egotisms

To Sterne, living among smaller men, these passionate egotisms are dwindled to mere caprices, and a jest becomes more appropriate than a sneer.

Friends could now get together, conversation could range over personalities, egotisms have their day, and bygones be disinterred without need of an explanation.

One writer speaks of his “little vanities, his amusing egotisms, and his good natured pomposity”.

The small egotisms of the writer do not alienate other readers as they did John Wilson Croker.

Exalting us above our private piques, prejudices, egotisms, into the commonwealth of charities, good company makes us catholic, courteous, sane; we retire from it with a new estimate of ourselves and of mankind.