#superiority

Men know that women are an overmatch for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or the most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves. ↗

— Samuel Johnson

#equality #fear #gender #intelligence #men

I know what cancer was. How is it like humankind?" Sek Hardeen's perfectly modulated, softly accented tones showed a hint of agitation. "We have spread out through the galaxy like cancer cells through a living body, Duré. We multiply without thought to the countless life forms that must die or be pushed aside so that we may breed and flourish. We eradicate competing forms of intelligent life. ↗

— Dan Simmons

#overpopulation #superiority-complex #intelligence

In demonstrating that humans behave with justice, tolerance, reason, love toward other forms of life, we are doing no more than demanding that humans be human -- that is, be true to the best aspects of human nature. Humans being human, therefore, cannot consider themselves morally superior to, say, bears being bear-like, eagles being eagle-like, etc. ↗

— Edward Abbey

#life

There are no crimes and no criminals in these days. What is the use of having brains in our profession? I know well that I have it in me to make my name famous. No man lives or has ever lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural talent to the detection of crime which I have done. And what is the result? There is no crime to detect, or, at most, some bungling villainy with a motive so transparent that even a Scotland Yard official can see through it. ↗

— Arthur Conan Doyle

#crime-solving #criminals #detectives #sherlock-holmes #superiority

We regard intelligence as man's main characteristic and we know that there is no superiority which intelligence cannot confer on us, no inferiority for which it cannot compensate. ↗

— Henri Bergson

#characteristic #compensate #confer #inferiority #intelligence

Humor is an affirmation of dignity, a declaration of man's superiority to all that befalls him. ↗

— Romain Gary

#befalls #declaration #dignity #him #humor

As for my own part I care not for death, for all men are mortal; and though I be a woman yet I have as good a courage answerable to my place as ever my father had. I am your anointed Queen. I will never be by violence constrained to do anything. I thank God I am indeed endowed with such qualities that if I were turned out of the realm in my petticoat I were able to live in any place in Christendom. ↗

— Elizabeth I Tudor

#courage #death #defiance #dignity #good-governance

This pre-eminence is something [men] have unjustly arrogated to themselves. And when it's said that women must be subject to men, the phrase should be understood in the same sense as when we say we are subject to natural disasters, diseases, and all the other accidents of this life: it's not a case of being subjected in the sense of obeying, but rather of suffering an imposition, not a case of serving them fearfully, but rather of tolerating them in a spirit of Christian charity, since they have been given to us by God as a spiritual trial. ↗

— Moderata Fonte

#empowerment #feminism #gender #inequality #men

Pretensions to moral superiority are devastatingly destructive. ↗

— Mary Douglas

#moral #pretensions #superiority

All sensible Army people turned gas warfare down as being utterly insane since, in view of your superiority in the air, it would not be long before it would bring the most terrible catastrophe upon German cities, which were completely unprotected. ↗

— Albert Speer

#army #before #being #bring #catastrophe