Norman Mailer Quotes

I think human arrogance will be the demise of civilization.

Pride is the first step in people unraveling and companies unraveling and relationships unraveling.

We’ve been an arrogant country.

If cleverness has often been a sign of decadence throughout history, the attempt to be too clever by half is an even more reliable marker of cultural decline.

People are never so near playing the fool as when they think themselves wise.

When they get their ego involved, people do things they shouldn't do.

Some people are confident because they are fools. Leonard had the look of someone who was confident because, so far, he'd never found a reason not to be.

We have been proud and thought we were better than any other race, any other people. Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to stumble into hell because of our pride.

In prosperous fortunes be modest and wise, The greatest may fall, and the lowest may rise: But insolent People that fall in disgrace, Are wretched and nobody pities their Case.

'Tis pride that pulls the country down.

Politics is so difficult, it's generally only people who aren't quite up to the task who feel convinced they are.

When you have any kind of success in life, that's like the most dangerous moment that you're in because you're going to tend to think wow, I can just keep repeating what I've done. I'm a great person. People love me. All of the sudden they're giving me all of this attention. You get drunk on it and you lose your sense of balance and your sense of detachment. I know it's happened to me.

And the only people I fear are those who never have doubts... Save us all from arrogant men, and all the causes they're for.

It's unbelievable to me how sure people can be of themselves.

Pride blinds people to the truth of what they are.

One of the things that happens to careers out here is that people destroy themselves because they begin to think they're wonderful. They begin to think they know what they're doing, and the minute that happens, it's over.

The stupidest thing she knew was for people to act like they knew all about the things they knew absolutely nothing about.

Self-approval is a dangerous state of mind.

The most ignorant are the boldest conjecturers.

The people know more about [Jazz] in other countries than in America. America is the last country to know about anything, because we're too fat, we have too much of everything, you understand? And we do not listen.

Pride eradicates all vices but itself.

The terrorist attacks on September the 11th were a turning point for our nation. We saw the goals of a determined enemy to expand the scale of their murder and force America to retreat from the world. And our nation accepted a mission. We will defeat this enemy. The United States of America is determined to guard our homeland against future attacks. As the September 11th Commission concluded, our country is safer than we were three years ago, but we are not yet safe

Pride comes before a fall - although in [Henry Kissinger's] case it's more conceit than pride.

A professional is one who believes he has invented breathing.

Every jackass going the roads thinks he has ideas.