Even in common people, conceit has the virtue of making them cheerful; the man who thinks his wife, his baby, his house, his horse, his dog, and himself severally unequalled, is almost sure to be a good-humored person, though liable to be tedious at times.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) American poet, essayist, scholar

“The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table,” Atlantic Monthly (1857-11)

Collected in The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, ch. 1 (1858)