Leo Tolstoy
Translated by
Dmitry Fadeyev
A vain person wants to be praised. To be praised, he must be that which people consider good. The things people consider good are the things that they like. And what they like is for others to think highly of them. And therefore, there is no vainer activity than the satisfaction of vanity.
The one who, following false opinion, is ashamed of the things he should not be ashamed of and is not ashamed of what is shameful, steps onto the evil path of ruin.
— The Dhammapada
A vain person is so full of himself that he has no room for anything else.
— Paine
You could starve yourself to death, and people still will not be impressed.
— A saying
“We should act like others.” Almost always this rule means that we should act badly.
— La Bruyère
A man asked another why he was doing something that he did not agree with.
“Because everyone does it,” replied the other.
“But, let’s assume that it isn’t everyone,” said the first, “because I don’t do it, for example, as well as a few others whom I can point out to you.”
“Well then, if not everyone, then a large majority, most people.”
“Tell me, please,” the first asked again, “are there more stupid or clever people in the world?”
“Stupid people, of course!”
“And if so, then you, by imitating the majority, are imitating the stupid.”
— K.
In most cases, it is more difficult to make intelligent people think of us not as we really are than to actually become that which we want others to see us as.
— Lichtenberg
The more limited a person’s understanding, the more arrogant he is.
— Pope
People always had and continue to ridicule the one who stays silent, and the one who talks a lot, and the one who talks little—there is no one on earth whom people will not criticize.
There never was, is, or will be anyone who is always blamed, just as there is no one who is always praised.
— The Dhammapada
There is no falser guidance in life than other people’s opinions.
It is very difficult to disagree with our self-love and to not find pleasant those who approve of us.
— Amiel
Human pride is a strange quality, which does not let itself be easily crushed; the moment you mend one hole, without even getting the chance to look around, pride, in a different guise, peeks out from another hole, and when you mend that one, it is already looking out from a third one, and so on.
— Lichtenberg
We approve of others to the extent that they are like us; which means that most of the time to respect someone means only to equate them with ourselves.
— La Bruyère
True virtue never looks back at its shadow—glory.
— Goethe
What makes obsessing over worldly glory and people’s approval foolish is not just the fact that everyone disagrees on what is good, but the fact that oftentimes some consider bad the very things that others think are the best.