90 Arrogant Quotes for a Pompous Attitude

By Samantha Williams

Writer, Entrepreneur and Inspirational quote curator

Updated November 12, 2023

These arrogant quotes and sayings highlight the importance of being humble.

Is arrogance good or bad? People with arrogant attitudes may seem attractive due to their confidence, but they can also come across as abrasive or rude.

If you know an arrogant person, read them a smug quote from this collection.

These quotes on arrogance and rudeness could be eye-opening for the pompous people in your life.

Egoism, ignorance, and pride are widely regarded as negative traits.

It’s vital to control your arrogance and practice humility if you want to be successful in life.

These arrogant quotes highlight the importance of being humble in every situation.

There is a difference between confidence and having a cocky attitude.

Share these words of wisdom with your friends and family to remind them to be proud of themselves but not to be arrogant or vain.

If you like this article, we suggest you explore our most popular quotes article, a list of short inspirational quotes for daily encouragement.

Look through our complete collection of inspirational quotes here.

Arrogant quotes for a pompous attitude

1. “There is a very thin line between confidence and arrogance.” – Adam Peaty

2. “Arrogance – I have very little tolerance for that.” – Rita Moreno

3. “False modesty can be worse than arrogance.” – David Mitchell

4. “In hindsight, I slid into arrogance based upon past success.” – Reed Hastings

5. “As an artist you have to have a certain amount of arrogance.” – Kim Weston

6. “It is a form of arrogance to assume that other people are even thinking about you.” – Mary Gauthier

7. “There’s a difference between confidence and arrogance.” ― Leigh Bardugo

8. “Anyone who knows me well will tell you that arrogance is one of my flaws.” ― Randy Pausch

9. “Modesty is only arrogance by stealth.” – Terry Pratchett

10. “My success isn’t a result of arrogance – it’s a result of belief.” – Conor McGregor

Arrogant quotes that will remind you to check your attitude

11. “Arrogance, ignorance, and incompetence. Not a pretty cocktail of personality traits in the best of situations. No sirree. Not a pretty cocktail in an office-mate and not a pretty cocktail in a head of state. In fact, in a leader, it’s a lethal cocktail.” – Graydon Carter

12. “Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose the former and have seen no reason to change.” – Frank Lloyd Wright

13. “There are two circumstances that lead to arrogance: one is when you’re wrong and you can’t face it; the other is when you’re right and nobody else can face it.” – Criss Jami

14. “If you aren’t humble, whatever empathy you claim is false and probably results from some arrogance or the desire to control. But true empathy is rooted in humility and the understanding that there are many people with as much to contribute in life as you.” – Anand Mahindra

15. “Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.” – William Pollard

16. “That arrogance of youth and that kind of ignorant confidence can get you through a whole lot of things, and then life does its stuff, and you get smashed around and beaten up. You get full of doubts, and you end up making a person out of those bits and pieces.” – Robyn Davidson

17. “Be careful not to mistake insecurity and inadequacy for humility! Humility has nothing to do with the insecure and inadequate! Just like arrogance has nothing to do with greatness!” – C. JoyBell C.

18. “Sometimes it’s difficult to accept, to recognize one’s own mistakes, but one must do it. I was guilty of overconfidence and arrogance, and I was punished for that.” – Mikhail Gorbachev

19. “He who seeks truth shall find beauty. He who seeks beauty shall find vanity. He who seeks order shall find gratification. He who seeks gratification shall be disappointed. He who considers himself the servant of his fellow beings shall find the joy of self-expression. He who seeks self-expression shall fall into the pit of arrogance.” – Moshe Safdie

20. “Success can breed all kinds of other behavior and cause companies to behave a certain way that isn’t necessarily the ingredients for achieving more success. For instance, with success comes arrogance, and that’s typically the death of success.” – Bob Iger

Arrogant quotes to inspire positive change

21. “Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance.” – Sun Tzu

22. “Without the compassionate understanding of the fear and trepidation that lie behind courageous speech, we are bound only to our arrogance.” – David Whyte

23. “I like to think that my arrogance, impetuosity, impatience, selfishness and greed are the qualities that make me the lovable chap I am.” – Richard Hammond

24. “Do not let arrogance go to your head and despair to your heart; do not let compliments go to your head and criticisms to your heart; do not let success go to your head and failure to your heart.” – Roy T. Bennett

25. “The biggest turn-off for me is people who think the world of themselves. Arrogance is not a sexy quality, and it really gets on my nerves.” – Pixie Lott

26. “I’ve turned arrogance into an art form, where it’s so absurd that it becomes comedy. But I’ve never done anything to hurt anybody or steal from anyone.” – John Lydon

27. “I see myself capable of arrogance and brutality… That’s a fierce thing, to discover within yourself that which you despise the most in others.” – George Stevens

28. “It is not a sign of arrogance for the king to rule. That is what he is there for.” – William F. Buckley, Jr.

