Talk:egotism

Century 1911

Century 1911 has a fascinating long note on egotism[1] and its semantic neighbors. I do not know where to put it, so here it comes on the talk page:

Pride and egotism imply a certain indifference to the opinions of others concerning one's self. Pride is a self-contained satisfaction with the excellence of what one is or has, despising what others are or think. Vanity is just the opposite; it is the love of being even fulsomely admired. Pride rests often upon higher or intrinsic things: as, pride of family, place, or power; intellectual or spiritual pride. Vanity rests often upon lower and external things, as beauty, figure, dress, ornaments; but the essential difference is in the question of dependence upon others. Over the same things one person might have pride and another vanity. One may be too proud to be vain. Conceit, or self-conceit, is an overestimate of one's own abilities or accomplishments; it is too much an elevation of the real self to rest upon wealth, dress, or other external things. Egotism is a strong and obtrusive confidence in one's self, shown primarily in conversation, not only by frequent references to self, but by monopolizing attention, ignoring the opinions of others, etc. It differs from conceit chiefly in its selfishness and unconsciousness of its appearance in the eyes of others. Conceit becomes egotism when it is selfish enough to disparage others for its own comparative elevation. Self-consciousness is often confounded with egotism, conceit, or vanity, but it may be only an embarassing sense of one's own personality, an inability to refrain from thinking how one appears to others; it therefore often makes one shrink out of notice.

--Dan Polansky 20:59, 8 November 2008 (UTC)