, childish, and dangerous. The postmodern Pluralists think that both the Rational scientists and the traditional fundamentalists are caught up in "socially constructed" modes of knowing, which are culturally relative and have no more binding power than poetry or fashion styles; this "knowledge" gives the Pluralist an enormous sense of superiority (although in their worldview, nothing is supposed to be superior). And the traditional fundamentalists think that both the modern Rational scientists and the postmodern Pluralists are all unbelieving heathens, bound for an everlasting hell, so who cares what they think anyway? — Ken Wilber

Thus, when a superior intellect and a psychopathic temperament coalesce ... in the same individual, we have the best possible conditions for the kind of effective genius that gets into the biographical dictionaries. Such men do not remain mere critics and understanders with their intellect. Their ideas posses them, they inflict them, for better or worse, upon their companions or their age. — William James

Readiness for action is the root of all kingly duties. Listen to the verse sung by Vrihaspati: By exertion the amrita was obtained, by exertion the asuras were slain and by exertion Indra obtained sovereignity in heaven and on earth. The heroes of exertion are superior to the heroes of speech. The heroes of speech gratify the heroes of exertion. — Meera Uberoi

What in the world do our clothes say about us when we put them on?" Rose said. "There's no real dignity in any of these costumes. If I'm a maid, I do what the owner of the house tells me to do. If I'm a nurse, I do whatever the doctor tells me to do. What are we as women, other than barnacles that attach themselves to higher life forms in some pathetic attempt to clean up messes? Tidy up what men have left behind - make the world a lovelier, better place for men. I would like to play a part in which I don't have a superior."
The director told Rose that she should save her philosophical speculations until after work because they were causing the male actors to lose their erections. — Heather O'Neill

I dwell in Possibility
A fairer House than Prose
More numerous of Windows
Superior - for Doors
Of Chambers as the Cedars
Impregnable of Eye
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky
Of Visitors - the fairest
For Occupation - This
The spreading wide of narrow Hands
To gather Paradise - — Emily Dickinson

It's lonely? Sure, it's lonely. That's what you asked for, didn't you? After all, if you hadn't been too superior for the gang, you wouldn't be here. And think how much more distinguished it is to be on your own, or with one or two individualists like yourself, than to be an ordinary gregarious animal going about with the herd. — Anna Kavan

Dianetics is a milestone for man comparable to his discovery of fire and superior to his invention of the wheel and the arch. — L. Ron Hubbard

To plead the organic causation of a religious state of mind, then, in refutation of its claim to possess superior spiritual value, is quite illogical and arbitrary, unless one has already worked out in advance some psycho-physical theory connecting spiritual values in general with determinate sorts of physiological change. Otherwise none of our thoughts and feelings, not even our scientific doctrines, not even our DIS-beliefs, could retain any value as revelations of the truth, for every one of them without exception flows from the state of its possessor's body at the time. — William James

The superior man is quiet and calm, waiting for the appointments of heaven, while the mean man walks in dangerous paths, looking for lucky occurrences. — Confucius

We like to think we're superior to the people who, centuries ago, burned 'witches' for no better reason than a neighbor's belief that his crop failure or impotence was caused by that woman's action. But reporters are still prone to the same mental errors that caused these killings: seeing patterns where there are none, finding causes where there is only coincidence, ignoring our sources' political agendas and turning scanty evidence into panic. — John Stossel

I should be inclined, therefore, as I have hinted before, to consider the world and this life as the mighty process of God, not for the trial, but for the creation and formation of mind, a process necessary to awaken inert, chaotic matter into spirit, to sublimate the dust of the earth into soul, to elicit an ethereal spark from the clod of clay. And in this view of the subject, the various impressions and excitements which man receives through life may be considered as the forming hand of his Creator, acting by general laws, and awakening his sluggish existence, by the animating touches of the Divinity, into a capacity of superior enjoyment. The original sin of man is the torpor and corruption of the chaotic matter in which he may be said to be born. — Thomas Robert Malthus

For men, it's absolutely essential to stop believing that they're superior to women because that very belief engenders ego, which sets them off-balance. Therefore, they don't realize that they're being manipulated by the second attention of woman because their ego won't permit them. — Frederick Lenz

The Voice of Christ: MY CHILD, do not trust in your present feeling, for it will soon give way to another. As long as you live you will be subject to changeableness in spite of yourself. You will become merry at one time and sad at another, now peaceful but again disturbed, at one moment devout and the next indevout, sometimes diligent while at other times lazy, now grave and again flippant. But the man who is wise and whose spirit is well instructed stands superior to these changes. He pays no attention to what he feels in himself or from what quarter the wind of fickleness blows, so long as the whole intention of his mind is conducive to his proper and desired end. — Thomas A Kempis

Therefore the Sage embraces Unity, and is a model for all under Heaven. He is free from self-display, therefore he shines forth; from self-assertion, therefore he is distinguished; from self-glorification, therefore he has merit; from self-exaltation, therefore he rises superior to all. Inasmuch as he does not strive, there is no one in the world who can strive with him. — Laozi

