Lao Tzu has a great one on pride:
“One who flaunts himself is not illuminated. One who insists that he is right is self-righteous. One who boasts of his accomplishments undoes his merit. One who takes pride in himself impedes his own growth.”
The person who can’t stop bragging about their accomplishments is usually insecure; the person who is confident how smart they are is very likely quite uninformed. This smacks of the importance of Socrates’ epistemological humility found in the famous “I know that I know nothing” theme. Confidence in how little one knows seems to be the start of true wisdom.
Epoch thinkers in the Eastern and Western tradition expressing the same key theme – that pride ultimately impedes one’s potential as in pride we are blinded by our own egos.
Photo by Orkun Azap on Unsplash
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