My disadvantage was my advantage.

When she saw how they worked, not on their own but two by two, working their trunks together to tie a knot, she realized why they'd been so astonished by her hands, because of course she could tie knots on her own. At first she felt that this gave an advantage — she needed no one else — and then she realized how it cut her off from others. Perhaps all human beings were like that.

Whenever you feel like criticising any one, just remember that all of the people in the world haven't had the advantages that you've had.

Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride - where there is a real superiority of mind, pride will be always under good regulation.

She compensated for this sense of inferiority by making fun of everything. I did not notice it then, but she never made fun of my faults, only of my virtues;

but very little achievement is required in order to pity another man's shortcomings.

Nothing is given without a disadvantage in it,

She likes herself, yet others hates / For that which in herself she prizes; And, while she laughs at them, forgets / She is the thing that she despises.

"It always comes back to our insecurities, as we say, "Oh, I'm not as good as you." So instead of accepting that perhaps I am not as good as someone else in some ways and being comfortable with who I am as I am, I spend all my time denigrating you, trying to cut you down to my self-perceived size. The sad problem is that we see ourselves as being quite terribly small. Instead of spending my time being envious, I need to celebrate your and my different gifts, even if mine are perhaps less spectacular than yours."

She said my problem was that I saw things in people that they didn’t see in themselves.

Because you took advantage of my disadvantage.

They could not understand the advantage of living contrary to their inclinations in this world in order to enjoy a hypothetical well-being in another.

If you perceive yourself better than others, pride sets in. If you perceive yourself inferior to others, you lose self-esteem. When you do something, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself. Each one of us is special because we are different. Whatever Nature creates is useful. Nature does not discriminate. Outside the realm of human perception, the concept of better or worse is meaningless.

We have a definition in our heads of what an advantage is — and the definition isn’t right. And what happens as a result? It means that we make mistakes.