It is possible to have a strong self-love without any self-satisfaction, rather with a self-discontent which is the more intense because ones own little core of egoistic sensibility is a supreme care. – George Eliot
You serve me a slice of raw beef, Heliodorus, and pour me out three cups of wine rawer than the beef, and then you wash me out at once with epigrams. – Lucilius, in The Greek Anthology, Volume IV, “Book XI: The Convivial and Satiric