Ben Jonson Quotes

Virtue would go far if vanity did not keep it company.

That Man indeed can never be good at heart, who is full of himself and his own Endowments.

The delicate balance between modesty and conceit is popularity.

My ego is really good. I don't need to watch myself on TV, like some others.

Love of fame is the last thing even learned men can bear to be parted from.

The highest form of vanity is love of fame.

Those are most desirous of honor and glory who cry out the loudest of its abuse and the vanity of the world.

The rich and famous expect to get a lot for their story, whether they are writing it themselves or not. It's not that they need the money, of course; it's a question of ego, like catching the biggest fish.

I think that some people get wrapped up in their own egos. They need to see certain album sales and certain monuments.

I get embarrassed when I go to an actor or actress's home and it's filled with pictures of them.

Pride only helps us to be generous; it never makes us so, any more than vanity makes us witty.

Nothing ought more to humiliate men who have merited great praise than the care they still take to boast of little things.

Virtue, once bragged about, once you pride yourself upon it, ceases to be such.

The authors who affect contempt for a name in the world put their names to the books which they invite the world to read.

In the very books in which philosophers bid us scorn fame, they inscribe their names.

Virtue would not make such advances if there were not a little vanity to keep it company.

Though the desire of fame be the last weakness Wise men put off.

Humility is not a virtue in a writer, it is an absolute necessity.

It is a fault, not a virtue, to wish your humility recognized and applauded.

What vanity needs for its satisfaction is glory, and it's easy to have glory without power.

I have always been a huge admirer of my own work. I'm one of the funniest and most entertaining writers I know.

Egotism is more like an offense, than a crime; though it is allowable to speak of yourself, provided nothing is advanced in favor; but I cannot help suspecting that those who abuse themselves are, in reality, angling for approbation.

To this principle of vanity, which philosophers call a mean one, and which I do not, I owe a great part of the figure which I have made in life.

Any effort that has self-glorification as its final endpoint is bound to end in disaster.

Vanity is the most dangerous thing about fame.