“When men are once checked in what they consider their special excellence, their whole opinion of themselves suffers more than if they had not at first believed in their superiority, the unexpected shock to their pride causing them to give way more than their real strength warrants; and that is probably now the case with the Athenians.”

Source: The Bhagavadgītā (1973), p. 123–24. (46.)

Book I, 1.1-[1] (opening lines...)
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book I

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.12

As quoted in Asadollah Alam (1991), The Shah and I: The Confidential Diary of Iran's Royal Court, 1968-77, page 391
Attributed

Beware of Pity (1939)

Gone are the Days (2016)

2007 edition, p. 31.
Empire and Communications (1950)
Context: Graham Wallas has reminded us that writing as compared with speaking involves an impression at the second remove and reading an impression at the third remove. The voice of a second-rate person is more impressive than the published opinion of superior ability.

Source: Figures of Earth (1921), Ch. I : How Manuel Left the Mire
Context: He had a quiet way with the girls, and with the men a way of solemn, blinking simplicity which caused the more hasty in judgment to consider him a fool. Then, too, young Manuel was very often detected smiling sleepily over nothing, and his gravest care in life appeared to be that figure which Manuel had made out of marsh clay from the pool of Haranton.
This figure he was continually reshaping and realtering. The figure stood upon the margin of the pool; and near by were two stones overgrown with moss, and supporting a cross of old worm-eaten wood, which commemorated what had been done there.