When you surround yourself with toadies and sycophants

 Some valuing those of their own side, or mind,

Still make themselves the measure of mankind:

Fondly we think we honour merit then,

When we but praise ourselves in other men.

 

-- Alexander Pope 

The Trump type has been known for centuries

  It is the nature of extreme self-lovers, as they will set an house on fire, and it were but to roast their eggs.

 -- Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Trump Doesn't Care If He Wrecks Global Economy

Alex Shephard, The New Republic

 

Time sanctifies everything, including monarchy

 

 Kings titles commonly begin by force,

Which time wears off and mellows into right.

 

-- John Dryden 

There is safety in solitude

School of the Vestals, a painting by Hector Leroux, 1880

 How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

 

-- Alexander Pope