Quotes about pride

Ameni Ameni Amenemhāt

20th century BC · Beni Hasan, ancient Egypt

No peasant's daughter did I harm, no widow did I wrong, no field labourer did I oppress, no herdsman did I repulse. I did not seize the men of any master of five field labourers for the forced labour (corvée). There was no man in abject want during the period of my rule, and there was no man hungry in my time.

The autobiography carved on the wall of his tomb at Beni Hasan · in place of the original: the English translation by E. A. Wallis Budge (1914)

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Thucydides Θουκυδίδης

c. 400 BC · Athens, ancient Greece

It has been composed as a possession for all time, not as a prize piece to be heard for the moment.

κτῆμά τε ἐς αἰεὶ μᾶλλον ἢ ἀγώνισμα ἐς τὸ παραχρῆμα ἀκούειν ξύγκειται.

History of the Peloponnesian War, book 1, chapter 22

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Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus

23 BC · Rome

I have built a monument more lasting than bronze and higher than the royal pile of the pyramids.

Exegi monumentum aere perennius regalique situ pyramidum altius

Odes 3.30

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Augustus Imperator Caesar Augustus

AD 14 · Roman Empire

At nineteen, on my own decision and at my own expense, I raised an army.

Annos undeviginti natus exercitum privato consilio et privata impensa comparavi

Res Gestae (The Deeds), the first sentence

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Pliny the Younger Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus

c. AD 100 · Roman Empire · He adds that he sat by the nets with a writing tablet in place of a spear

You will laugh, and you may. I, the man you know, have caught three boars, and very fine ones too.

Ridebis, et licet rideas. Ego, ille quem nosti, apros tres et quidem pulcherrimos cepi.

Letters 1.6, to Tacitus

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Li Bai 李白

c. 752 · Tang China

Heaven gave me my talents and they must have a use. Scatter a thousand in gold and it will come back again.

天生我材必有用，千金散盡還復來。

"Bring in the Wine," in the Complete Tang Poems

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Meng Jiao 孟郊

796 · Tang China · On passing the examination at forty-six

My cramped old days are not worth mentioning. This morning I am let loose, my thoughts without a shore. In the spring wind, triumphant, my horse's hooves are swift: in one day I shall see every flower in Chang'an.

昔日齷齪不足誇，今朝放蕩思無涯。 春風得意馬蹄疾，一日看盡長安花。

"After Passing the Examination," in the Complete Tang Poems

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Liu Yuxi 劉禹錫

c. 824 · Tang China · Said to have been written while demoted to the provinces

A mountain need not be high: with an immortal on it, it has a name. Water need not be deep: with a dragon in it, it has power. This is a humble room, but my virtue makes it fragrant.

山不在高，有仙則名。水不在深，有龍則靈。斯是陋室，惟吾德馨。

"Inscription on a Humble Room"

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Al-Mutanabbi المتنبي

950s · Iraq and Syria in Abbasid times · Recited at his rivals before the ruler of Aleppo

I am the one whose writing the blind man has seen, whose words have made the deaf man hear. I sleep with full eyelids, untroubled by my stray verses, while people sit up all night quarrelling over them.

أنا الذي نظر الأعمى إلى أدبي وأسمعت كلماتي من به صمم أنام ملء جفوني عن شواردها ويسهر الخلق جراها ويختصم

Divan of al-Mutanabbi

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Al-Mutanabbi المتنبي

950s · Iraq and Syria in Abbasid times

The horse, the night and the desert know me, and the sword, the spear, the paper and the pen.

الخيل والليل والبيداء تعرفني والسيف والرمح والقرطاس والقلم

Divan of al-Mutanabbi, the same poem

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Sei Shonagon 清少納言

c. 1000 · Heian Japan · To a nobleman boasting that he had found splendid fan ribs such as no one had ever seen

"Then they are not the ribs of a fan but the bones of a jellyfish," I said, and he laughed: "I shall say that was my own line."

