Bernard of Clairvaux on Hubris and Dominating Conversation
Bernard of Clairvaux (1940), p. 205, cited in Craig A. Boyd, Virtues and Their Vices (Oxford University Press: Jan 16, 2016), p. 245. Orig. circa 1100. (Editors note: still seeking original location.)The proud person “must either talk or burst …. He hungers and thirsts after hearers, to whom he may vaunt his vanities, to whom he may pour forth all his feelings, to whom his character and greatness may become known. … Opinions fly around, weighty words resound. He interrupts a questioner, he answers one who does not ask. He himself puts the questions, he himself solves them, he cuts short his fellow speaker’s unfinished words. … He does not care to teach you, or to learn from you what he does not know, but to know that you know that he knows.”