The extreme pleasure we take in talking about ourselves should make us afraid that we are not giving the same pleasure to those who listen to us.
[L’extrême plaisir que nous prenons à parler de nous-mêmes nous doit faire craindre de n’en donner guère à ceux qui nous écoutent.]
François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims], ¶314 (1665-1678) [tr. Chandler]
(Source)
Present in the 3rd (1671) edition.
(Source (French)). Other translations:The exceeding delight we take in discoursing about our selves, may well make us suspect, that we allow but very little Pleasure, to them that converse with us.
[tr. Stanhope (1694), ¶314]The excessive pleasure we find in talking about ourselves ought to make us apprehensive that it gives but little to our auditors.
[pub. Donaldson (1783), ¶415; ed. Lepoittevin-Lacroix (1797), ¶289]The excessive pleasure we find in talking of ourselves, should make us apprehensive that we afford little to our auditors.
[ed. Carvill (1835), ¶353]The extreme pleasure we take in talking of ourselves should make us fear that we give very little to those who listen to us.
[ed. Gowens (1851), ¶324]The extreme delight we take in talking of ourselves should warn us that it is not shared by those who listen.
[tr. Bund/Friswell (1871), ¶314]The vast pleasure we derive from talking of ourselves should make us suspect that the pleasure of our audience may not be as great.
[tr. Heard (1917), ¶321]The keen pleasure we take in talking about ourselves should warn us not to be chary of giving that pleasure to our listeners.
[tr. Stevens (1939), ¶314]The extreme pleasure we derive from talking about ourselves should warn us that for our audience the pleasure will be almost nil.
[tr. FitzGibbon (1957), ¶314]The vast pleasure we get from talking about ourselves should warn us that we are giving almost no pleasure to those who are listening.
[tr. Kronenberger (1959), ¶314]The extreme enjoyment we find in talking about ourselves should make us fear we are not giving very much to our audience.
[tr. Tancock (1959), ¶314]The extreme pleasure we take in speaking about ourselves, ought to make us fear that we may be giving scarcely any of it to those who hear us.
[tr. Whichello (2016) ¶314]
Quotations about:
self-absorbed
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No matter how brilliantly an idea is stated, we will not really be moved unless we have half-thought of it ourselves.
Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist and author
The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 7 (1963)
(Source)
BORES: People who talk of themselves, when you are thinking only of yourself.
Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington (1789–1849) Irish novelist [Lady Blessington, b. Margaret Power]
Desultory Thoughts and Reflections (1839)
(Source)
These women were fatuous with a fatuity which had threatened her all her life, as it threatened all people of means, and which was of mournful significance for humanity in general, since it proved the emptiness of one of man’s most reasonable expectations. No more sensible form of government could be imagined than aristocracy. If certain able stocks in the community were able to amass enough wealth to give their descendants beautiful houses to grow up in, the widest opportunities of education, complete economic security, so that they need never be influenced by mercenary considerations, and easy access to any public form of work they chose to undertake — why, then, the community had a race of perfect governors ready made.
Only, as the Lauristons showed, the process worked out wholly different in practice. There came to these selected stocks a deadly, ungrateful complacence, which made them count these opportunities as their achievements, and belittle everybody else’s achievements unless they were similarly confused with opportunities; and which did worse than this, by abolishing all standards from their minds except what they themselves were and did.
Rebecca West (1892–1983) British author, journalist, literary critic, travel writer [pseud. for Cicily Isabel Fairfield]
The Thinking Reed, ch. 7 (1936)
Every Ass loves to hear himself bray.
Thomas Fuller (1654–1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs (compiler), # 1404 (1732)
(Source)
CALVIN: I’m at peace with the world. I’m completely serene.
HOBBES: Why is that?
CALVIN: I’ve discoved my purpose in life. I know why I was put here and why everything exists.
HOBBES: Oh, really?
CALVIN: Yes. I am here so everybody can do what I want.
HOBBES: It’s nice to have that cleared up.
CALVIN: Once everyone accepts it, they’ll be serene, too.
