Whatever is done without ostentation, and without the people being witnesses of it, is, in my opinion, most praiseworthy: not that the public eye should be entirely avoided, for good actions desire to be placed in the light; but notwithstanding this, the greatest theater for virtue is conscience. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

There is nothing so agonizing to the fine skin of vanity as the application of a rough truth. – Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

Vanity dies hard; in some obstinate cases it outlives the man. – Robert Louis Stevenson

Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast. – Logan Pearsall Smith