Conceit in weakest bodies works the strongest.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Conceit is to nature what paint is to beauty; it is not only needless, but it impairs what it would improve.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
Conceit is God’s gift to little men.
—Bruce Fairchild Barton (1886–1967) American Author, Advertising Executive, Politician
Wind puffs up empty bladders; opinion, fools.
—Socrates (469BCE–399BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher
One’s self-satisfaction is an untaxed kind of property, which it is very unpleasant to find depreciated.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
People who do not know how to laugh are always pompous and self-conceited.
—William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–63) English Novelist
If its colors were but fast colors, self-conceit would be a most comfortable quality.—But life is so humbling, mortifying, disappointing to vanity, that a great man’s idea of himself gets washed out of him by the time he is forty.
—Charles Buxton (1823–71) British Politician, Writer
Narcissist: psychoanalytic term for the person who loves himself more than his analyst; considered to be the manifestation of a dire mental disease whose successful treatment depends on the patient learning to love the analyst more and himself less.
—Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian-American Psychiatrist, Psychoanalyst
If you done it, it ain’t bragging.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist, American, Poet, Essayist, Journalist
It is possible to have a strong self-love without any self-satisfaction, rather with a self-discontent which is the more intense because one’s own little core of egoistic sensibility is a supreme care.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
Conceit is a strange disease. It makes everyone else sick except the person who has it.
—Unknown
A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.
—Alexander Hamilton (c.1757–1804) American Federalist Politician, Statesman
Conceit is the most contemptible, and one of the most odious qualities in the world.—It is vanity driven from all other shifts, and forced to appeal to itself for admiration.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
A man—poet, prophet, or whatever he may be—readily persuades himself of his right to all the worship that is voluntarily tendered.
—Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–64) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
Ignorance and conceit go hand in hand.
—The Talmud Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith
Conceit and confidence are both of them cheats.—The first always imposes on itself; the second frequently deceives others.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann (1728–1795) Swiss Philosophical Writer, Naturalist, Physician
He who is enamored of himself will at least have the advantage of being inconvenienced by few rivals.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) German Philosopher, Physicist
Conceit is incompatible with understanding.
—Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian Novelist
The more anyone speaks of himself, the less he likes to hear another talked of.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) Swiss Theologian, Poet
Nobody can be kinder than the narcissist while you react to life in his own terms.
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973) Irish Novelist, Short-story Writer
See the man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope for a fool than for him.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
No man was ever so much deceived by another as by himself.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick (1746–1816) British Nobleman, Politician
Solvency is maintained by means of a national debt, on the principle, “If you will not lend me the money, how can I pay you?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
The best of lessons, for a good many people, would be, to listen at a key hole.—It is a pity for such that the practice is dishonorable.
—Sophie Swetchine (1782–1857) Russian Mystic, Writer
Some people are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good.
—Unknown
Whenever nature leaves a hole in a person’s mind, she generally plasters it over with a thick coat of self-conceit.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) American Poet, Educator, Academic
I’ve never any pity for conceited people, because I think they carry their comfort about with them.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
Self-love is a balloon filled with wind, from which storms burst forth when one makes a puncture in it.
—Unknown
He who gives himself airs of importance exhibits the credentials of impotence.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) Swiss Theologian, Poet
As individuals and as a nation, we now suffer from social narcissism. The beloved Echo of our ancestors, the virgin America, has been abandoned. We have fallen in love with our own image, with images of our making, which turn out to be images of ourselves.
—Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American Historian, Academic, Attorney, Writer