「さては、扇のにはあらで、くらげのななり。」と聞こゆれば、「これは隆家が言にしてむ。」とて、笑ひたまふ。

The Pillow Book (Makura no soshi), "The Middle Counsellor came to call"

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Sei Shonagon 清少納言

c. 1000 · Heian Japan

A story like this really belongs among the things that are embarrassing to tell, but they say, "Leave nothing out," so what can I do?

かやうのことこそは、かたはらいたきことのうちに入れつべけれど、「一つな落としそ。」と言へば、いかがはせむ。

The Pillow Book (Makura no soshi), the end of the same section

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Wang Anshi 王安石

1050 · Song China · At thirty, on his way home after a term as a provincial official

I am not afraid of drifting clouds that hide the view, for I am standing on the very highest level.

不畏浮雲遮望眼，自緣身在最高層。

"Climbing Feilai Peak," in the Complete Song Poems

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Kim Jongseo 金宗瑞

1430s · Joseon Korea

The north wind blows in the treetops and the bright moon is cold on the snow. On a frontier wall ten thousand li away I stand leaning on my long sword. One long whistle, one great shout, and nothing stands in my way.

朔風은 나모 긋ᄐᆡ 불고 明月은 눈 속에 ᄎᆞᆫ듸 萬里 邊城에 一長劍 집고 셔셔 긴 ᄑᆞ람 큰 ᄒᆞᆫ 소릐에 거칠 거시 업세라

A sijo, in Cheonggu yeongeon

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Yi I 李珥

1543 · Joseon Korea · His collected works record that he wrote it at the age of eight

At the pavilion in the woods autumn is already late, and the poet's thoughts have no end. The far water runs blue into the sky. The frosted maples redden in the sun.

林亭秋已晚 騷客意無窮 遠水連天碧 霜楓向日紅

Yulgok jeonseo, "Hwaseok Pavilion," written at eight

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

November 8, 1777 · Salzburg · Vienna

I cannot write poetically, for I am no poet. I cannot make fine artistic phrases that cast light and shadow, for I am no painter; I can neither by signs nor by pantomime express my thoughts and feelings, for I am no dancer; but I can by tones, for I am a musician.

Letter to his father, from Mannheim · in place of the original: the English translation by Lady Wallace (1865)

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Jane Austen

1813 · England

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.

Pride and Prejudice, chapter 5, spoken by Mary Bennet

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Walt Whitman

first published 1855, revised all his life · United States

I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

"Song of Myself" 1, in Leaves of Grass

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Sakamoto Ryoma 坂本龍馬

May 17, 1863 · Japan at the end of the Edo shogunate

These days I have become a pupil of the great teacher Katsu Rintaro, a military scholar without equal in the land. He has taken to me more than I could have hoped, and I am treated something like a guest.

此頃ハ天下無二の軍学者勝麟太郎という大先生に門人となり、ことの外かはいがられ候て、先きやくぶんのよふなものになり申候。

Letter to his sister Sakamoto Otome (the 17th day of the 5th month, Bunkyu 3)

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Sakamoto Ryoma 坂本龍馬

May 17, 1863 · Japan at the end of the Edo shogunate

I am keeping quiet here, wearing a bit of an "ahem" face. They say the eye of a master is a fearsome thing; it is in the Tsurezuregusa too. Again: ahem, ahem.

すこしヱヘンニかおしてひそかにおり申候。 達人の見るまなこハおそろしきものとや、つれ／″＼ニもこれあり。 猶ヱヘンヱヘン

The end of the same letter

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Yosano Akiko 与謝野晶子

1901 · Meiji–Showa Japan

That girl is twenty: the black hair streaming through her comb, how beautiful the pride of her spring.

その子二十櫛にながるる黒髪のおごりの春のうつくしきかな

Tanka collection Tangled Hair (Midaregami)

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