“What demon is our god? What name subsumes
That act external to our sleeping selves?
Not pleasure — it is much too broad and narrow —,
Not sex, not for the moment love, but pride,
And not in prowess, but pride undefined,
Autonomous in its unthought demands,
A bit of vanity, but mostly pride.”
from "In a few days now when two memories meet", 1964
The Poems of J. V. Cunningham, edited by Timothy Steele, Ohio University Press/Swallow Press, 1997, ISBN 0-804-00997-X
Other poetry
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
J. V. Cunningham 9
American writer 1911–1985Related quotes
“Never to blend our pleasure or our pride
With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.”
Hart-leap Well, part ii.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Source: A Short History of Decay (1949)
“Pride that dines on vanity sups on contempt.”
“Pride is pleasure arising from a man's thinking too highly of himself.”
“Good-breeding is opposed to selfishness, vanity, or pride.”
Misattributed, Jackson's personal book of maxims
Context: Good-breeding is opposed to selfishness, vanity, or pride. Never weary your company by talking too long or too frequently.
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 319.
Bacon's first object was the same as that of Francis, to humiliate and if possible destroy the pride of human reason; both of them knew that this was their most difficult task.
The Bacon quote is from the Preface to The Great Instauration (1620).
Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)