The entire existence of the NFL - and of football at any level, for all of that - rests on whether or not the game can keep fooling itself, and its paying fan base, that it is somehow superior to boxing and to the rest of our modern blood sports. — Charlie Pierce

Her tears fell abundantly
but her grief was so truly artless, that no dignity could have made it more respectable in Emma's eyes
and she listened to her and tried to console her with all her heart and understanding
really for the time convinced that Harriet was the superior creature of the two
and that to resemble her would be more for her own welfare and happiness than all that genius or intelligence could do.
It was rather too late in the day to set about being simple-minded and ignorant; but she left her with every previous resolution confirmed of being humble and discreet, and repressing imagination all the rest of her life. — Jane Austen

I sometimes feel a great ennui, profound emptiness, doubts which sneer in my face in the midst of the most spontaneous satisfactions. Well, I would not exchange all that for anything, because it seems to me, in my conscience, that I am doing my duty, that I am obeying a superior fatality, that I am following the Good and that I am in the Right. — Gustave Flaubert

Death is the enemy. But the enemy has superior forces. Eventually, it wins. And in a war that you cannot win, you don't want a general who fights to the point of total annihilation. You don't want Custer. You want Robert E. Lee, someone who knows how to fight for territory that can be won and how to surrender it when it can't, someone who understands that the damage is greatest if all you do is battle to the bitter end. — Atul Gawande

This truth may be unfashionable, unpalatable, no doubt unpopular, but, if it is the truth, the story of mankind shows that war was universal and unceasing for millions of years before armaments were invented or armies organized. Indeed, the lucid intervals of peace and order only occurred in human history after armaments in the hands of strong governments have come into being, and civilization in every age has been nursed only in cradles guarded by superior weapons and superior discipline. — Winston Churchill

I too get goosebumps when someone talks of national pride and integrity but my brain knows better. What is there to be so proud of pieces of land? People die for them. They kill each other for them. They behave as if being born on this piece makes them superior to the people living on other pieces. Just because people who speak the same language and eat the same food surround you makes you a proud owner of the land you share, completely ignoring the fact that given a chance, the same people can slit your throat at the slightest provocation? — Amit Sharma

Because I'm superior in other things. Help me, and I'll ... I'll fix your car out front. I'll change your tire."
That threw her off. "You're in a skirt"
"I'm offering you what I can. Manual labor in exchange for wisdoms."
"I don't believe you can do it," she said after several long moments.
I crossed my arms. "It's an eyesore."
"You have fifteen minutes."
"I only need ten."
Naturally Adian felt the need to "supervise" my work. "Are you going to get made if I tell you how hot this Is? — Richelle Mead

What had she have to wish for? Nothing but to grow more worthy of him whose intentions and judgment had been ever so superior to her own. — Jane Austen

The truth is women need men, we are neither superior nor inferior to men. We are better at some things and worse at other things. Mature people take the hard road and choose to delay quick gratification for true love. Mature people realize that the world does not revolve around them, and their desires, but around commitment. Mature people are committed to something beyond themselves; God, good, the good of society, family etc.
If men are the source of your problems, then you are doomed to wait for eternity for them to fix it. — Osayi Emokpae Lasisi

Even to this day it is easier than it ought to be for me to get a rise out of an American by telling him something about himself which is equally true about every human being on the face of the globe. He at once resents this as a disparagement and an assertion on my part that people in other parts of the globe are not like that, and are loftily superior to such weaknesses. — George Bernard Shaw

By acknowledging a petty problem you give it existence and credibility. The more attention you pay an enemy, the stronger you make him; and a small mistake is often made worse and more visible when you try to fix it. It is sometimes best to leave things alone. If there is something you want but cannot have, show contempt for it. The less interest you reveal, the more superior you seem. — Robert Greene

The Jesuits were quite balked by those Indians who, being burned at the stake, suggested new modes of tortures to their tormentors. Being superior to physical suffering, it sometimes chanced that they were superior to any consolation which the missionaries could offer; and the law to do as you would be done by fell with less persuasiveness on the ears of those who, for their part, did not care how they were done by, who loved their enemies after a new fashion, and came very near freely forgiving them all they did. — Henry David Thoreau

One of the hardest things to live with in any relationship is criticism, real or implied. Criticism is a form of humor for them, and they enjoy feeling superior when they see someone else's discomfort. — Robert E. Wells

All my best friends are women except for one or two. I feel women are superior to men, and I love having them around. All that female energy is good for me. — John Polson

Modern man has made no significant leaps in the evolution of consciousness for thousands of years. In fact, we may even be less intelligent than some of the civilizations that have preceded us. Scientists have speculated that the gap of intelligence between great thinkers such as Einstein and Tesla compared to the average human is far greater than the gap between the average human and contemporary apes. What is it that is blocking us from achieving a superior level of intelligence?
Aside from the mental conditioning that our culture has been subjected to, I believe that it is due to an utter lack of understanding human nature. Modern humans are raised in such a negative environment. The corruption of our educational system, economic structure, and media outlets has resulted in a state of ignorance common amongst most individuals. — Joseph P. Kauffman