29. “Arrogance is a creature. It does not have senses. It has only a sharp tongue and the pointing finger.” – Toba Beta

30. “Kindness is strength. Good-nature is often mistaken for virtue, and good health sometimes passes for genius. Anger blows out the lamp of the mind. In the examination of a great and important question, everyone should be serene, slow-pulsed, and calm. Intelligence is not the foundation of arrogance. Insolence is not logic. Epithets are the arguments of malice.” – Robert Green Ingersoll

Eye-opening arrogant quotes for the pompous people in your life

31. “Without humor, we’d all be what we’re laughing at. Without arrogance, we’d be humiliated to admit we already are.” – Bauvard

32. “Confidence in a bloke would be arrogance in a woman. For years, I didn’t give interviews because I was scared of people judging me or thinking I was arrogant.” – Alice Lowe

33. “You can have a certain arrogance, and I think that’s fine, but what you should never lose is the respect for the others.” – Steffi Graf

34. “You must not forget that you have been given worldly means to use and employ against human arrogance and wrong.” – Knute Nelson

35. “I have been called arrogant myself in my time, and hope to earn the title again, but to claim that I am privy to the secrets of the universe and its creator – that’s beyond my conceit.” – Christopher Hitchens

36. “You have to be confident when you’ve got someone in front of you who wants to beat you and take the title from you. But I think people mistake my confidence for arrogance or cockiness.” – Amir Khan

37. “People can overlook any shortcoming, but they will not tolerate arrogance.” – Sushma Swaraj

38. “By my count, more business leaders have failed and derailed because of arrogance than any other character flaw.” – Harvey Mackay

39. “Humility is a virtue of the heavenly, not arrogance. Are we the most superior beast on earth? No, not in strength and not in intelligence. It is very arrogant to assume that we are the most intelligent species when we keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Both rats and monkeys have been shown to learn from error, yet we have not. More people have died in the name of religion than any other cause on earth. Is massacring God’s creations really serving God – or the devil? And what father would want to see his children constantly divided and fighting? What God would allow a single human life to be sacrificed for monetary gain? Again, the Creator or the devil?” – Suzy Kassem

40. “This searching and doubting and vacillating where nothing is clear but the arrogance of quest. I, too, had such noble ideas when I was still a boy.” – Franz Grillparzer

Other arrogant quotes and sayings

41. “I would just say that nobody could do what I do unless you had a big ego. It’s the only way you can really put it. You have to be arrogant enough to challenge the arrogance of the human race.” – Paul Watson

42. “An extraordinary amount of arrogance is present in any claim of having been the first in inventing something.” – Benoit Mandelbrot

43. “Ambition is disfigured into arrogance when it becomes unmoored from self-awareness, from a realistic assessment of one’s competences.” – Maria Popova

44. “When someone has that combination of arrogance and ignorance – that drives me crazy.” – Susan Lucci

45. “Some people confuse confidence with arrogance. There’s no doubt in the business world there are a few big egos and I think arrogance can get in the way. But if you have the confidence to go to your higher superior and say this is wrong, it can make a difference.” – Ben Fogle

46. “I never thought that I couldn’t do what I set out to do. It wasn’t from arrogance; it was from ignorance.” – Orson Bean

47. “A little arrogance (or even a lot) isn’t such a bad thing, although your mother undoubtedly told you differently. Mine did. “Pride goeth before a fall, Stephen”, she said… and then I found out – right around the age that is 19 x 2 – that eventually you fall down, anyway.” – Stephen King

48. “There are two kinds of pride, both good and bad. ‘Good pride’ represents our dignity and self-respect. ‘Bad pride’ is the deadly sin of superiority that reeks of conceit and arrogance.” – John C. Maxwell

49. “Walking in the mountains helps me unwind, but it also reminds me in a painful way that the real beauty in life is nature and animals, and that the human race, in all its arrogance, is intent on destroying it.” – Sylvie Guillem

50. “Timing and arrogance are decisive factors in the successful use of talent.” – Marya Mannes

Arrogant quotes to teach us humility and self-awareness

51. “Arrogance is in everything I do. It is in my gestures, the harshness of my voice, in the glow of my gaze, in my sinewy, tormented face.” – Coco Chanel

52. “Women scheme when they are weak, they lie out of fear. Men scheme when they are strong, they lie out of arrogance.” ― Julian Barnes

