For me, faith is more about aspiration than complacency - the smug satisfaction that other people find distasteful.
How arrogant - how very far from humility - would be the self-satisfied, smug assurance that God, a tidy-up-after-us God will come and clean up our mess? Hope for a nanny God, who will with a miracle grant us amnesty from our folly - thats not aligned with either history or the text of the Bible.
One thing lots of Christians do have in common is that they can't help coming across as smug. This winds lots of people up, particularly because famous Christians pronounce on the life of the poor from their very lovely affluent homes filled with their very lovely families and attractive pets.
I don't care about the little guy. I just hate the big guy. I hate big smug people who think they can get away with things.
What about e-mail? It is e-mail, yes?" Morley asked, leaning even closer. "E-mail is a kind of electronic letter. It travels through the air. " He seemed very smug that he knew that. "Well, not exactly, and would you please either BACK OFF or go find a shower?
Smug respectability, like the poor, we've had with us always. Today, however,. . . such obtuseness is an indulgence we can no longer afford. The computer, nuclear energy for better or worse, and sudden, simultaneous influences upon everyone's TV screen have raised the ante and the risk considerably.
So how are we going to get into the temple, anyway? Are we going to fight our way through the Necromancers on our own?' 'No, we're going to find a way to let our friends in, and then we'll let them fight while we stand by and look smug. ' 'I like that plan. ' 'It has its moments.
Identity itself should be not a smug label or a gold medal but a revolution.
We come from a proud tradition of people who have insisted that none of us can be truly successful until at least the barriers to such success and thriving are completely removed. I think the black narcissism that prevails, along with the stylish materialism and self-satisfied, smug attitudes among many of our upwardly mobile brothers and sisters should be identified and criticized.
What he says, even on his knees, about his own sinfulness is all parrot talk. At bottom, he still believes he has run up a very favorable credit-balance in the Enemy's ledger by allowing himself to be converted, and thinks that he is showing great humility and condescension in going to church with these 'smug', commonplace neighbors at all.
We kiss all the time. " I clear my throat, then add, "We just. . . do it in private. " "A smug expression crosses his face. "I don't buy it for a second, 'cause if you were my girlfriend and a stud like me was livin' in your house, I'd kiss you in front of the guy every chance I got as a reminder. " "A reminder of w-w-what?" "That you were mine.
Tiny as a sparrow, fierce as an eagle, Lisbeth Salander is one of the great Scandinavian avengers of our time, an angry bird catapulting into the fortresses of power and wiping smiles off the faces of smug, predatory pigs.
Atheism, a religion dedicated to its own sense of smug superiority.
America is a hurricane, and the only people who do not hear the sound are those fortunate if incredibly stupid and smug White Protestants who live in the center, in the serene eye of the big wind.
Conservatism is not a doctrine of contentment. Not a doctrine for the satisfied and the smug. It's a politics that's at war with the world.
Kinder the enemy who must malign us Than the smug friend who will define us
I have a preponderance to look smug in photos; something to do with the way my mouth turns up at the corners.
Enobaria smiles at Johanna. 'Don't look so smug,' says Johanna. 'We'll kill you anyway.
In what may as well be starkly labelled smug satisfaction, an amazing 94% [of college instructors] rate themselves as above average teachers, and 68% rank themselves in the top quarter of teaching performances.
But in my head I can hear Haymitch's smug, if slightly exasperated, words: "Yes, that's what I'm looking for, sweetheart.
