Montesquieu

“ On every hand I meet people who talk constantly about themselves; their conversation is a mirror which reflects only their own impertinent faces; they will tell you of the merest trifles that happen to them, and expect the interest they take in them to magnify their importance in your eyes; they have done everything, seen everything, said everything, thought everything; they are a pattern of mankind, a subject of inexhaustible comparisons, a source of precedents which never dries up. ”

“ I HAVE met some people to whom virtue was so natural, that they were not even conscious of it; they applied themselves to their duty without any compulsion, and were led to it instinctively; far from making their own admirable qualities a subject of conversation, it seemed as if they were quite ignorant of their existence. Such people I love; not those men who seem to be astonished at their own virtue, and who look upon a good deed as a marvel the relation of which should excite wonder. ”

“ A man, who seemed sufficiently splenetic, commenced to grumble at the tediousness of conversation. “What! are there none but fools, who describe their own character and bring everything home to themselves?” ”