53. “For without a measure of arrogance, how can one attempt the impossible?” ― Renee Ahdieh

54. “You cannot be truly humble, unless you truly believe that life can and will go on without you.” ― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

55. “Pride in power and arrogance is condemnable. Power is always fleeting.” ― Srinivas Mishra

56. “Ask yourself: am I one of those fools who always has to be right?” ― Marty Rubin

57. “One who possesses arrogance as a dominant personality trait, rarely has close friends.” ― RJ Intindola

58. “Any man who thinks he has it all figured out is a fool and cannot be trusted.” ― A.D. Aliwat

59. “Arrogance is incurable.” ― Muriel Spark

60. “It is a slippery slope from arrogance to violence.” ― Abhijit Naskar

Arrogant quotes to learn a little bit of humility

61. “An arrogant person considers himself perfect. This is the chief harm of arrogance. It interferes with a person’s main task in life – becoming a better person.” ― Leo Tolstoy

62. “Stupidity combined with arrogance and a huge ego will get you a long way.” ― Chris Lowe

63. “Arrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to us than the arrogance of those without merit: for merit itself is offensive.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

64. “Any top-level athlete, it’s always the same. There’s always that hint of arrogance there… It’s hard to be humble when you’re the best.” ― Conor McGregor

65. “Arrogance sort of destroys that nervousness because you’re having a bunch of people flatter you and tell you you’re awesome, and it keeps you from striving as hard for the kind of validation you seek from a good show.” ― Cole Sprouse

66. “Arrogant people are non-learners. They invest their energies in maintaining a cozy feeling of complacency, and complacency is the biggest single enemy to the process of continuously learning from experience.” ― Peter Honey

67. “That which inspires arrogance is ignorance, caused by the heart’s blindness” ― Saeed Malik

68. “Arrogance is pride polluted by the child-self. Pride is a natural and self-rewarding feeling of worth and efficacy which results from achievement. Arrogance, on the other hand, is a feeling of superiority and entitlement which completely annihilates the “we” for the “I.” ― W.T. Watts

69. “Because arrogance is born in personal vanity, arrogant people are driven without mercy. They can never get enough power to fill the soul’s needs or enough respect to overcome the fear that they deserve less than they are getting.” ― Lewis B. Smedes

70. “Arrogance is an unhealthy ego in need of repair.” ― Thomas Faranda

Arrogant Quotes To Help Others Embrace Humility

71. “A solid answer to everything is not necessary. Blurry concepts influence one to focus, but postulated clarity influences arrogance.” — Criss Jami

72. “Arrogance leads to disaster, sometimes it’s better not to be your own master.” — Luke Garner

73. “No matter how great you are, arrogance is not a good sign.”— Younus AlGohar

74.“Arrogance is blind to the stumbling block.” — Toba Beta

75. “Don’t be arrogant, because arrogance kills curiosity and passion.” — Mina Bissell

76. “Arrogance closes more doors than it opens. Stay Humble.” — Toni Payne

77. “Minimize the swagger. Egos get in the way of ideas. If your arrogance is more obvious than your expertise, you are someone other people avoid.” — Jessica Hagy

78. “Arrogance is full with the perception of perfection, while maturity always has room for understanding and improvement.” ― Mehnaz Ansari

79. “Let your knowledge be your adviser and not your arrogance.” ― Amit Kalantri

80.“The best we can hope for is to be humble in our arrogance.” ― Neal Shusterman

81. “Complete independence does not mean arrogant isolation or a superior disdain for all help.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

82. “Writing has to have a great deal of certainty and self-assurance, but it’s not arrogant.” ― Jeanette Winterson

83. “I think the sexiest thing about a woman is confidence, but confidence in a humble way, not in an arrogant way.” ― Victoria Beckham

84. Everyone thought I was bold and fearless and even arrogant, but inside I was always quaking.” ― Katharine Hepburn

85. “There is a root arrogance in any writer; a hugely arrogant assumption that anyone is going to listen to them.” ― Bono

86. “Be not arrogant when fortune smiles, or dejected when she frowns.” ― Decimius Magnus Ausonius

87. “Be open to other people’s ideas. Don’t get arrogant about your ideas. Shoot a lot of options so you’re not stuck with just one version of something.” ― Jonah Hill

88. “What I don’t like are arrogant people. We’re all equal. I don’t like it when a person assumes to be better.” ― Selena

89. “This genuine heart of sadness can teach us great compassion. It can humble us when we’re arrogant and soften us when we are unkind.” ― Pema Chodron

90. “I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m arrogant. I’m just confident.” ― Draymond Green