Other related topics at:
All In Your Mind
972. Ego Defenses; Superficiality;
Truth; Vanity; Virtue
"Though truth and virtue are ... frequently defeated by pride,
obstinacy, or folly, we are not allowed to desert them; for
whoever can furnish arms which they hitherto have not employed,
may enable them to gain some hearts which would have resisted any
other method of attack. Every man of 
genius has some art of
fixing the attention peculiar to himself, by which, honestly
exerted, he may benefit mankind; for the arguments for purity of
life fail of their due influence, not because they have been
considered and confuted, but because they have been passed over
without consideration."
Johnson: Rambler #87 (January 15, 1751)
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1,265. Ego Defenses; Self
Knowledge
"No weakness of the human mind has more frequently incurred
animadversion than the negligence with which men overlook their
own faults, however flagrant, and the easiness with which they
pardon them, however frequently repeated."
Johnson: Rambler #155 (September 10, 1751)
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1,654. Ego-Defenses; Fashion
"Much the greater part of those who pretend to laugh at foppery
and formality, secretly wish to have possessed those
qualifications which they pretend to despise; and because they
find it difficult to wash away the tincture which they have so
deeply imbibed, endeavour to harden themselves in a sullen
approbation of their own colour. Neutrality is a state, into
which the busy passions of man cannot easily subside; and he who
is in danger of the pangs of envy, is generally forced to
recreate his imagination with an effort of comfort."
Johnson: Adventurer #131 (February 5, 1754)
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1,766. Complacency; Ego Defenses;
Vanity
"Vanity inclines us to find faults any where rather than in
ourselves."
Johnson: Idler #70 (August 18, 1759)
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