"It has always seemed strange to me... the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second."
- John Steinbeck

"We never could clearly understand how it is that egotism, so unpopular in conversation, should be so popular in writing."
- Thomas Babington Macaulay

"To speak highly of one with whom we are intimate is a species of egotism. Our modesty as well as our jealousy teaches us caution on this subject."
- William Hazlitt

"Egotism is the tongue of vanity."
- Sebastien-Roch-Nicolas de Chamfort