“Big egos are big shields for lots of empty space.” — Diana Black

“Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man.” — C.S. Lewis, 20th-century British novelist and scholar

“Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important…. They do not mean to do harm…. They are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.” — T.S. Eliot, Nobel Prize-winning 20th-century Anglo-American poet

“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity.” — Dale Carnegie, 20th-century American motivational writer

“Nothing is so commonplace as to wish to be remarkable.” — Unknown

“If you let your head get too big, it’ll break your neck.”’ — Elvis Presley, 20th-century American celebrity singer

“A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.” — Adlai Stevenson II, 20th-century American politician, presidential candidate

“When you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.” — Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), 19th-century American humorist, author and journalist

“I value solid popularity — the esteem of good men for good action. I despise the bubble popularity that is won without merit and lost without crime.” — Thomas Hart Benton, 18th/19th-century American writer and U.S. senator from Missouri

“He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals.” — Benjamin Franklin, 18th-century American Founding Father, inventor and statesman

“When I hear a man applauded by the mob I always feel a pang of pity for him. All he has to do to be hissed is to live long enough.” — H. L. Mencken, 20th-century American journalist and humorist

“Vanity plays lurid tricks with our memory.” — Joseph Conrad, 19th/20th-century Nobel Prize- winning Polish-English author

“No man is a hero to his valet.” — Mme. Cornuel, 17th-century Parisian hostess