I will give you a definition of a proud man: he is a man who has neither vanity nor wisdom—one filled with hatreds cannot be vain, neither can he be wise.
ATTRIBUTION:
John Keats (1795–1821), British poet. Letter, August 23, 1819. Letters of John Keats, no. 144, ed. Frederick Page (1954).
Keats condoned his own pride in the same letter: “This pride and egotism will enable me to write finer things than anything else could—so I will indulge it.”
