C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Arrogance
Arrogance is the obstruction of wisdom.
When men are most sure and arrogant, they are commonly the most mistaken, and have then given views to passion, without that proper deliberation and suspense which can alone secure them from the grossest absurdities.
When Diogenes came to Olympia and perceived some Rhodian youths dressed with great splendor and magnificence, he said with a smile of contempt, “This is all arrogance.” Afterwards some Lacedemonians came in his way, as mean and as sordid in their attire as the dress of the others was rich, “This,” said he, “is also arrogance.”
A man that loves to be peevish and paramount, and to play the sovereign at every turn, does but blast the blessings of life, and swagger away his own enjoyments; and not to enlarge upon the folly, not to mention the injustice of such a behavior, it is always the sign of a little, unbenevolent temper. It is disease and discredit all over, and there is no more greatness in it, than in the swelling of a dropsy.
What is so hateful to a poor man as the purse-proud arrogance of a rich one? Let fortune shift the scene, and make the poor man rich, he runs at once into the vice that he declaimed against so feelingly; these are strange contradictions in the human character.