Men do not rest content with parrying the attacks of a superior, but often strike the first blow to prevent the attack being made. And we cannot fix the exact point at which our empire shall stop; we have reached a position in which we must not be content with retaining but must scheme to extend it, for, if we cease to rule others, we are in danger of being ruled ourselves. Nor can you look at inaction from the same point of view as others, unless you are prepared to change your habits and make them like theirs. — Alcibiades

We have given you, O Adam, no visage proper to yourself, nor endowment properly your own, in order that whatever place, whatever form, whatever gifts you may, with premeditation, select, these same you may have and possess through your own judgement and decision. The nature of all other creatures is defined and restricted within laws which We have laid down; you, by contrast, impeded by no such restrictions, may, by your own free will, to whose custody We have assigned you, trace for yourself the lineaments of your own nature [ ... ]. We have made you a creature neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, in order that you may, as the free and proud shaper of your own being, fashion yourself in the form you may prefer. It will be in your power to descend to the lower, brutish forms of life; you will be able, through your own decision, to rise again to the superior orders whose life is divine. — Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola

I learned an important lesson - that the value of the stock is not the same as the underlying value of the company. The stock goes up and down according to the whims and wiles of Wall Street. The value of the company depends on elements that contribute to the creation of real value - things like providing superior products at fair prices. You need to be learning and innovating, giving your people interesting, motivating work and compensating them fairly, creating value for your community, and doing it all in a way that yields a good profit. That's not what much of Wall Street values, but it's what creates long-term value for investors. — Jim Koch

If I was in the US and had a serious medical condition, I would prefer to fly to Kuala Lumpur, Singapore or Bangkok to receive treatment. Not only would I save thousands of dollars, (even with the airfare), but I think that the care that I would receive would be superior - and this from a nurse-manager retired from the U.S. healthcare system! I would say the same for dental care as well - it's cheap and of a high standard. — Anonymous

When people with the fixed mindset opt for success over growth, what are they really trying to prove? That they're special. Even superior. — Carol S. Dweck

For some a gift is only a symbol of their own superior position, which makes it not a gift at all. — J.D. Robb

For to kill a man in a fair fight, is to prove that you are superior to him in strength or skill; and to justify the deed, you must assume that the right of the stronger is really a right. — Arthur Schopenhauer

The superior man accords with the course of the Mean. Though he may be all unknown, unregarded by the world, he feels no regret - It is only the sage who is able for this. — Confucius

And what is an authentic madman? It is a man who preferred to become mad, in the socially accepted sense of the word, rather than forfeit a certain superior idea of human honor. So society has strangled in its asylums all those it wanted to get rid of or protect itself from, because they refused to become its accomplices in certain great nastinesses. For a madman is also a man whom society did not want to hear and whom it wanted to prevent from uttering certain intolerable truths. — Antonin Artaud

The people who believe themselves superior to you will reveal themselves in how they respond to criticism from you. An opinion of anyone carries as much weight as whatever value that person's social currency has. A poor man spouting words more thought provoking than plato would not be credit for his prudence for his social currency and not his wisdom decides the value of his life. — Crystal Evans

The danger of pride
I see increasingly how difficult it is to exercise authority in a community. We are so inclined to want authority for the honour, prestige and admiration that comes with it. Inside each of us is a little tyrant who wants power and the associated prestige, who wants to dominate, to be superior and to control. We are frightened of criticism. We feel we are the only ones to see the truth - and that, sometimes, in the name of God ... So the community becomes 'our' project.
... And Christians can sometimes hide these tendencies behind a mask of virtue, doing what they do for 'good' reasons. There is nothing more terrible than a tyrant using religion as his or her cover. I know my own tendencies toward this and I have to struggle against them constantly. — Jean Vanier

Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy, but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince's part to pardon. — Francis Bacon

Battles lost not alone because of superior numbers and failing ammunition and stores, but because of generals who should not have been generals, who were generals not through training in contemporary methods or aptitude for learning them, but by the divine right to say 'Go there' conferred upon them by an absolute caste system — William Faulkner

Customers won't care about any particular technology unless it solves a particular problem in a superior way. And if you can't monopolize a unique solution for a small market, you'll be stuck with vicious competition. — Peter Thiel

I could not but feel that it was ironical that the old relative should have spoken disparagingly of fawns as a class, sneering at their timidity in that rather lofty and superior manner, for he himself could have walked straight into a gathering of these animals and no questions asked. — P.G. Wodehouse

Reality is a perpetual process of
evolution, propelled by the fertile impact of antagonisms which are resolved each time into a superior
synthesis which, itself, creates its opposite and again causes history to advance. What Hegel affirmed
concerning reality advancing toward the spirit, Marx affirms concerning economy on the march toward
the classless society; everything is both itself and its opposite, and this contradiction compels it to become
something else. Capitalism, because it is bourgeois, reveals itself as revolutionary and prepares the way
for communism. — Albert Camus

Atheist n. A person to be pitied in that he is unable to believe things for which there is no evidence, and who has thus deprived himself of a convenient means of feeling superior to others. — Chaz Bufe