Subtle Self-Praise
Proverbs 20:6
Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness: but a faithful man who can find?


Some, quite as vain, and as ambitious of commendation and praise, knowing that everything of the nature of ostentation is exceedingly unpopular, set about their object with greater art. They devise ways of getting their merits made known so as to avoid the flaw of ostentatious self-display. In company they commend others for the qualities which they conceive themselves specially to possess, or for the doing of deeds which they themselves are sufficiently well known to have done; and they turn the conversation dexterously that way; or they find fault with others for the want of the good they are desirous to get praise for; or they lament over their own deficiencies and failures in the very points in which they conceive their excellence to lie — to give others the opportunity of contradicting them; or, if they have done anything they deem particularly generous and praiseworthy, they introduce some similar case, and bring in, as apparently incidental, the situation of the person or the family that has been the object of their bounty. Somehow, they contrive to get in themselves and their goodness.

(R. Wardlaw, D. D.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness: but a faithful man who can find?

WEB: Many men claim to be men of unfailing love, but who can find a faithful man?




Self-Laudation
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