Conceit

Conceit can mean an over-high esteem of oneself, something conceived (especially, a novel or fanciful idea), or, in literature and poetry, a device of analogy consisting of an extended metaphor.

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• Nature in her whole drama never drew such a part; she has sometimes made a fool, but a coxcomb is always of a man's own making…
  • Joseph Addison, The Spectator No. 404 (13 June 1712).

• Be not wise in your own conceits.
  • Romans 12:16

• Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him.
  • Proverbs 26:12

• Conceit is the most contemptible and one of the most odious qualities in the world. It is vanity driven from all other shifts, and forced to appeal to itself for admiration.
  • William Hazlitt, Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823) No. 110.

• Conceit is to nature what paint is to beauty; it is not only needless, but impairs what it would improve.
  • Alexander Pope, letter to Mr. Walsh 2 July, 1706.

• We go and fancy that everybody is thinking of us. But he is not: he is like us; he is thinking of himself.
  • Charles Reade, Griffith Gaunt; or, Jealousy (1866) ch. 5.

• It was Mr. Greenaway's conceit, and a terrifically promising one, that in this "Tempest" Mr. Gielgud's Prospero should also be a mirror image of Shakespeare at the end of his career, with a further association to the actor himself, nearing the end of his career as an actor.
  • Vincent Canby, Theatre review, New York Times September 28, 1991

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 128.

• I've never any pity for conceited people, because I think they carry their comfort about with them.
  • George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss (1860), Book V, Chapter IV.

• For what are they all in their high conceit,
  When man in the bush with God may meet?
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson, Good-Bye, Stanza 4.

• The world knows only two, that's Rome and I.
  • Ben Jonson, Sejanus, Act V, scene 1.

• In men this blunder still you find,
  All think their little set mankind.
  • Hannah More, Florio, Part I.

• Wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can tender a reason.
  • Proverbs, XXVI, 16.

• Conceit may puff a man up, but never prop him up.
  • John Ruskin, True and Beautiful, Morals and Religion, Function of the Artist.

• Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act III, scene 4, line 114.

• I am not in the roll of common men.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I (c. 1597), Act III, scene 1, line 43.

• Conceit, more rich in matter than in words,
  Brags of his substance, not of ornament:
  They are but beggars that can count their worth.
  • William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (1597), Act II, scene 6, line 29.

• Whoe'er imagines prudence all his own,
  Or deems that he hath powers to speak and judge
  Such as none other hath, when they are known,
  They are found shallow.
  • Sophocles, Antigone, 707.

• Faith, that's as well said as if I had said it myself.
  • Jonathan Swift, Polite Conversation, Dialogue II.

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• The certain way to be cheated is to fancy one's self more cunning than others.
  • Charron

• Be very slow to believe that you are wiser than all others; it is a fatal but common error. Where one has been saved by a true estimation of another's weakness, thousands have been destroyed by a false appreciation of their own strength.
  • Colton

• A man who is proud of small things shows that small things are great to him.
  • Madame de Girardin

• Self-made men are most always apt to be a little too proud of the job.
  • H. W. Shaw

• He who gives himself airs of importance exhibits the credentials of impotence.
  • Johann Kaspar Lavater
  • The original text may be in German.

• The more any one speaks of himself, the less he likes to hear another talked of.
  • Johann Kaspar Lavater
  • The original text may be in German.