Distrust the current estimates of great men. They alone are not tried by their peers.
If you climb a height, you will be easier seen, but will look smaller.
It is difficult to say which is the weaker: He who cultivates self-admiration, or he whose chief aim is to elicit
the admiration of others. When Cromwell entered London as Lord Protector, a flatterer called his attention to the crowds assembled to welcome him. “They would come just the same to see me hanged,” was his reply.
Self-complacency is a successful counterfeit of happiness. Were it the genuine article, then the madman who believes himself Deity is the happiest of mortals. But if he is cured?